For years I’ve been making the willful compromise of passing on some of the best dive locations on family vacations, in order to keep the natives content and occupied in a snug, comfortable resort while I hit the reefs. While clearly not for everybody, my wife, daughter, and I love all-inclusive resorts. For those of you who haven’t tried one, the main thrust is POP, or “pay one price”. You write a single check, and everything, including airfare, transfers, lodging, food, drinks, tips, water sports, etc. is paid for. Unless you want to, there is no reason to ever leave these sprawling resorts. Eat, sleep, drink, relax, play, read, and never have to rent a car, find a parking place, dig into your pocket for food or drinks, calculate a tip, or consider whether you want to spend another $6 for that last margarita. Hell, just order a round for the bar. It’s free (well, already paid for).
After roaming the greater Caribbean and staying in many all-inclusives, we discovered some really first class resorts at great dive locations, such as the Allegro in Turks and Caicos, that cost a small fortune. We also discovered what I believe to be the best bargains in the Caribbean for resorts, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Unfortunately, the diving there is mediocre, and that’s being kind. So after reading some encouraging reports about the diving in the La Romana region of the DR, we booked a trip to the Iberostar resort there, part of a chain of well known, high quality all-inclusives.
We booked this trip through Apple Vacations, and flew their charter air from Baltimore non-stop to DR. Because of spring break, we were unable to get a flight into the nearby La Romana airport, so we flew into Punta Cana and had a 90 minute mini-bus ride to the resort. The bus ride dragged on a bit en route to the resort, but the ride back was during the day and afforded us a wonderful free tour of the interior. I wouldn’t want to do it again, but for one time it was fun. We experienced no problems with luggage, and we were served a tasty hot meal on both flights. Remember those?
The Resort
It would be difficult for even the jaded traveler to be unimpressed by this resort. The palatial open air lobby leads you into the garden courtyard which is lined on both sides by three story buildings containing the rooms. The landscaping is lush and meticulously maintained, and each building contains it’s own private interior courtyard. The rooms are reasonably large and comfortable, with a king or two double beds, a balcony, mini-fridge, satellite television, phone, and room safe. Slightly larger junior suites are available in the buildings closest to the beach, but you have to request them and there is a surcharge of $20 per day. Maid service was excellent, and we had plenty of hot water and AC.
The view from our room
There are three swimming pools, one set aside for water sports, the other two placed side by side in the main courtyard. They are huge, beautiful, and the largest pool has a swim up bar and an island in the middle with a hot tub. In reality it remained only slightly warmer than the pool itself, but the bubbles were refreshing. The beach was lovely, and while there is no good snorkeling there, the water remains calm and shallow for quite a distance, with a soft sand bottom, so it is great for wading and swimming. There is plenty of shade available at both the beach and the pool, and padded chaise lounges were abundant. Beach towels are provided by the resort, and can be turned in for clean one whenever you want.
Topless sunbathing is allowed at the beach, which can be a little surprising for we Americans, but if that bothers you in any way it is not allowed at the pools. I almost laughed out loud after overhearing a couple next to us in the restaurant talking about their 11 year old son being in “breast heaven”. He evidently was quite a talker, but fell into silent awe when at the beach.
As is usually the case with all-inclusives, there were scads of food and drink options. The main buffet restaurant was a surprising disappointment. The food was mediocre, and finding even a few tasty selections required more than one trip through. Part of the problem, I’m sure, was the truly international clientele that frequents the DR. It has to be difficult to put out a buffet that pleases such diverse tastes, but the buffets at the two other DR resorts we have visited were excellent, so we know it’s possible. Fortunately, the Iberostar offered four specialty restaurants which required reservations. We visited three of them, the Gourmet, the Japanese, and the Mexican. All three were quite good, and we went to the Mexican twice. The appetizer bar at the Mexican restaurant was fantastic, you can almost skip the entrees. We passed on the steak house, I never expect a good steak in the Caribbean. Reservations can be made for all the restaurants at the concierge desk in the lobby.
The steak restaurant becomes a beach buffet during the day, also with a large selection but disappointingly few quality items. Still, you can always find something good to eat, and plenty of it. We did not visit the main buffet during the day because it was located pretty far from our room. To be fair, between the two buffets there were certainly over 100 food items to choose from. Anybody should be able to find a good lunch with that selection. There was a hot dog stand at the pool bar, along with soft-serve ice cream.
