The Caribbean Baseball series started up on Feb 2. The four championship clubs that will be competing are The Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Mexico. The first two games yesterday went to the Dominican Republic (Leones del Escogido) over Mexico (Obregon Yaquis) and Puerto Rico (Indians of Mayagüez) over Venezuela (Aragua Tigers). The games were played in the Capitol of the DR, Santo Domingo at the Quisqueya Stadium.

Today it will be Puerto Rico vs Mexico and the Dominican Republic vs Venezuela.

Baseball is pretty much THE sport of the Dominican Republic (well, if you don’t count dominoes) (more…)

Good and bad news for Dominican Republic iPhone users! The Good News? Apple has announced that it will be making the new iPhone 4S available in the Dominican Republic as an “unlocked” version. Bad News? As expected not all features will be available in the DR. While both Orange and Claro will have the unlocked version available to their customers they will both have different features available.

According to Apple, for Claro the 4S iPhone will be locked to the carrier, have access to MMS and Claro hotspots in the Dominican Republic but will not offer authorized unlocking or visual voicemail. Orange includes the feature of having authorized unlocking but likewise will not offer the “Visual Voicemail” service.

Some of the more interesting features of the new iPhone 4S includes: (more…)

If you are living in the Dominican Republic and felt some shaking this morning (Thursday), no it wasn’t a sound car going by, yes we had another earthquake.

The quake this morning registered at 5.3 and occurred at 5:35 in the morning about 34 miles west of Santo Domingo. (more…)

Part of the upcoming action and suspense movie “The Truth” was filmed in Santo Domingo last Monday. Some of the actors and actresses you might have seen in town were Eva Longoria, Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia, Kim Coates, Deborah Kara Unger, Bostick Devon, Steven Bauer and Kevin Durand. (more…)

One of the major airlines flying into the Dominican Republic announced that it will be filing for bankruptcy.

AMR American Airlines and American Eagle

AMR is the parent company for both American Airlines (AA) and American Eagle so problems affecting one of the airlines will be affecting both. AMR has stated that it has $4.1 Billion dollars in cash to pay to keep services going for the two airlines so at this time it would appear your tickets for American Airlines of American Eagle to and from the Dominican Republic will remain valid. That includes if you have frequent flyer miles under the AAdvantage program of American Airlines and OneWorld Alliance.

In the press release issued by American Airlines today it was stated that they and American Eagle “EXPECT TO CONTINUE” normal services, and flight schedules as well as make reservations, exchanges and offer refunds under its normal rules.

Thomas W. Horton, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of AMR and American Airlines, said, (more…)

In the wake of closing over 100 stores in North America, they now have plans to open a new store in the Dominican Republic. Office Depot’s Vice President Ernst Wessel is quoted to have said “Office Depot is excited to open our first store in the Dominican Republic and we are looking forward to expanding our footprint in the Caribbean territory. We’ve had considerable success with our franchise model in the Middle East. We believe that the Office Depot business is particularly suitable and attractive as a franchising concept for certain territories and we are actively looking to grow this part of our business in a number of overseas markets.”

Office Depot is a global supplier of small business products and services ranging from paper and paper clips to office furniture, computers and commercial electronics. The Dominican Republic store will be opened in Santo Domingo at (more…)

As expected Hurricane Irene inflicted quite a bit of damage to the DR. Irene slowly moved past Puerto Plata as a category 2 hurricane lashing the area with sustained winds up to 95 mph. More than 100 families were evacuated from the Puerto Plata area and moved to improvised shelters. At least 14 houses were destroyed by the sea. A canal also overflowed in the LA Javilla area engulfing several houses and causing the evacuation of at least 15 families.

Landslides caused by the heavy rain were found on the Luperon Highway connecting Santiago and Puerto Plata causing traffic issues on this heavily used route.

Schools reopened

Both public and private schools were closed yesterday due to the hurricane. While for the most part they were reopened this morning, in some areas there are still hard rains and winds keeping schools in a few areas of the country closed.

Santo Domingo

Two of the rivers in Santo Domingo burst their banks (more…)

American Airlines has announce it will wave change fees for passengers affected by Hurricane Irene. This allows passengers to rebook their flights to specific location from specific dates.

Flights from these locations can be rebooked.
La Romana/Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic (LRM)
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (PAP)
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic (POP)
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (PUJ)
San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU)
Santiago, Dominican Republic (STI)
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (SDQ)
St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (STX)
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (STT)
Tortola, Beef Island, British Virgin Islands (EIS)

These are the applicable dates. (more…)

Customers traveling through Tuesday, August 23 to/from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic may rebook flights through August 27 –

NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –

Due to inclement weather forecasted to impact the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico areas, JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU) will waive change/cancel fees and fare differences for Customers traveling through Tuesday, August 23, 2011 to/from the following cities:

• Puerto Rico
  • San Juan (SJU)
  • Ponce (PSE)
  • Aguadilla (BQN)
• Dominican Republic
  • Santo Domingo (SDQ)
  • Santiago (STI)
  • Puerto Plata (POP)
  • Punta Cana (PUJ)

Customers may rebook their flights for travel through Saturday, August 27, 2011 by calling 1-800-JETBLUE (538-2583) prior to the departure time of their originally scheduled flight. Customers with cancelled flights may also opt for a refund to the original form of payment by calling 1-800-JETBLUE (538-2583). Original travel must have been booked on or before Sunday, August 21, 2011. (more…)

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…)