Amber Cove Private Tour Recommendation

Hello!

We will be visiting Amber Cove in April. We are looking to go to Monkey Jungle zip line. I don't see an excursion for this location offered by Carnival so I'm wondering if anyone here has a good recommendation for a reasonably priced fun , and safe private tour?

Thank you!

Erica from MN

Hello!

 

We will be visiting Amber Cove in April. We are looking to go to Monkey Jungle zip line. I don't see an excursion for this location offered by Carnival so I'm wondering if anyone here has a good recommendation for a reasonably priced fun , and safe private tour?

 

Thank you!

Erica from MN

Just back from Amber Cove, CCL Breeze, had a great tour with Jose Paulino from Transporte Turistico, josepaulino24@hotmail.com He can accommodate whatever you want to do ... we wanted the cable car up the mountain, then some things in Puerto Plata, an afternoon was $70/couple. Nice newer car, A/C, tinted windows, auto door. Tell him hi from Bob and Wendy in Canada.

Wow this is great ! fabulous price ! Looking forward to it THANK YOU:)

Just back from Amber Cove, CCL Breeze, had a great tour with Jose Paulino from Transporte Turistico, josepaulino24@hotmail.com He can accommodate whatever you want to do ... we wanted the cable car up the mountain, then some things in Puerto Plata, an afternoon was $70/couple. Nice newer car, A/C, tinted windows, auto door. Tell him hi from Bob and Wendy in Canada.

Where all did you go with him, and for how long? Thank you!

Where all did you go with him, and for how long? Thank you!

I think you can negotiate this price thru the taxi dispatcher for any of the taxis at the port, but if you want an English speaking driver you need to ask for that, which is useful if you are doing more than a ride into town. The dispatcher will write on a paper what you want to do, and the price, and give it to the driver so there is no issue with the facts, very good system. The cost is around $15/hour per car.

Re: what we did with him, we told the dispatcher we wanted to first go to the cable car up Mt. Isabelle (locally called the teleferico), which conveniently is pretty much on the way to the city of Puerto Plate, then the fort/promenade in the city, then the shopping area. The cable car is $10 return and gives great views of the area, the city and ocean, the hill up the coast with Amber Cove behind it, and the hills all around. Stand at the bottom end of the cable car for best views. Around noon or just after, the mist/fog starts to roll in almost every day at the top of the mt, which obscures a lot of the view, but you still get great views going up and down. So it's best to go in the morning. Lots of trails/roadways at the top. There are guides at the station trying to get you to hire them, not necessary unless you want lots of info, there is a trail/road map at the top showing where you can walk. This whole ride up and walking around might take an hour. Your driver waits for you at the station.

Next we wanted to see the resort city of Puerto Plate, which we've been told is not quite as good as Punta Cana on the other side of DR. So we had our driver take us to old Fort San Felipe, very similar setup to the fort at the point of land in San Juan, PR, lovely open area at the point of the bay. We wanted to walk from the fort up the promenade (Ave Luperon) and arranged for our cab to wait at the huge Multicentro La Sirena store, similar to a Walmart. The walk along the coast is very pretty and we felt completely safe. If you go perhaps half a mile past La Sirena you get to the beaches, first Acapulco Beach, then Costa Rica Beach, then Long Beach. This all shows up on Google maps quite well.

Then we wanted to go to the main shopping area, which is a large city square with streets leading off of it. The square is full of cops and guides, and the latter are on you as soon as the cab stops. Our driver asked if he could shoo them away and that helped, but as soon as you get away from your cab they are on you again, very polite but insistent. Our driver showed us the main shopping street where the locals shop too, and the place to meet after (the bank). At the entrance to the street (forget the name) there is a very small craft area with maybe 15 card table sized tourist vendors. We passed that and walked down the street about 100 yards ... no cops, dark shabby stores, some loitering, and we turned around and got out of there. There were a few Carnival Cruise buses at the square, we could not figure out why the cruise would bring ppl there. Maybe someone else had a different experience, please jump in if so. Much better shopping at the port, it's been developed very well.

