We’ll just say it up front: La Romana was not our favorite port. And we don’t say that lightly, because we try to find the good in almost every stop. But this one earned an honest review, so here it is.

A Late Add-On With a Steep Price Tag

This stop landed on our itinerary with only a week’s notice, which meant every excursion Royal Caribbean offered was priced like it knew we had no other options. Want to go to a beach? That’ll be $130. We passed.

One of the big draws in the area is Altos de Chavón, a replica Italian village built as a tourist attraction. We’ll admit, after having actually been to Italy, the idea of touring a reproduction of it in the Caribbean just didn’t call to us. And yes, we know how that sounds. But if you need proof of how seriously the place takes its Italian cosplay: when it opened, they flew in Frank Sinatra to sing there. That’s the level of commitment we’re talking about.

The Cruise Port Isn’t Really La Romana

Here’s the geography of it: La Romana is a real, functioning Dominican city. But the cruise port sits across a river from it, and to the east of the port — running pretty much all the way to the ocean — is privately owned resort property. That’s where you’ll find Altos de Chavón, a golf course people rave about, and resorts like Bahia, which offers day passes if you want to post up at their pool.

In practice, this means you disembark into what feels like a shopping mall. Not because La Romana itself isn’t a real city — it absolutely is — but because as a cruise passenger, you never actually go there. You’re funneled into a concrete complex with a pool, a duty-free store, and a bar. We use the word “beach” loosely here, because what we found was a row of beach chairs facing a plexiglass wall, with no actual beach behind it. Chairs. Plexiglass. That’s it.

To be fair, the drinks at the bar were cheaper than on the ship, so there’s that.

What We’d Do Differently

If we’d had this port on our itinerary from the start instead of as a last-minute add, we would have planned to actually leave the resort bubble. Santo Domingo is less than two hours away and there are guided tours available. Punta Cana is also within reach if that’s more your speed. The point is: go somewhere.

There’s also a rum angle here for anyone as into that as we are. Apparently it’s about a 40-minute walk from the port into the city, where a large grocery store is known for having an incredible rum selection. Under different circumstances, we’d have been all over a rum quest like that. But between the heat and still feeling burned from our taxi experience in St. Thomas, we didn’t attempt it. And the heat really was something — we were still on the ship walking to the buffet when we agreed that back home, this would be a heat advisory day, the kind where they tell you to just stay inside.

So while we did technically set foot in the Dominican Republic, it felt like we were sealed off from anything real or authentic about it. So much pavement, so little of an actual city in sight.

What We Brought Home Anyway

Even a port we didn’t love came with a few good souvenirs.

We picked up a bottle of Ron Bermudez, a special anniversary bottling that’s only sold in the Dominican Republic — you won’t find it in the US. It’s a drier, Spanish-style rum, which happens to be our favorite kind, so we’re looking forward to trying it.

We also found a chocolate shop selling excellent Dominican chocolate, which we bought and packed straight into a suitcase that then sat in roughly 120-degree heat in the trunk of a rental car. Lesson learned: the chocolate survived, technically, but it came out looking like abstract art after a stint in the freezer. It still tastes fine. Consider this your warning if you’re chocolate shopping anywhere in the Caribbean — it’s a risk, not a guarantee.

The real find was a cacao husk tea. We tried a sample in the store and it tasted like a liquified chocolate bar without being hot chocolate — hard to describe, but genuinely good, somewhere in the neighborhood of a cold brew but meant to be steeped like tea rather than pressed like coffee.

The Bottom Line

We can’t really say we’ve been to the Dominican Republic. Not in any way that counts. We stepped off a ship, walked through a resort compound, sweated through the heat, and went back to the less crowded pool on the ship. If La Romana ends up on your itinerary, do yourself a favor and book something that actually gets you off the resort property — Santo Domingo, Punta Cana, or even that rum-soaked walk into town if the heat cooperates. Otherwise, you’ll just enjoy some hot concrete and a pool.

Thanks for stopping by! Check out our Go See Do Explore Podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts. To read more about this trip, check out the Island Hopping from San Juan Trip Report. To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here.