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Day Trip to Santo Domingo from Punta Cana

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo 1 Day Tour from Punta Cana

10 hours
Pickup offered
Mobile ticket
Offered in: English

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Overview

Santo Domingo has many beautiful monuments, historical attractions and natural enclaves, but selecting which ones to visit in one day requires knowledge of the area and a lot of planning. This ideal tour for travelers short on time visits a selection of top attractions, including Los Tres Ojos National Park, the Columbus Lighthouse, and the city of Santo Domingo. After exploring the main sights of the city, the journey continues to the Colonial Zone for a delicious lunch and more sightseeing.

See many of Santo Domingo's highlights, all in one day
See beautiful caves and a lake in Los Ojos National Park
You won't have to look for a place to eat, lunch is included
Explore the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo with your guide

What's Included

Air-conditioned vehicle
Lunch
Non-alcoholic beverages

Alcoholic drinks

Meeting and Pickup

Pickup points

Select a pickup point

Start time

08:00 AM

Pickup details

The tour includes pick-up throughout the geography of Punta Cana, Bavaro, Uvero Alto, Arena Gorda, Bayahibe.

What To Expect

The 3 Eyes National Park

45 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Columbus Lighthouse (Faro A Colon) (Pass By)

Palacio National (Pass By)

Malecon

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Zona Colonial

2 hours • Admission Ticket Included

Calle Las Damas

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Parque Colon

5 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Alcazar de Colon

30 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Plaza de la Hispanidad or Spain

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Panteon Nacional

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Wheelchair accessible
Stroller accessible
Infant seats available

Transportation is wheelchair accessible
Not recommended for travelers with back problems
Most travelers can participate
This tour/activity will have a maximum of 27 travelers

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.

Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.
This experience requires good weather. If it’s canceled due to poor weather, you’ll be offered a different date or a full refund.
This experience requires a minimum number of travelers. If it’s canceled because the minimum isn’t met, you’ll be offered a different date/experience or a full refund.

Traveler Photos

Reviews

3.5

491 reviews

Total review count and overall rating based on Viator and Tripadvisor reviews

Reviews by Viator travelers.

We perform checks on reviews

Showing 1-10 of 491 reviews

Fun in the sun

Jonathan_M, May 2024

A lot of interesting sites and knowledge gained. My favorite was the cave with the lakes. Would definitely go again!

Better Than Expected

Sarah_O, Apr 2024

I booked the tour before reading the reviews then read them after and got super worried but it was a great time. Super long day and the reviews were a great guide to expect the worst but hope for the best! The pick up time changed from 8 to 7:15am the night before at 8pm... We were already in bed for an early morning and many people aren’t glued to their phones on vacation so I wonder with such late notice if anyone missed the transportation because if I hadn’t caught that email, we would’ve for sure. Other than that, they did a pretty good job of keeping us on schedule. As others mentioned, there are several gift shop stops. I really enjoyed the cave we went to and the town was nice but after a long day and a great lunch- it was a lot on the body to walk around for 1.5-2 hours (even with ample breaks). That felt like a separate excursion in itself but it was all enjoyable and our guide was very accommodating.

Not good

partha_g, Mar 2024

Logistics were very bad, it took more than an hour to start the tour from the time we were picked up. During that time no one cared to explain anything in English about what was going on. After being transferred to a different bus got a 2 minutes summary of the whole day before the translator took off. Tour guide joined a hour later and was more focused on getting the people to souvenir shops than showing us places that we went all the way for. Coming back again tour guide took his tip and left us with a non-English speaking driver on a very long drive back without any information about how we will reach our hotels. It was not worth spending 11 long hours for merely 1 hour of proper touring.

Excellent experience. Recommend to all.

Donyna_J, Mar 2024

Great trip. Driver & Tour guide were very responsive. Learned a lot of history. Luxury A/C bus. Only issue, please let people know, total time from Punta Cana to Santo Domingo is 2-hours, NOT 1-Hour. Great free lunch and trip 🙂🙂🙂

Response from Host, Mar 2024

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you, every day we are working harder to improve our service. Your comment commits us to continue giving our best. God bless you .

It was ok

Dominique_B, Feb 2024

Loved visiting Santo Domingo and it's history. The guide was tri- lingual which was great but if we had had an English speaking group I would have learned more. Didn't not like changing vans and buses like we did. We wasted a lot of time and the first bathroom stop was awful.