There are seven bars to choose from, with overall quality on the mixed drinks excellent. Good selection, and top shelf liquors by request. The blender drinks, although served from a machine at some of the bars, were fabulous, the first I have ever had out of a machine that tasted good. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: At the bars where kids frequent, all the blender drinks are served virgin unless you ask for rum. Only one brand of local beer was served, but it was very good, and you could get a Corona from the Mexican restaurant anytime it was open and you felt like a walk. The wines were disappointing as usual (who buys the house pours for these mega resorts? There are scads of excellent, cheap wines to be found in the world). A pleasant surprise was the champagne. I don’t remember the brand, but it was amazingly tasty. We requested a full unopened bottle on two evenings, and were given them with no questions asked. This is quite a departure from other AI resorts we have visited, where the champagne is usually terrible and they don’t want to give out unopened bottles.
There are many diversions offered at the resort, including dance lessons, aerobics, water sports, archery, shopping, disco, and Vegas-style floor shows each evening. There are daily excursions, from sight seeing to cruises to tours of local towns, offered at additional charges, which I usually don’t go for. Also for additional charges, there is massage and hair braiding.
There is a kids club there, but during the day it was terribly staffed. We wouldn’t even think of leaving our kid there alone, but many did. I have to share this one story: During our meal at the Japanese restaurant, a performer in costume came by our table, followed by a string of kids. She motioned for our 8 year old to join in, and we assumed they were just dancing around the restaurant for fun. Three or four minutes passed, and when they didn’t return, we got up and started looking around for her. She was just coming back into the restaurant led by an adult we didn’t know. It turns out that the performer was gathering up kids to be in a children’s program at the auditorium. She didn’t give us ANY indication that she was taking them out of the restaurant. Unbelievable. To be fair, our daughter participated in two of the evening children's programs (they would rehearse parts in a play, then don make-up and costumes, and perform it at the main auditorium that night), and these were well run and very enjoyable for her.
There are a few other things you should be aware of when traveling to any DR resort. One, that you will truly be among very few people who speak English. DR gets a lot of European travelers, and I heard no less than 8 different languages spoken when we were there. This also means that very few staff people speak more than a few words of English. If you have any complex request, be prepared to be patient and creative in getting understood. Another thing, don’t drink the tap water, it will definitely make you sick. Use only bottled water, including brushing your teeth. As a side note, the three of us did not receive a single bug bite the whole trip.
With the exception of the buffet restaurant and the kids club, I would say this resort is a spectacular place. Expect to pay $1300-$1700 per adult per week including airfare, depending on the time of the year and the travel agency. For the same level of service, comfort , and beachfront location on other islands, you could pay nearly twice as much. I have enjoyed my three stays in the DR so much that I would return to any of the three resorts we visited on their own merit, even with no diving available. But, at La Romana, I heard there was some fine diving.....
The Diving
After reading some thoughtful advice from trusted board members, we decided to pass on the on-site dive operation, Dressel Divers, and sign on with ScubaFun, a much smaller operation in the nearby town of Bayahibe. I haven’t read anything particularly bad about Dressel, just that they were quite a bit more expensive, and were less inclined to travel to the more distant (and better) sites.
Diving with ScubaFun is a little different experience than that I am used to, but it was a good one. With ScubaFun, you are picked up at the resort each morning by a taxi (no charge), and taken to the dive shop. All your gear is stored for you there, and is handled and set up by the crews if you like. Things are very informal, and when everyone is darn good and ready we walk down the unpaved street a couple blocks to the ocean where our dive boat is beached in the sand (actually more broken glass than sand, but I digress). The boats were open hull skiffs with single outboard motors, with bench seats on either side and a row of tank holders up the middle. No cover, no rinse tank, no O2, no snacks and sometimes no drinking water, but gratefully no crowd.
Yep, that’s the whole boat. Beached for lunch at Catalina Island.
To gear up, a crew member brings your rig to you while you sit on the bench, then you back-roll over the gunwale. To reboard, you hand up your weights, then remove and hand up your rig, then your fins, then climb up a ladder (except on the trip where they forgot the ladder, but I digress).
