Santo Domingo

I just got off the Carnival Splendor 8 day cruise. We stopped in Santo Domingo on 12/21/16. This was the worst port. Santo Domingo is full of history and is the oldest city in the Americas (I believe). We did not book any excursions so as soon as we got off the ship, we walked to zona colonial (Colonial Zone) to tour the historic area. Before leaving the port area, we overheard one local warning a couple from the cruise about not buying from locals on the street. On our way there we had at least 20 people try to sell us things or offer to be our tour guide. They will follow you to keep trying to sell you things after you politely say "no thank you". It go tot he point where my boyfriend and I started to get upset when they wouldn't take "no" for an answer. Even a guy on crutches offered to be our tour guide and walk us around the area lol.

There is a shopping strip in the zona colonial area where MORE people will try to get you to walk into their shop and buy something.

I would recommend booking an excursion for this port so that you can avoid locals walking up to you/following you. If you decide not to book a tour or excursion, ask the local police for help/directions. There are many standing around the port and downtown area and they were very helpful. We also started to follow closely behind other tour groups to blend in so we wouldn't be bothered.

Thank you for this info as I will dock in Santo Domingo in January and was not sure what to do. So you can walk from the dock to the Colonial Zone? I thought you had to take a taxi, are there bars etc along the Malecon? I would like to walk around a bit but would not care for people following me.

Thank you for this info as I will dock in Santo Domingo in January and was not sure what to do. So you can walk from the dock to the Colonial Zone? I thought you had to take a taxi, are there bars etc along the Malecon? I would like to walk around a bit but would not care for people following me.

It's about a mile and a half walk to the Colonial Zone so we decided to just walk but a lot of people took a taxi. we did not go to malecon.

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Thanks for the info, I have been trying to get information about this port to no avail. we also planned to walk. Did you go into any of the museums? Was it worth the hassle of going into the Zona or would you have rather stayed on the ship?

I was under the impression that the malecon was at the Colonial zone. Is this not correct?

from Sans Souci cruise terminal to 'colonial zone' is about 1.3 miles, crossing the southern bridge.

Malecon is defined as several places depending on the reference but IME was generally referring to the coastline area from west of Colonial / port entrance, and continuing west where the larger hotels and casinos are.