Dominican Republic Family Travel Guide

The transfer is the whole relationship with the country. You land, you walk through a thatched roof terminal that is lovely, you get on a coach, and forty minutes later you are behind a gate. Most families never leave that gate for seven days. That is the design working as intended.

The excursions sold at the desk are mostly not the country either. The catamaran party boat, the buggy trip through a staged village, the swim with dolphins. Some are fun. None of them are Dominican life. The excursion I would actually book is a day trip to Santo Domingo or a boat to Saona from Bayahibe.

All inclusive is not all included. Motorised watersports, the good restaurants, the spa, the premium spirits, the wifi in some places, and the resort excursion desk are all separate. A cheap all inclusive with everything upcharged can end up costing more than a mid tier one where it is all in. Read the inclusions list, not the star rating.

There is one honest reason to choose it. If what your family needs is a week where nobody plans anything and nobody counts anything, this is the best value version of that on earth. Book it on purpose. Just do not confuse it with travel.

Catedral Primada de America. The first cathedral built in the Americas, finished in 1540, and it is still the parish church. Coral limestone, cool inside, and about ten minutes of a child’s attention which is all you need.

Alcazar de Colon. Diego Columbus’s palace on the Plaza de Espana, furnished as it would have been. This is the one that works with children, because it is a house rather than a museum and they can see where people slept.

Los Tres Ojos. Three flooded limestone caverns with turquoise water, twenty minutes from the old town, and the one place in the capital that children reliably love more than adults do. There is a hand pulled raft between two of them.

How to do it. Three hours each way from Punta Cana on a good toll road. As a day trip it is long and worth it once. Two nights in a small hotel in the Zona Colonial is far better and costs less than two nights of resort. Fly home out of Santo Domingo instead of Punta Cana and you have added a city to the trip for the price of a transfer.

When was it last renovated. Not when was it built. Dominican salt air is brutal and a resort that has not been refurbished in eight years smells like it. Ask for the renovation year of the room block you are being sold, not the property.

Seagrass and reef, hotel by hotel. The beach in front of one resort can be raked white sand into clear water and the beach four hundred yards along can be ankle deep seagrass. This is the single most common complaint I hear back and it is entirely predictable in advance. Ask specifically.

Reservation systems for the a la carte restaurants. Some let you book before arrival, some make you line at a desk at seven in the morning on day one. With three children, that difference is the whole trip. It is never in the brochure.

Family rooms are not standard. A lot of Punta Cana stock is two adults plus two children maximum. A family of five very often needs a swim up suite, a family suite or two connecting rooms, and the price gap between those is enormous. Sort this first, before you fall in love with a hotel.

Puerto Plata has the only cable car in the Caribbean, running up Mount Isabel de Torres to a Christ statue and a botanical garden, and it is a good hour with children. The Victorian town below it is being restored and the fort on the point is small and cheap.

Cabarete gets a reliable afternoon wind, which is why it is one of the serious kitesurfing towns in the world. Flat water in the morning for beginners, chaos by two in the afternoon. Teenagers who want a lesson rather than a lounger should be here and not in Punta Cana.

Samana gets thousands of humpback whales in Samana Bay from the middle of January to the middle of March. They come to calve. It is one of the most reliable whale encounters anywhere, boats are regulated, and it is the single best reason to visit this country in winter. Book the trip, not the resort excursion desk version.

Jarabacoa and Constanza sit in the Cordillera Central at three thousand feet with pine forest, whitewater rafting on the Yaque del Norte and nights cold enough for a sweater. Most people do not believe the Caribbean has this. It has the highest mountain in the Caribbean and strawberry farms.

Bayahibe and Saona in the south east are the calmer, smaller scale alternative to Punta Cana, and the boat to Saona island through the national park is the one mass market excursion I would actually book. Go on the earliest boat.

Baseball is not a pastime, it is identity. The Dominican Republic sends more players to Major League Baseball per capita than anywhere else. A winter league game in Santo Domingo is loud, cheap, and completely real.

Santo Domingo is the oldest city in the Americas. Founded in 1496, the Zona Colonial has the first cathedral, the first paved street and the first university in the New World, and it is an easy day trip from Punta Cana.

La bandera is what people actually eat. Rice, red beans and stewed chicken, most days, most places. The all inclusive buffet is not showing you real Dominican food, eat outside the gate at least twice.

Merengue and bachata both started here. Both genres are Dominican in origin, and Carnival each February brings costumes and parades across the country, with La Vega hosting the biggest one.

Book the transfer, do not take the taxi rank. Punta Cana airport to the resorts is a fixed run and a pre booked private van for five people with luggage is usually cheaper and always calmer than sorting it at the curb after a four hour flight.

