It's been almost a month since our tour, and I apologize, but I can't remember the name of our tour guide. Despite that memory glitch I remember the tour well. He picked us up at Amber Cove and took us into Puerto Plata. Our first stop was the Macorix Rum factory. The tour was actually just an explanation of the history of rum and a description of how it's made. We did not actually see any production going on. Following that we went into the tasting room where we sampled 8 of their different types of rum. There were 6 people in our tour, our group of 4 and 2 local people. The Macorix tour guide described everything in both English and Spanish. We had the opportunity to shop in the Macorix store, but declined.
We then were taken to a jewelry store where some of my friends did some shopping and found some beautiful Larimar and Amber jewelry. Leaving there we walked a few blocks away to see the street that had a canopy of umbrellas. Very pretty. Our guide did offer us the opportunity to visit a cigar store, but none of us were interested.
He then drove up the hill just outside of town to give us a scenic view of Puerto Plata, and as he drove he told us the history of this island and town. He talked about the school system and some of the issues currently facing the people. It was quite informative.
After overlooking Puerto Plata he took us by a popular beach side park and then to a fort. He gave us time to walk around, which also gave the aggressive vendors time to try to make a sale. (They succeeded.) Finally he returned us to our ship's port.
The van we went in had great air conditioning. Our guide also had bottled water and Coca Cola for us, which we appreciated.
I do recommend this company. I felt they were very safe.
