My review of Damajagua falls on your own- no excursion

[runnerinn]

Hello all, my family of 5 recently visited Amber Cove on our cruise.  Prior to our visit, I researched options for excursions and decided we'd like to visit the 27 Charcos/Damajagua waterfalls, but didn't want to spend $400-500 for the 5 of us to do available excursions.  I found some info about people going to the waterfalls on their own, so we decided to go for it!  The info I found wasn't terribly recent, so I thought an updated review might be helpful for others.  We are a physically fit family ages 10, 14, 17, and mid 40s :).   

 

I intended for us to leave the ship as early as possible to try to avoid crowds at the falls, but one of my teens had been ill the day prior, so we were uncertain if he would feel well enough for the adventure and decided it was best to let him sleep in and then decide on our plan.  Thankfully he was feeling much better, but by the time we were all fed and ready to go it was about 10am DR time (which was an hour ahead of ship time and led to much confusion all day 😆).  We walked off the dock and found our way to the taxi area where we were quickly assigned a taxi to take us to the falls.  The price must have recently increased as I saw photos of taxi prices in other posts and thought that it would be $100, but it was $110 now.  I read before our trip that we could get a cheaper taxi by walking outside of the Amber Cove port area, but felt more comfortable using the taxis provided inside the port.  They did try to convince us to add on a tour for another $50, but we declined.  

 

The drive to the falls was about 25 minutes and the other local drivers around us were "loco" according to our taxi driver Luis and I have to agree!  Others had mentioned renting a car and driving themselves, but it would have been very stressful for me to drive in the midst of those crazy drivers, so I'm glad we opted for a taxi.  Luis walked us up to the entrance at the falls where we paid $12pp for 7 falls which was all that were available. They offered us lunch as well, but we declined.  Luis said he would wait for us, so we left our belongings in the taxi except for our cash (my husband put this in a ziploc bag in his bathing suit pocket...unfortunately the bag did not succeed in keeping our cash dry 😂). 

 

We were given helmets, life jackets, and then asked to wait while a large group gathered with us to share our guide.  Unfortunately the group had 50-75 people in it, which I was hoping to avoid if we could have gone earlier, but was also prepared for knowing that we were late in the morning by now.  We had a lead guide with a few helpers and also someone taking photos for other groups (not us!  are you sensing a theme here...we are cheap and declined the photographer as well 🤣). 

 

The hike up to the falls was muddy and steep in places, but no trouble for our family. It probably would have taken 10 or 15 minutes if we hadn't stopped several times for 5-10 minutes.  I'm not sure if we stopped so much for everyone to catch up or to allow more spacing so that we didn't run into a group ahead of us, but it probably took 45-60 minutes by the time we finally made it to the falls.  Thankfully the jumps and slides were just as fun and exciting as anticipated!  The water was cool, but the air was about 80 degrees so it was tolerable.  It was a little scary in places as there really were too many people in our group and there were moments when the current of the water shoved us all together against the sides of the rock channel that we were floating down and no one could move because it was too narrow for people to get out of the water quickly.  If we didn't have lifejackets on, I honestly would be fearful that someone could drown under those circumstances and my son was getting a little claustrophobic.  There were some in our group who could not swim well and the guide had them all grab onto each other's life jackets and dragged them through the water together.   The guides pretty much shoved us down the waterslides to keep our group moving, which was fairly exciting but also a little terrifying.  I'm fearful of heights, but didn't find the jumps or slides to be unmanageable.

 

The guide told us the hike back from the falls would be "5 minutes," but I don't know how they tell time in the DR as it probably took 30 minutes and it became an inside joke for our family as they kept saying "5 more minutes" every time we crossed yet another stream 😂.  We did stop multiple times again for our group to stay together.  

 

Luis was waiting for us as promised and didn't seem to mind that we were wet and muddy as we jumped into his clean van.  We did have our towels to protect the seats and rinsed our water shoes as well as possible before hopping in.  Our drive back to the ship was uneventful and we felt pretty good that we were able to do the excursion on our own for only $34pp plus tip :).  Luis didn't seem to mind that our cash was now waterlogged from the falls 🤣.

 

Overall this was a fun adventure and we all agreed that it was worth doing, but I do advise that you have the appropriate expectations before attempting this.  I would never advise that you do this if #1. you are not a confident swimmer  #2. you are not in good physical condition for hiking uphill, through mud, and across rocky streams #3. you are claustrophobic (or if you are, make sure you are in a small group!) #4. you do not have the appropriate gear- ie. water shoes with good grip, bathing suit with good coverage, towels for after.  I think this experience would be much improved if we were in a group of less than 15 people, but it's hard to avoid large groups when you show up to a small island community with 5000 other people and I recognize that.  

