Hello All,
I hope you are safe and happy!
Please don't answer my post unless you have direct experience. Hearsay is problematic. Regarding my question (following), I am in the process of evaluating it but, meanwhile, I thought I could get a quick heads-up here and maybe some additional advice.
I need to take the bus from Sto. Dom. to the Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ). A principal transport company appears to be aptpra.com which has buses leaving from Calle Ravelo, on the south side of Parque Enriquillo on Duarte. In googling, it could be that Bavaro Express is the same. And, again, in googling, there are claims that I can take this bus direcctly to the airport. Other reports contradict that and say that I must take a guagua from the bus station. Hmmm. For international travel, and loaded down, I'm not really feeling like taking any old guagua to the airport, so probably a taxi or Uber, if it is the case that there is no direct bus to the airport. Please clarify as well as give any useful suggestions you may have.
The following is not relevant to my post but I am offering it as FYI. They say that if something appears too good to be true that it probably is not true. I have made a discovery that appears too good to be true but seems to be true. In Q4 I will be leaving for Germany and Netherlands for October, November, and part of December. A budget German airline, Condor, from SDQ has direct flights to Frankfurt but it is loaded with add-on cost "gotchas" and is expensive. The best I can find from Travelocity costs about RD$42,000 one way, 24 hours, with a horrible airport overnight. Now I find out that there is an airline that's been in existence for 20 or so years, headquartered in Germany, which flies from PUJ to either Amsterdam or Brussels for an amazing price of RD$18,000 pesos, a direct flight, around nine hours. Further, as I scrutinize the website and do a test ticket purchase, then abort, it appears that this company pulls no punches: (1) a personal item and a hand-carry luggage for the overhead compartment are FREE although you have to observe the weight and dimension limits. The dimension limit for the personal item is quite small. I'll have to buy a smaller backpack, (2) The fees for checked luggage are cheap, about 30 Euros per. There are price graduations for differet weights, so you can evaluate this in advance, (3) Roughly, there are three flights per week, (4) You get a nice spread of differing costs depending on the day. I'm flying during the low season in October but I still found the prices to be low for March. A German fellow I spoke with regularly flies from PUJ. He can't understand why other Germans have never heard of this company. You can check the website yourself and see what you think: tuifly.be In the domain name, "be" is for Belgium. There are great hostels in Brussels for about 50 Euro per day. You can easily take an ICE train to Germany (the countries share a border) or anywhere else in Europe, including London. Three hundred bucks to Europe, without strings attached, is amazing! (And if you do find strings attached, let us know!)
I hope you are safe and happy!
Please don't answer my post unless you have direct experience. Hearsay is problematic. Regarding my question (following), I am in the process of evaluating it but, meanwhile, I thought I could get a quick heads-up here and maybe some additional advice.
I need to take the bus from Sto. Dom. to the Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ). A principal transport company appears to be aptpra.com which has buses leaving from Calle Ravelo, on the south side of Parque Enriquillo on Duarte. In googling, it could be that Bavaro Express is the same. And, again, in googling, there are claims that I can take this bus direcctly to the airport. Other reports contradict that and say that I must take a guagua from the bus station. Hmmm. For international travel, and loaded down, I'm not really feeling like taking any old guagua to the airport, so probably a taxi or Uber, if it is the case that there is no direct bus to the airport. Please clarify as well as give any useful suggestions you may have.
The following is not relevant to my post but I am offering it as FYI. They say that if something appears too good to be true that it probably is not true. I have made a discovery that appears too good to be true but seems to be true. In Q4 I will be leaving for Germany and Netherlands for October, November, and part of December. A budget German airline, Condor, from SDQ has direct flights to Frankfurt but it is loaded with add-on cost "gotchas" and is expensive. The best I can find from Travelocity costs about RD$42,000 one way, 24 hours, with a horrible airport overnight. Now I find out that there is an airline that's been in existence for 20 or so years, headquartered in Germany, which flies from PUJ to either Amsterdam or Brussels for an amazing price of RD$18,000 pesos, a direct flight, around nine hours. Further, as I scrutinize the website and do a test ticket purchase, then abort, it appears that this company pulls no punches: (1) a personal item and a hand-carry luggage for the overhead compartment are FREE although you have to observe the weight and dimension limits. The dimension limit for the personal item is quite small. I'll have to buy a smaller backpack, (2) The fees for checked luggage are cheap, about 30 Euros per. There are price graduations for differet weights, so you can evaluate this in advance, (3) Roughly, there are three flights per week, (4) You get a nice spread of differing costs depending on the day. I'm flying during the low season in October but I still found the prices to be low for March. A German fellow I spoke with regularly flies from PUJ. He can't understand why other Germans have never heard of this company. You can check the website yourself and see what you think: tuifly.be In the domain name, "be" is for Belgium. There are great hostels in Brussels for about 50 Euro per day. You can easily take an ICE train to Germany (the countries share a border) or anywhere else in Europe, including London. Three hundred bucks to Europe, without strings attached, is amazing! (And if you do find strings attached, let us know!)