Horrible experience

Dominique_B, Feb 2024

This tour is the worst tour in all my years of traveling that I have been on - from the transportation to the actual tour itself . No communication from the bus driver (we made multiple stops on the 2 hour drive to pick up / drop off locals ) and the bus driver even had his girlfriend in sitting in the floor ! Then transportation on the back was just as bad if not worse , as we approached Punta Cana our bus driver pulled to the side of the road , had us wait for 15 min without telling us anything only to transfer to ANOTHER shuttle . That shuttle then broke down and we had to to transfer to another shuttle … I get things happen but it was the lack of communication that was the issue ! Now the tour itself .. very nice tour guide however the description said ENGLISH tour provided and we barely got that . We stopped by so many beautiful monuments and didn’t learn anything ! Overall , very disappointed.

not worth it, they are more focused on gift shop rather then attractions

Sanjay_G, Feb 2024

We booked through Viator, but there were many things wrong with this tour group 1. they were not responsive to messages, they sent pickup information one day before but did not reply to follow-up questions 2. they made us wait approx. 40 minutes, 730 was pickup time, and I know they have to pick up other tourists as well and that’s why they have a schedule, but they were not on time. Anyway, we got picked up around 825 AM and they took us to another tempo-bus where we were the last ones and I did not get a seat with my wife. I got a co-driver seat (which I won’t recommend) It was 3 hrs journey to Santo Domingo (SD) and the tour guide boarded the bus just before the SD at the gift shop. Overall tour was just okay, did not get a chance at all to explore on our own. Tour made use spent more time in 3 gift shops and less time on actual attractions. At every attraction, the guide asked “What is this attraction about” and said – “ you have 5 minutes to take the pictures” and he moved on…Come on man, in 5 minutes, my wife can’t even choose the pose. So, it was frustrating for us. At Columbus Square, we went a little off-road, and the next thing we knew, we got separated from the group. after 20 minutes we met again but it was not a good experience. We don’t want the same pricey gift shop again & again, or local rum or gem.. we are here for local culture, and their heritage so allow us some time to these places. First time I have been on a tour where they did not give us our own time to explore on our own. Also, my wife lost our $110 worth of sunglasses and we messaged the tour operator… he saw the message but did not have the courtesy to reply. I again saw the same bus in our community the next day, he would have brought our sunglasses and returned but seems they are least bothered about good customer service and did not return sunglasses. (See the attached WhatsApp chat asking for the return of the sunglass)

Poor experience

Payal_J, Feb 2024

I had read the poor reviews about this tour but I still gave it a chance. Despite going in with pretty low expectations, I was met with even worse! The tour guide was pretty terrible, they took us to 3 different souvenir shops which was a waste of time, they randomly picked up additional tourists for cash to join our tour! It’s ok to get a taste of Santo Domingo and basically you pay for the ride.

Long day today

Don_O, Feb 2024

The tour of the city was good as was the lunch. The problem is we spent more time (5hours) getting to and returning to Punta Canta.

Seeing Santa Domingo thumbs up - time commitment thumbs down

James_W, Feb 2024

The experience of seeing Santa Domingo was wonderful. The pickup and transportation time was not a great experience. Our excursion took 12 hours from pickup time to drop off. I would not do this excursion again and I would let others know the time involved and the time on the bus. At times it seemed disorganized.

45 min Pickup Delay-Manic bus driver

Amir_k, Feb 2024

first, I don't recommend the overall tour from Punta Cana, since around 6-7 hours of day will be wasted on the bus and what you get isn't really worth it, for example if I compare to Havana tour you will get much less of culture and history from this tour. But the reason of 2 star is an extreme miss-planing, we had to wait 45 minutes to be picked up, and the tour operator didn't even bother to inform us about the delay. Second was the bus driver on the way back to punt cana, I am very used to driving style of Dominicans but this was way more awful, he was driving a full size bus like a race car and all the way was tailgating and honking on the cars in the front to move away, he was literally changing lane every minute. i was feeling bad not only for passengers but for the rest of the cars and busses on the road. In a nutshell, 1. stay away from this operator. 2. if your time is short you can find better tours to get more of your day.

Wonderful tour!