For my camera, I was given a yellow plastic bucket and a jug of fresh water. Since I was the only photographer on board, that worked just fine (except the last day when it overheated and fogged, but again I digress). If I’m sounding a little negative here, I don’t really mean to. Yes, the boats were lacking a few usual amenities, but as the week progressed I was more than impressed with the staff, and the level of customer service was superb.
The boat trips were a hodge-podge of experienced divers (me), two open water and one advanced student, and on the trips to the out islands, snorkelers. I get the impression that few serious divers venture yet to this destination. On my first day, there was a two tank afternoon trip scheduled in addition to the morning dives. When I told them to sign me up, they kind of laughed. I said I was serious, and they added me to the list. When I returned from the morning trip, they asked “are you really going out for the afternoon dives?” I taxied back to the resort, grabbed a quick lunch, and went out for two more. They seemed almost amazed.
This was my second dive trip with a camera, and I was dismayed to find that my camera was damaged on the trip down. I got it working by digging out a jammed menu button with a needle from the resort sewing kit, and kept it working for 9 of the 11 dives I made. On my second dive the housing button that had been hit and driven into the camera compressed itself at depth (the spring was also damaged) and locked up the camera, and on the 10th dive I had let the camera get overheated in it’s rinse bucket between dives and it fogged badly upon immersion. As a nod to the quality of the reefs there, I still found and photographed nearly as many macro subjects as I did in Little Cayman on my first photography trip, with 6 fewer dives. Certainly I was more comfortable with the camera and had gotten better at spotting little critters, but you can’t spot them if they aren’t there. I enjoyed using the camera more than ever, and I would encourage others to jump in and try it. All photos here wer taken with an Olympus C5050, Oly PT-015 housing, and the internal flash.
Banded Coral Shrimp. Is there a better photo subject?
Female Red Banded Lobster
The coral was healthy and beautiful
The first four dives were nearby in the local marine park. Very good, healthy reefs, 60+ foot vis, and warm water-heck, this wasn’t bad at all! In my opinion it was comparable to local dives in Ambergris Cay, Belize or Grace Bay in Turks and Caicos. Each trip there was a DM which led the dive, and a captain who handled the boat, helped with gear, and served up the hot sandwiches (just kidding). They quickly assessed my diving abilities, and allowed me to wander along at my own pace and take pictures. Officially I was buddied with the DM, but you know how that goes. As usual, I was buddied with my pony tank.
The following day we did a two tank day trip to Catalina Island, and as we geared up for one of the best known DR dives, Catalina Wall, I got a little surprise. My beloved Atomic regulator had mysteriously morphed into a well worn Mares. The DM, who loaded gear for the trip from the shop, had inadvertently switched regs with a student on a different boat. He quickly offered to let me use his ScubaPro Mk25 S600 for this deep wall dive, and I quickly accepted. Strangely, he had the second stage adjustment set fully closed, making the reg breathe like a straw. I asked him about that, and he said it was to prevent free flows. Hmmmm. Anyway, I cranked it wide open, it was a fine reg, and darned nice of the DM to offer. The student who ended up with my reg got a surprise also, my Seacure orthodic mouthpiece. She dove using the octopus.
Anyway, Catalina Wall was an excellent wall dive by any standards. The visibility was bumping 100 feet, and the steep wall bottomed off in the sand at about 120 feet. Very good fish life, although most were smallish, and healthy coral and sponges. This was officially a drift dive, although there was little to no current. They list this as an advanced dive, but it really wasn’t , at least that day. We went to 94 fsw on this 48 minute dive.
Sharp nosed puffer posing in front of a purple sea fan and brain coral
Gorgonian sea rod open for feeding during the day
The trip to Catalina is about 30-40 minutes, so “lunch” is included, which was a cooler full of cold, fried pastries filled with meat, and fresh fruit. Soft drinks and a bottle of local rum round out the menu. Since the island trips also include bubble watchers and snorkelers, the lunch stop is on a secluded beach and is extended out to a couple of hours, so the trip ends up taking the better part of the entire day. After the pleasant SI, we dove a site called the Aquarium, and it was excellent. Vibrant reef, teeming with fish. Fairly shallow, good vis again, and the most productive dive of the trip for photographs.
