Must See/Do in La Romana

[Rallytime1975]

Stopping in DR, looking for the must DO for the port of call?

 

we are there from 9:30 to 4:30

 

TIA

[Want2Cruise 701]

You should post this is on the Dominican Republic board.  This is board is for the island of Dominica which is quite different.

[KD Travel Adventures]

I'm a little confused by the previous post, because La Romana is in the Dominican Republic, not Dominica (although they are right about them being two different islands).

 

We were in La Romana, Dominican Republic in September 2013 and went to what was then known as Dreams Resort La Romana.  It is now called Hilton La Romana (the new management took over in November 2018).  It is a true resort that offers day passes for cruisers. I believe it went under renovation last year (but not positive). We will be in La Romana in October and I contacted them late last year to see if they still had the cruise ship day passes for $65 and they said they did, so I made our reservations.  It was $65 per person, and I believe the taxi is about $35 each way (it's about a 25 minute drive, if I remember correctly).  The pass included the swim up bar, beach, a huge pool with water sports and just swimming, drinks are all-inclusive, and they had a buffet (I kind think the buffet opened at a specific time for lunch, but can't remember for sure).  To be honest, I didn't verify that all of this was still included, but I did mention the day pass as Dreams Resort and they said they were still honoring it. I also brought my own snorkeling gear and while its by no means great snorkeling, I did see some fish and starfish, which I never saw before and haven't seen since while snorkeling (but that's not to say you would see the now).

 

When we were there in September 2013 we felt like we had the beach to ourselves, but some coworkers went in March 2014 and they said it was packed.  Keep in mind this was several years ago and it is now under new management, so I'm not sure what to expect.  But, my husband and I really enjoyed it, thus the reason we plan to go back this time. 

 

You mentioned you were in port from 9:30am-4:30pm, which is the same as us later this year. The downside of that is that we will probably only have about 4 hours or maybe a little more at the resort.  I'm basing this off the time to get off the ship, walk up to the taxis and then get to the resort (hoping to arrive at 10:15 to 10:30).  If the ship is leaving La Romana at 4:30, they will probably want us back on the ship at 4pm.  We could probably leave the resort at 3:00pm, but I want to give us plenty of time to make sure we are back on the ship.  As other cruisers know, it is very bad to miss the ship leaving port.

 

One other important detail, I would rather communicate with people via email because I don't do a lot on Facebook, but I remembered from 2013 that the resort was not responsive to emails, but very responsive to Facebook. I used Facebook again this time, and they responded within 24 hours, and I made my reservations through Facebook for Hilton La Romana.

[mitsugirly]

What type of things do you enjoy doing? Do you like swimming? Islands? Snorkeling? Riding Dune Buggies? Site seeing?

[cpayne]

We are debating between the river tour or biggie tour.   We are more adventure oriented people so lean towards the buggies.  Yet, we’ve done buggies in several ports and the river cruise seems “ different” than what we typically do.   ????

[topazz11]

On 3/20/2019 at 10:30 AM, Want2Cruise 701 said:

You should post this is on the Dominican Republic board.  This is board is for the island of Dominica which is quite different.

This is the Dominican Republic board

[Want2Cruise 701]

On 10/23/2019 at 11:43 PM, topazz11 said:

This is the Dominican Republic board

This post was originally posted on the Dominica board.  It was them moved to the correct forum which is the current Dominican Republic board.

[topazz11]

Thank you 

[cruisingradum84]

We went to Dreams/Hilton last time we were in La Romana and it was great. The buffet opens at 12 I think and it wasn't too packed (we stopped there in DR low season). We're going to La Romana again in 2020 and want to do a boat/snorkel/beach tour. Any recommendations?

[mitsugirly]

On 11/5/2019 at 7:50 AM, cruisingradum84 said:

We went to Dreams/Hilton last time we were in La Romana and it was great. The buffet opens at 12 I think and it wasn't too packed (we stopped there in DR low season). We're going to La Romana again in 2020 and want to do a boat/snorkel/beach tour. Any recommendations?

 

 

Check out doing a tour to Saona Island. We used Seavis Tours. They take you on a boat out to Saona Island and you can snorkel and they prepare a lunch buffet for you. Then they take you to a "starfish sandbar" out in the water. The island is beautiful and there is supposed to be good snorkeling there as well. It was kinda a dreary day with some rain when we went, so the water was all stirred up for snorkeling but that could happen anywhere. 

 

I did a complete review with tons of pictures from our day. You can check it out HERE <---click

[Willwork4cruises]

8 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

I did a complete review with tons of pictures from our day. You can check it out HERE <---click

I read thru your review.  Just curious, how did Thrilled and family like their buggy tour?
 

[mitsugirly]

2 minutes ago, Willwork4cruises said:

I read thru your review.  Just curious, how did Thrilled and family like their buggy tour?
 

if you are referring to the one in DR, they missed it because they were late getting there and the tour had already left. However, I did that tour when we came back to DR and it was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!  I highly recommend it. I have a review on it too on my site I’d you are interested. 

[Willwork4cruises]

7 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

if you are referring to the one in DR, they missed it because they were late getting there and the tour had already left. However, I did that tour when we came back to DR and it was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!  I highly recommend it. I have a review on it too on my site I’d you are interested. 

Oh that’s great.  I will check out that review.  I love reading your reviews and looking at all your pics.  I’m also a nurse and we have one teen daughter plus other similarities.   I feel like I’m reading about my own family.