506meg, Jan 2024

The history was very rich. I enjoyed seeing lovely architecture from 500 years ago. Lunch was good too.

Will not recommend

Ramsha_K, Jan 2024

Personally I found the tour to be really rushed. Initially we had to switch 2 buses so we didn’t really make our way to Santa Domingo until 9ish which is a 2 hour one way. The bus driver drove really fast. Found most stops we made to be extremely rushed. They stopped at a gift shop for 20 minutes but a museum for 10 minutes and we didn’t get to go inside the museum, so there was a bit of false advertisement there. The staff was polite and cordial but personally I’ve done better tours that are more organized and allow clients to take their time to explore the place and take pictures. I would skip this for a better cultural tour or an adventure tour with activities.

for the price fair

timothy_r, Jan 2024

the main part of the visite was good with the main guide but the bus journey was long but we new that once there the guide was quite good and showed us the sights the lunch was fair and the restraunte was clean and nice the places where intresting . the pick up to and from the hotel to the main bus meeting point was in a rickity old bus with a lontic driver driving as fast as the bus could go over taking on bends frightning

Worst experience ever!

Tasneem_A, Jan 2024

I recently encountered an unfortunate experience wherein the driver arrived an hour behind schedule. While I acknowledge that delays can happen, the lack of communication until 20 minutes after the scheduled pickup time was disappointing. Despite clear instructions to meet in the lobby, the driver waited elsewhere. Upon finally meeting, he displayed frustration, as if we were the tardy ones. No information was provided, we did not know where we were going as the driver remained silent and upon boarding the bus, we discovered we were the sole passengers. The driver's excessive speed raised safety concerns. An hour later, halfway to Santo Domingo, we encountered the tour guide and the remaining group at a gas station. When we inquired about the delay, the tour guide expressed uncertainty, revealing a disconnect between management and the tour guide's knowledge. Furthermore, after one of the stops, as we proceeded to board the bus, it started moving before a passenger noticed a missing couple and had to alert the tour guide. It is their responsibility to ensure that all passengers are on board. Regrettably, based on this experience, I cannot recommend this service.

Scary bus ride

rmaiel, Jan 2024

The tour itself was good with a knowledge tour. I wish they had charged us a few $$$ more for providing some drinks for the road by having some coolers in the luggage compartment of the bus like we had in Hawaii. The other thing was the driver of the big bus. On the way back he was flying. It was quite a scare. I loaded the GPS software on my phone and it showed he was doing 128km which is 80mph. Will I do it again ? Most likely not after that scary bus ride.

Santo Domingo 1 Day Tour

PAUL_L, Jan 2024

Be prepared for an approxinate 12 day which consists of 4 hours in total on the buses to and from your hotel, and another hour-ish at lunch. The other seven hours are leisurely strolling throughout Santo Domingo (SD) with your Guide. David, our Guide, was fantastic with his cultural and historical knowledge of SD. One suggestion: at the Santa Maria Cathedral, you'll be given a mini walkman-like device and a headset. You can then walk inside the Cathedral, at your own pace, and listen to the commentary as you observe each station/stop. Unfortunately, our group did not wait for my wife and I to finish our tour, didn't notify us that they were leaving, and left the Cathedral without us - not good!!! After some panicked minutes, we eventually found our group, a couple of streets away, with the help of some local artisans who knew David. Recommend that the tour Guide take a head count before leaving the Cathedral. Besides this one 'moment of panic', David and the tour was grwat; highly recommended.

Long fun filled day

FRANCIS_M, Jan 2024

Great trips just to many ‘shop stops’…we are kinda rushed thru the sightseeing but spend most of the time at the shops! But…the trip was great…I started at 7:25 and got back to the resort at 7:30! I would do again…

we was not in this trip,...

Roman_K, Jan 2024

we was not in this trip, the time was to late for us abd we inform the agency and ask for refund the money.....but the company dont want accept and dont want refund the money .....standard official rubbery

Overall good if you don't mind extra time in transport.

Raj_G, Jan 2024

Overall it was good... but we were supposed to be back at the hotel by 6:00 pm we came back around 8:30 pm and the reason is due to we have to switch from bus to van to various hotels. Sometimes, we were wasting time in the bus waiting for the vans to show up to drop people at various hotels.... I'm not sure whether other tour operators does the same thing or it is just unique to these guys.

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