Playa Rincon, my year-old review

[trtllovr]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm planning my next cruise in a couple weeks and I forgot that I never came and gave my review of Samana from December 2008! I'm sure things have changed, and my mind is a bit fuzzy, but I thought I'd give it a go because there are a few things I remember quite well.

 

Getting off the ship we met the guy with the Casa Rosada sign. He put us in the taxi with the non-English speaking driver. About 1/2 way through the car ride the taxi started pulling over asking directions (we think, he didn't speak any English). We turned around a few times and at this point my family (a very nervous group) was starting to freak slightly. Finally we got to Las Galeras and met Roberto our guide- Comfort!

 

He put us in a boat all together and we had a local high-school kid drive us out to Playa Rincon while Roberto went to get another group. The boat ride was insane, maybe the waves were higher than average that day but it was definitely not expected and we had a 3 year old and a 6-month old with us (brought their own life jackets). Not recommended with little kids!!!

 

Once we got to the beach we were only haggled by one guy trying to sell his jewelery, but once we told him we really weren't interested he didn't bother us again. We went looking for some shade so we dragged some chairs over to the shade but ended up being asked for money (I think it was like $15 or $20 for the day per chair) since those chairs belonged to the other restaurant. OK, so never mind, we settled for the sun in the chairs that Roberto had for us.

 

BUT- the best part of the day was definitely the beach. It was gorgeous! We thoroughly enjoyed our time there, it's just that the ride there was a bit tedious- caused a few rifts between family members.

 

I've posted all my pictures from the day at my website:

http://www.pbase.com/trtllovr/samana

 

The one thing we regretted was not being able to have Roberto as our guide. For the few minutes we did talk to him he was a great guy!

 

I'm sorry if some of this information is obsolete, or maybe they've changed things that I'm unaware of. But I did want to give my review. I would probably go back again, but this time leave the family on the boat. They're not good with traveling to third world countries- heck they even flipped out in St. Thomas!

 

Enjoy your trip to the DR. It was a beautiful country!