Dominican Republic

When most college students in the US think of spring break, there minds often go to Mexico. Its cheap, and the drinking age is 18, whats not to like?! However, when we were in our junior year, Mexico had a travel advisory against it for all US citizens, so we went off googling where our adventure should take us for college spring break. After extensively searching on multiple top 10 spring break websites, we decided to go to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

We were there for 4 full days, and 5 days all together. Our general itinerary was as follows: 

Day 1: Arrive In Punta Cana

Day 2: Beach Day, Hard Rock Hotel Club

Day 3: ATV Ride with local Chocolate and Coffee tastings

Day 4: Hoyo Azul, Coco Bongo Night Club

Day 5: Depart Punta Cana

Day 1, our main focus was to check in and get our bearings. We stayed at Iberostar Resort Punta Cana. It was all inclusive, which was helpful as we were college students at the time. The hotel and grounds were nice, and our only complaint is they didn't have a hot tub (Not that you really need one in the Caribbean). Spanish is the native language in Dominican Republic, with French being very popular as well due to the neighboring country of Haiti. Our hotel spoke Spanish, French, and English so there wasn't a major language barrier, although we did have to use our high school Spanish at times. We had dinner at the Iberostar buffet, and ended the night with a local performance of the Lion King.

Day 2, We wanted to have a beach day. We used our all inclusive hotel to grab some drinks and enjoy the Caribbean breeze while we swam in the ocean and checked out our surroundings. The beach, as well as the entire area, were absolutely beautiful. There were tons of small boutique shops selling touristy stuff but it was fun to see the streets lined with vendors. We even bought a small painting by a local artist to commemorate our time in Punta Cana. After having a relaxing day at the beach, we took a cab to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, where we did some gambling and went to a club, fortunately with other college students that were on spring break (Unfortunately they were the rival college)! After breaking even at the Casino we called it a day and went back to our hotel and went to bed.

Day 3, We booked an ATV ride through TripAdvisor that included an indigenous experience, local coffee and chocolate tasting, and a cave swim. We rode ATVs in a small group. On the ride we got to observe an indigenous dance and houses recreated for tourists. Next, we tried the local coffee, which we ended up buying and bringing back home with us (seriously it's delicious). We then rode the ATVs to a cave, where we were able to jump into the cave water and swim around for a bit before returning back to our starting point. That night we had dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant at the hotel and called it a night

Day 4, We wanted to go see Hoyo Azul, which also happens to be in a beautiful nature reserve. Hoyo Azul literally translates to "blue hole", and its a beautiful spot in Punta Cana protected by a limestone cliff, which gives the water a vibrant blue color, which you can swim in as well. While traveling the nature reserve to get to Hoyo Azul, we made friends with a couple from Belgium, who were incredibly nice, it was fun hearing a different perspective on why they wanted to travel to the Dominican Republic. After seeing and swimming in the Hoyo Azul, which we forgot to bring our towels for, we started the walk back and got ready for the highlight of our trip: Coco Bongo.

Coco Bongo is best described as a pop culture Cirque Du Soleil mixed with a nightclub. They would be playing nightclub style music, and in the middle of it, be giving out shots for the customers, and then stop everything and have someone come out dressed as Batman and Bane, fight each other in a well choreographed scene. The club is insanity and the most fun we had while there. We ended the night by getting Subway at 3 am trying our best to order in Spanish, then going back to the hotel. Best tip for this experience is to spend a little more for an actually seat instead of just general admission (i.e. standing only). The whole show is about 5 hours long, so its absolutely worth it to be able to sit down from time to time.  

Day 5 was mainly our checkout day. We woke up, packed, and got to the airport early, which was a good thing since the line was 2 hours long to check-in! To find out more about our personal thoughts of each of the activities, listen to our podcast about it! We go over the general itineraries the same as this one, but you get a more personal feeling of how the whole experience was, and if we would do it again or not.