American Airlines affiliate American Eagle announced it will be resuming it’s flights to La Romana-Casa de Campo International Airport (LRM) from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan (SJU).

The flights are set for Friday and Sunday with the flight from San Juan Puerto Rico to La Romana leaving at 12:25 pm and arriving in La Romana at 1:25 pm and the flight from La Romana leaving at 2:00 pm and arriving in San Juan Puerto Rico at 3:00 pm.

This flight works out well if you would like to spend a weekend out of your DR vacation in Puerto Rico. You can Leave the DR on Friday and come back the following Sunday.

San Juan is known as “La Ciudad Amurallada” or “the walled city”. It’s on the Northern Coastline of Puerto Rico. Likely your visit would include some of the major points of interest like “Old San Juan” with its numerous plazas, parks and forts. One of the more interesting forts is “El Morro” an awesome looking 6 level fortress. There are also many museums of interest as well as other historical buildings. Many of these buildings were constructed in the 1500’s to the 1800’s.

Then of course there is the food. You will find food from all over the world here with great restaurants serving French, Italian, Asian, Greek, Spanish and German food.

Luggage thief has gotten bad enough in the Santo Domingo airport – Las Americas (SDQ) that two of the air lines have made a formal complaint. Air France and Jet Blue have both asked the Las Americas International Airport to halt the thief of their passenger’s luggage.

Although apparently this has gotten much worse over the last few weeks, this is a constant problem with DR airports. During my travels back and forth I have had many things stolen from my checked in bags. Having items that I have carefully packed to keep from breaking are unwrapped and put back in the luggage bag haphazardly so they will break is also common.

There are also the carryon luggage checks where items that have passed though several other checks are now considered too dangerous as you are heading into the DR. Very common complaints on that one are hair curling irons and Hair Straightener Irons or flat irons. Usually that means they confiscate the item.

Unfortunately there is no good way around this problem. (more…)

One of my family’s favorite activities in the DR is snorkeling. We make sure to take our snorkel gear to every new beach we try. So far of the over a dozen beaches we have visited in the Dominican Republic we like the beach in Las Terrenas best for snorkeling, but there are a few tricks you need to learn to be able to have the best experience.

1. Go in the morning. Most mornings the water is calm keeping you from being beat around as much by the waves. There is also less wind so the water isn’t choppy and you are able to see by the color of the water what is under the surface. This helps you to find the best snorkeling locations.
2. Sunny, Cloudy or light rain doesn’t really matter. We do a lot of snorkeling in the rain, you don’t really even notice.
3. Look for the right terrain. There are four different types of underwater terrain you will find in Las Terrenas. You look for the right color in the water, you can tell from a distance the best areas to snorkel.
   • Dark Green: These are grassy mats. These are good areas to walk out to other locations on. While you may find some very small fish in the grass, this is usually not the best area to go snorkeling in.
   • Blue, Light Blue: Usually these are the sandy areas and pools. You won’t find too many fish in the middle of these pools but as you go around the edges you will find more.
   • Dark Blue and Turquoise: Deep water areas. If you are a bit afraid of the ocean you will likely want to avoid these areas. I’ve found the best snorkeling to be in less than 10 foot deep of water anyway. You are more likely to find larger fish in these areas, but most beginner snorkelers choose the more shallow areas.
   • Rust colored areas: These are areas with a lot of rock. These are the ideal snorkeling areas. The fish like to be able to hide easily. Large sections of this porous rock (rocks with holes for the fish to hide in) and coral beds make for the best snorkeling. Find a shallow enough area where you can touch a rock with your foot or hand to keep you steady and wait. Within a few seconds to a minute the fish will start coming out. Soon you will be treated to a wide variety of blues, greens and yellows from the schools of fish that will start surrounding you.

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There’s Chicago style pizza, New York style pizza, California style pizza and then there is Dominican style pizza…….. There are many things that Dominicans do great, but sorry guys pizza isn’t one of them…

Casa Azul

Then we come across Casa Azul in Las Terrenas. Well, it was made by Dominicans and very friendly ones but the result? Well, let’s say I’ve found a new favorite place to get a pizza! This pizza was made in an actual stone oven giving it a slight smoky flavor and as to be expected with stone oven pizzas you get the small close to burnt spots on the crust (something that many feel marks a truly great pizza) which actually adds to the flavor.

The sauce was flavorful pizza sauce not the ketchup sauce that is frequently found in many pizzerias in this country. It was layered on a relatively thin, crisp crust that took in some of the smoke flavor from the oven.

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Well, this little piece of news should be spurring the young Dominican males to even greater heights of frenzy when it comes to baseball. The Rangers have been reported to have signed on a 16 year old out fielder from the Dominican Republic, out fielder Nomar Mazara and to the tune of a little over 5 Million.
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