Balloon fish, member of the Puffer fish family
The following day we did another two tank local trip to the marine park, where on the first dive I was offered the choice of joining two students on a shallow OW training dive, or joining and AOW student on her deep training dive. This was an interesting dive. I followed the trainee and DM out to a patch reef with a sandy bottom, and we just started moving along the bottom. I was noodling along, taking pictures, and when I glanced at my gauges we were at 80 fsw, but the bottom looked flat. In fact, it was just a very gradual slope. We continued on, only now I started to watch my gauges in ernest. When we were past 90 feet, I noticed the student was lagging pretty far behind the instructor, staying about 15 feet above the bottom, and having difficulty clearing. The instructor swam on, not looking back. When he was below 100 feet and the student was still hovering behind at 80, I caught up with him, tugged on his fin and pointed back. He returned to her, got it sorted out, and they finished the dive requirements in the sand at 100 fsw while I scooted back uphill to 80 feet and took more pictures. If I become an instructor, I’m going to actually watch my students as they are descending on their first ever deep dive.
On my final diving day the plan was for another full day to Catalinita Island (a different out island, in the opposite direction from Catalina) to dive a site called Shark Point, also known as a premier dive for this region. After Scubafun was unable to get enough interest to offer the night dive I requested, I asked if there was any way we could stretch this trip into three tanks instead of two. It turns out there were only four divers and two snorkelers scheduled for this trip, and when two of the divers who were bussing in from Punta Cana for this trip (two hour trip each way) were late arriving, they checked with the remaining diver who was all for adding another dive, and we set off for the 45 minute boat ride. Shark point provided two excellent drift dives, both dives followed a craggy overhanging reef with the bottom at about 80 feet. It was here that I made my worst error ever in keeping up with my air consumption. I had discovered a trove of little critters right where the sand met the reef at 80 feet, and had ended up doing a square profile. I neglected to check my air often enough, and ended up still at 80 feet with about 200 PSI. I had plenty more gas in my pony tank, but rather than using it up on the first dive of the day, I just shared air with the DM for the ascent and then I drained my tank on the safety stop. Between taking pictures and knowing I have a pony tank, I was getting too lax on monitoring my air. That won’t ever happen again.
I’m dreaming of a White Christmas (Christmas Tree Worm)
Banded Clinging Crab hiding beneath an Anemone
You could tell the reefs here didn’t see much traffic. We were the only boat around, and we saw no other boats all day. There was the usual extended surface interval on a beach, with the usual lunch fare, and then the second dive on another section of Shark Point. After this dive, instead of heading back home we anchored in some shallows and snorkeled among a colony of starfish inhabiting the turtle grass. That was interesting for about 6 minutes, then we just tanned on the boat for the rest of the SI. The final dive of the trip was at a location called Penon, one I hadn’t read about. It was a fitting final dive, shallow and beautiful, and also very conducive to photography. I was trying to get the most out of my final dive, and doing some negotiating with the DM to stay beyond the 50 minutes, and although he agreed he was surfaced next to the boat and was becoming agitated as I extended my safety stop to 10 minutes while trying to take a picture of some neat stuff growing on the mooring rope, while swaying in the surge, and kept motioning for me to surface. Once I surfaced, I realized why.
Even the mooring rope was growing stuff. What stuff? I’m not sure.
The skies to the west were a solid wall of building thunderclouds. And guess which way home was? We set off at full throttle, but the speed was futile, within 10 minutes we were in the middle of a torrential rain storm. The boat captain slowed down to a speed where the chilling rain drops didn’t sting too bad, and we pressed on through the storm. The captain donned the DM’s mask in an attempt to see ahead a little better, which made for quite a comical sight. He must have known the route by heart, because I couldn’t see a bloody thing. About 20 minutes into this ordeal, and I dug the bottle of rum out of the cooler and we passed it around a couple times, which scored points with the captain who joined in with the drinking and smiled through his mask. Quite a memorable day.
Arrow crab defending the homestead.
To sum up the trip, the La Romana area of the Dominican Republic may not ever become a primary dive destination, not because of the quality of diving, but the quantity. It is, however, a great place to dive while you are on vacation. There is good diving nearby, and excellent diving on the out islands. If you go there, be certain you don’t miss the trips to Catalina and Catalinita. Scubafun did a good job, and did their best to make my diving enjoyable. You could find better boats, but the people were great and that is more important. With the proximity of a superior property like the Iberostar, and the very attractive prices, you have one very well-rounded Caribbean vacation that will appeal both to the divers and non-divers in your group. My wife and daughter both want to go back, and so do I. |