Hire a car only if you are leaving the resort properly. The toll roads are good. Everything else involves motorbikes coming three abreast, unlit lorries and livestock, and Dominican driving is fast and improvisational. I would not hand a nervous driver a minivan here.

Distances are long. Punta Cana to Santo Domingo about three hours. Punta Cana to Puerto Plata five to six. Santo Domingo to Jarabacoa about two. Do not book two coasts in one week unless somebody in your party actively enjoys driving.

Four airports worth knowing. Punta Cana for the east, Santo Domingo for the capital, Puerto Plata for the north coast and Samana for the whales. Flying into one and out of another is often the same price and saves you eight hours in a car.

The peso is the currency and dollars are accepted badly. Resorts and tour desks take dollars at a rate that quietly costs you ten percent. Take pesos from a bank ATM inside the airport or a proper bank branch, not the machine in a hotel lobby.

Bring a stack of one dollar bills. This is the most practical piece of advice on this page. Housekeeping, bar staff, luggage, beach service. You will use forty of them in a week and you cannot get them there.

The tourist zones are heavily policed and ordinary tourism is safe. Punta Cana, Bayahibe, Cabarete and the Zona Colonial in daylight are fine for a family. Petty theft is the realistic risk, not violence. Use the room safe and do not walk a dark beach at two in the morning wearing jewelry.

Use booked transport rather than flagging cars. This is the single biggest practical difference between a smooth trip and a bad story. Hotel taxis and pre arranged drivers, not whoever is at the curb.

Do not drink the tap water and do not use it for teeth. Bottled everywhere, including in good hotels. Ice in a decent resort is made with purified water and is fine. Ice at a roadside stall is a coin toss.

The Atlantic side has real undertow. The north coast is a different sea from the calm east. Some of the prettiest beaches in the country have no lifeguard and a current that will take an eight year old off their feet. Ask at the hotel and mean it.

Buy travel insurance with medical evacuation. Private clinics in Punta Cana and Santo Domingo are good and they want payment up front. Serious cases get flown to Miami. This is not a place to travel uninsured with children.

Decide if this is a resort week or a real trip first. An all inclusive week in Punta Cana is a completely different trip than renting a car and seeing Santo Domingo, the north coast, and the mountains. Both are valid, know which one you are booking.

Add Santo Domingo if you can. It is a flight or a few hours’ drive from Punta Cana, and gives the trip a city and real history alongside the beach.

Time it around whale season if that matters to you. Humpback whales are in Samana Bay from January through March. Outside that window, skip the detour and stay on the coast you already picked.

Rent a car for the north coast, do not for Punta Cana. The resort zone does not need a car. Cabarete, Sosua and the drive up into the Cordillera do.

Punta Cana. The all inclusive week. Pick the resort carefully, because the same five stars means very different hotels here, and add one day out.

Santo Domingo. The Zona Colonial for a night or a long day trip. The cathedral, the Alcazar and dinner on a plaza. The oldest city in the Americas and it is two hours from the resorts.

Bayahibe and Saona Island. The boat day from La Romana to the sandbars and the starfish. The best single excursion from the east coast for children.

Samana. Whales from January to March, the waterfall on horseback and the beaches at Las Terrenas. Worth three nights on a longer trip.

Cabarete and Jarabacoa. The north coast for kites and surf, the mountains for rafting and cool air. For a second trip or a family who has done the beach.

A guided whale watching trip out of Samana. Humpback season is a real, once a year event. A proper guided boat, not the cheapest one available, is worth it.

A night or two in Santo Domingo’s Zona Colonial. A boutique hotel inside the old city, rather than a day trip from the coast, lets you actually experience it at night.

A guided trek toward Pico Duarte or the Cordillera waterfalls. This is not casual hiking. A guide who knows the terrain makes it both safer and much more worthwhile.

One night out of the resort for real Dominican food. Book something outside the all inclusive gate at least once. The food difference is significant.

The Caribbean’s highest mountain is here. Pico Duarte is over ten thousand feet and it snows frost at the top. Nobody associates this country with pine forest and cold nights, and that gap between the image and the place is the most interesting thing about it.

Baseball is not a sport here, it is the culture. More major league players come from this island than anywhere outside the United States, and the winter league from October to January is cheap, loud and completely unlike an American game. San Pedro de Macoris and Santiago are the ones to see.

Punta Cana. Five nights. An all inclusive with a kids’ club, Bavaro beach, a catamaran day, Hoyo Azul cenote at Scape Park.

Santo Domingo. A day or a night. The oldest city in the Americas, the Zona Colonial, the cathedral, Los Tres Ojos caves.

Samana. Two nights. Humpback whales January to March, El Limon waterfall by horse, Cayo Levantado for the beach.