Lastly our driver offered to show us a couple resorts that are commonly booked from the US/Can, which were out of town on the way back, and they were pretty but not great beaches, it looked like hard packed sand, but quite a few trees for shade.

All this took an afternoon, we left around 1 and were back at 5. The ship was not on local time, it was 1 hour behind local time, but when we settled on meeting times through the afternoon we converted to local time so not to confuse him.

We thought Amber Cove was lovely, but would not go back to Puerto Plata on an A.I. trip. Hope to see Punta Cana sometime.

-Bob

I think you can negotiate this price thru the taxi dispatcher for any of the taxis at the port, but if you want an English speaking driver you need to ask for that, which is useful if you are doing more than a ride into town. The dispatcher will write on a paper what you want to do, and the price, and give it to the driver so there is no issue with the facts, very good system. The cost is around $15/hour per car.

Re: what we did with him, we told the dispatcher we wanted to first go to the cable car up Mt. Isabelle (locally called the teleferico), which conveniently is pretty much on the way to the city of Puerto Plate, then the fort/promenade in the city, then the shopping area. The cable car is $10 return and gives great views of the area, the city and ocean, the hill up the coast with Amber Cove behind it, and the hills all around. Stand at the bottom end of the cable car for best views. Around noon or just after, the mist/fog starts to roll in almost every day at the top of the mt, which obscures a lot of the view, but you still get great views going up and down. So it's best to go in the morning. Lots of trails/roadways at the top. There are guides at the station trying to get you to hire them, not necessary unless you want lots of info, there is a trail/road map at the top showing where you can walk. This whole ride up and walking around might take an hour. Your driver waits for you at the station.

Next we wanted to see the resort city of Puerto Plate, which we've been told is not quite as good as Punta Cana on the other side of DR. So we had our driver take us to old Fort San Felipe, very similar setup to the fort at the point of land in San Juan, PR, lovely open area at the point of the bay. We wanted to walk from the fort up the promenade (Ave Luperon) and arranged for our cab to wait at the huge Multicentro La Sirena store, similar to a Walmart. The walk along the coast is very pretty and we felt completely safe. If you go perhaps half a mile past La Sirena you get to the beaches, first Acapulco Beach, then Costa Rica Beach, then Long Beach. This all shows up on Google maps quite well.

Then we wanted to go to the main shopping area, which is a large city square with streets leading off of it. The square is full of cops and guides, and the latter are on you as soon as the cab stops. Our driver asked if he could shoo them away and that helped, but as soon as you get away from your cab they are on you again, very polite but insistent. Our driver showed us the main shopping street where the locals shop too, and the place to meet after (the bank). At the entrance to the street (forget the name) there is a very small craft area with maybe 15 card table sized tourist vendors. We passed that and walked down the street about 100 yards ... no cops, dark shabby stores, some loitering, and we turned around and got out of there. There were a few Carnival Cruise buses at the square, we could not figure out why the cruise would bring ppl there. Maybe someone else had a different experience, please jump in if so. Much better shopping at the port, it's been developed very well.

Lastly our driver offered to show us a couple resorts that are commonly booked from the US/Can, which were out of town on the way back, and they were pretty but not great beaches, it looked like hard packed sand, but quite a few trees for shade.

All this took an afternoon, we left around 1 and were back at 5. The ship was not on local time, it was 1 hour behind local time, but when we settled on meeting times through the afternoon we converted to local time so not to confuse him.

We thought Amber Cove was lovely, but would not go back to Puerto Plata on an A.I. trip. Hope to see Punta Cana sometime.

-Bob

Thank you SO much! This was very helpful and informative!

Private Shore excursions at http://www.countryworld.co/en/ambercove/private

Great review! Do you have any idea on whether Jose Paulino's van can hold 6 women comfortably and shopping bags?

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