Punta Cana, booked right.
Catamarans out to Saona, buggies through the red dust, a swim in a blue cave and the booze cruise off the Bavaro reef. The ones worth a beach day, priced and rated by the people who booked them.
Seven bookings that make the week.
The ones a week on the coast leans on: the catamaran that actually reaches Saona’s sandbar, the water cave you can swim clean through, the buggy trail nobody warns you gets gloriously muddy.
Full-Day Santo Domingo City Tour from Punta Cana
Guided full-day Santo Domingo tour from Punta Cana with hotel pickup, major colonial sights, cathedral visit, and a Dominican lunch.
From $95 per person
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★ 4.5Safe betHalf-Day Adventure 4×4 ATV, Water Cave and Dominican CultureFrom $643,394 reviews
★ 5.0Books out fast4×4 Dominican Adventure with Chocolate and Coffee TastingFrom $592,920 reviews
★ 4.5Crowd favouriteSaona Island Day Trip From Punta Cana with Lunch and Open BarFrom $822,709 reviews
★ 4.5Worth the splurgeHalf-Day Buggy Tour to Water Cave and Macao BeachFrom $542,587 reviews
★ 5.0Easy winSmall-Group Cruising and Snorkeling Catamaran TourFrom $992,401 reviews
★ 4.5Guest favouritePunta Cana Family Wild Buggy Eco AdventureFrom $482,372 reviews
Red dust, blue caves, open throttle.
Strap into a buggy, follow the trail through the palm groves and sugarcane, drop into a freshwater cave for a swim, then spill out onto Macao Beach with the Atlantic doing the rest. The messiest, best-value half-day on the coast.
Three boats, three kinds of day.
Nearly everyone books a boat; the trick is picking the right one. The Saona classic, the party cruise, or the quiet sail, priced by the hour with its own timings, so you can pick the afternoon and lock it.
The bucket-list boat
The Saona classic
8 hours · from $82 · 3,822 reviews
Speedboat out through the spray, catamaran back with the rum flowing, and in the middle a natural pool where you stand waist-deep a mile offshore looking for starfish. Lunch is a buffet under the palms on the whitest sand in the country. The day the postcards come from.
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Rum on tap
The party boat
from $69 · 1,037 reviews
Reggaeton on the deck, an open bar that never closes, a snorkel stop and a sandbar you can walk on where the party carries on knee-deep in the sea. Loud, wet, and exactly what a lot of people flew here for. Not the one for a quiet morning.
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Sails up, engine off
The sail & snorkel
8 hours · from $82 · 3,822 reviews
A smaller catamaran, sails filled, gliding out to the reef off Bavaro for an hour in glass-clear water over the coral. Fewer people, more sea, a light lunch and an open bar for the way back. The calm alternative to the big boats.
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The coast turns the music up.
Coco Bongo runs acrobats on wires and a foam-and-confetti show that never quite ends. Down the strip the beach clubs pour rum until the sky lightens. Sort the tickets and the transfer first, then just show up and let the night happen.
Rum, cacao and hand-rolled cigars.
The DR runs on three exports and you can taste all of them in an afternoon: chocolate scraped straight off the pod, coffee roasted over wood, a cigar rolled while you watch, rum poured with a heavy hand. Come thirsty, leave slow.
The reef is closer than you think.
A short sail off Bavaro and the water turns to glass over the coral: parrotfish, a natural pool you can stand up in, an open bar waiting on the deck for the ride back. The quiet counterweight to the party boats.
The island the buffet never shows you.
Open-sided safari trucks climb into the hills behind the coast, past cane fields and cacao trees to a Dominican family’s kitchen, a village school, a shot of mamajuana at a roadside stand. This is the country your all-inclusive forgot to mention.
The coast, corner by corner.
The good stuff spreads for miles either side of the airport. Saona for the sandbar. Macao for the surf. Cap Cana for the marina and the caves. Bayahibe for the calm water, Santo Domingo when the beach can wait.
Already know your kind of day?
Twelve kinds of day here: on a boat, on a horse, on a buggy or under the water. Pick one and the trips follow.
Worth leaving the beach for.
The best days here start with a longer drive. An island off the south coast, a colonial city, a waterfall you climb by hand, mangrove caves only a boat can reach. All doable before the sun goes down.
Three days on the coast.
You can’t fit the whole province into one trip, but three days done in the right order covers the boat, the beach and the backcountry. Here’s the sequence to book them in.
Day 1
Feet in the sand
Sleep off the flight on the beach, wade out at Macao while the surf is up, then a sunset catamaran with the rum already poured. Ease in gently.
Plan day one →
Day 2
The big boat day
The early pickup for Saona: speedboat out, catamaran back, a starfish pool in the middle and a beach buffet under the palms. The day the photos come from.
Plan day two →
Day 3
Mud, caves and throttle
Trade the beach for a buggy: red-dirt trails, a swim in a cool water cave, one last stop at Macao before you hand the keys back caked in mud.
Plan day three →
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