 

I'm happy to answer questions if you are thinking of going to the falls!

[Snowball15]

Did you feel you missed anything that an "organized" cruise excursion would have provided?

Oh! and how

long did it take you in total? Did you have any extra time to spend at the port?

 

Edited January 11 by Snowball15

[runnerinn]

On 1/11/2024 at 1:37 PM, Snowball15 said:

Did you feel you missed anything that an "organized" cruise excursion would have provided?

Oh! and how

long did it take you in total? Did you have any extra time to spend at the port?

 

No- I don't think we missed anything!  The organized excursions use the same guides as we were assigned at the falls-I think some of the people in our group were from an excursion.   A lot of the excursions I saw offered by the cruise line and other companies had additional activities included (ie. Monkeyland, ziplines, etc.), but were even more expensive. You really can create your own "excursion" if you want as we were offered to add zip lines and a meal at the falls or could have paid the taxi driver extra to take us on a tour or for a meal.  

 

It took about 4 hrs from when we left the ship until we were back eating lunch in the Lido, so there was extra time we could have spent at the pool or shopping in the port.  We decided to head back on the ship as we were hungry for free food :).

[mitsugirly]

I just wanted to comment on this thread as well...since we just did this excursion last month (my review is HERE...scroll down and you'll see TONS of pictures and a video of it). We booked with a private company (costs less than with the cruise lines) and we arrived EARLY...before anyone else did. We still had to wait for the cruise ship people to arrive and we all went together. So, even if you arrive early, you might be waiting for others. Just saying... but either way...it's super fun!!

[runnerinn]

21 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

I just wanted to comment on this thread as well...since we just did this excursion last month (my review is HERE...scroll down and you'll see TONS of pictures and a video of it). We booked with a private company (costs less than with the cruise lines) and we arrived EARLY...before anyone else did. We still had to wait for the cruise ship people to arrive and we all went together. So, even if you arrive early, you might be waiting for others. Just saying... but either way...it's super fun!!

Thanks for sharing your amazing review and tagging it here for others to see!  I loved your photos as it made me relive the adventure 🙂.  Based on your photos it looks like there were less people in your group than we had, but it is good to know that we didn't miss out too much by taking our time that morning.  

Also- I didn't look through your whole review, but the Norwegian cruise port (Taino Bay?) looks AMAZING!  We've only sailed Carnival so far, but I'd love to check out the other cruise lines.

[mitsugirly]

1 hour ago, runnerinn said:

Thanks for sharing your amazing review and tagging it here for others to see!  I loved your photos as it made me relive the adventure 🙂.  Based on your photos it looks like there were less people in your group than we had, but it is good to know that we didn't miss out too much by taking our time that morning.  

Also- I didn't look through your whole review, but the Norwegian cruise port (Taino Bay?) looks AMAZING!  We've only sailed Carnival so far, but I'd love to check out the other cruise lines.

 

You're welcome and thanks for the comment. I'm guessing we had maybe 20 people total. I should have counted. I know the rest of the group was from the cruise ship.

 

Taino was a beautiful port and definitely a place you could go to hang out for the day if someone didn't want to spend money on an excursion. 🙂 

[bbbtwilley]

we're doing this on our own (without tours/excursions)

and we have our own car. (car rental or, taxi for 4 ppl = basically the same price)

 

Is there parking, and/or parking fee for a car?

For the Ziplines located inside Damajagua,
Can I reserve in person at the reception desk or must it be with  a tour company? 
 

thanks!

Edited March 2 by bbbtwilley

[mitsugirly]

4 hours ago, bbbtwilley said:

we're doing this on our own (without tours/excursions)

and we have our own car. (car rental or, taxi for 4 ppl = basically the same price)

 

Is there parking, and/or parking fee for a car?

For the Ziplines located inside Damajagua,
Can I reserve in person at the reception desk or must it be with  a tour company? 
 

thanks!

I can only answer that yes there is an entire parking lot and I did not see a place collecting money to park there.

[runnerinn]

17 hours ago, bbbtwilley said:

we're doing this on our own (without tours/excursions)

and we have our own car. (car rental or, taxi for 4 ppl = basically the same price)

 

Is there parking, and/or parking fee for a car?

For the Ziplines located inside Damajagua,
Can I reserve in person at the reception desk or must it be with  a tour company? 
 

thanks!

As mitsugirly stated, you will have no trouble parking your rental car at the falls and there is no parking fee.

There is a window where you go to pay and they will tell you about the options you have including the falls, a meal, and the zip lines.  I didn’t pay attention to the cost of doing the zip line since we were only doing the falls.  You may have an option to do 7, 12, or 27 falls depending on the water level, but 7 was the only option when we were there.  
 

Have a great visit- I think you will love it and be happy you saved the money by doing it on your own!