The Ultimate Guide to Exploring Puerto Plata in One Day

Mar 16, 2024

A Virgin Voyage Adventure

Welcome to Puerto Plata, a hidden gem in the Dominican Republic, where history, culture, and natural beauty await exploration. This was the first stop on our Eastern Caribbean Antilles Virgin Voyage, which left from Miami, in February 2023.

Arriving in Puerto Plata

There are a myriad of options via Virgin for Shore Things (Excursions) and we debated venturing out all day to 27 Waterfalls of Damajagua, however, with light rainfall in prior weeks, low water levels, and rumors of only "7 waterfalls" being functional, we opted to just venture out on our own. Once we arrived in the main cruise port welcome area, we were greeted with lots of options for local tours. We joined a group for a 3-hour city tour of some of the top sites including Umbrella and Pink Street.

Exploring the Town and Local Gems Tour

Travel More Tip:

The local tour ended up being an amazing price at just $30 pp. There were only around 10 in our group, all adults. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this tour for families with children as in addition to the cigar factory, there was a lot of “waiting around” with which I could see kids getting bored. 😉

We started off the tour by hopping into a large van and heading to the first stop, a local gem factory and store called Rainbow. The Dominican is famous for its amber and we were able to witness a demonstration on how to tell real amber from “fake” amber. Answer? Real Amber floats in salt water, fake Amber sinks. Who knew!? After a quick tour and options to purchase local amber jewelry, we walked down the street to the Cigar Factory! Will sampled a local cigar and we watched as they were rolled and packaged in front of us.

After this, we walked right out onto the famous Umbrella Street for some nice photo opps and then sampled some local ice cream (price all included in the tour!). We were then taken to the equally famous Pink Street and allowed to wander around for about 15 minutes to take pictures. We then proceeded to the main square and saw an old Catholic Church.

Puerto Plata and the Dominican Republic are known for their amber mines. In fact, you may remember seeing it featured in the first scene of a movie you may have heard of called Jurassic Park? 🤔 Dominican amber—which was first offered to Columbus on his arrival in 1492, and later made famous in Jurassic Park—is mined on the north coast, in the hills of La Cumbre, the only place in the world where blue amber is found. Visiting the Amber Museum was a very unique treat as we got to see ancient mosquitoes frozen in time and dream of John Hammond's cane.

The last stop was the San Felipe Fortress. We were allowed to skip the line and given a headset to walk around and explore the history of the fort, which was completed in 1577, is one of the oldest forts in the Caribbean and served as a vital Spanish protection for the Dominican Republic.

Ending the day at Taino Beach Club

When the tour completed, we were dropped back off at the cruise port and the newly-built Taino Bay Beach Club. It is clear that the Dominican has invested significant resources and designed this specifically to cater to the tourists on the cruise ships, and man oh man...it is nice! 👍 I can see how one could spend the entire day here. They offer an array of restaurants, shops and bars. There is a lazy river flowing throughout the club as well as a beach area with service! We decided to spend the last few hours of our time here.

Bonus: With Virgin, you always have late departures from port. The only other boat there that day was the NCL and while they all left at 3 PM, the Virgin Sailors had until 6 PM to hang out. It felt like we had the entire place to ourselves for the last few hours.

Ready to turn your Dominican Dreams into Reality?

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Thank you!

Kristin & Will

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