I've rated many different experiences and lodgings in the past, mostly very positive. It takes a lot to make me give a negative review. Meeting up with our driver was.. interesting. All the licensed independent tour guides gather in one area to meet their guests, just outside the port. We arrived early, and as our meetup time came and went, the local guides kept an eye on us and would check in occasionally. We showed them our Viator confirmation with the name of the company, and they were obviously unfamiliar with the group. They did introduce us to the representative from the government's Department of Tourism, who stays on site to keep an eye on things. That is when we discovered that this tour is not run by a licensed tour operator. This is a taxi driver who was uncomfortable coming to the same area with the licensed guides. The government official explained to us that this is a problem the Dominican Republic is working on; to make sure all guides are licensed. He contacted our driver for us, and told him to come and meet us. After he met with the driver, he was comfortable with letting us proceed with our trip, and we felt better that someone knew where we were going, and with whom. Our taxi driver did not speak English. That is, his English is about the same level as my Spanish, which is muy pequito. He would speak into his phone, and use Google Translate to narrate the trip. Stops on the trip included shops run by his family and friends. We cut the trip short and returned to the ship. The one star was earned for having a clean car and being friendly. If you decide to go this route, with having a taxi driver just run you around town, you will be better off just going to the taxi stand and paying WAY less than we did for our trip.

This tour was awesome! We booked it through Viator as a private sightseeing tour. Rigo was the best tour guide ever. He was a native of the island and knew it well. He explained the history of the culture of Dominican Republic. He took use through various neighborhoods, Umbrella street, walking downtown, a jewelry store where we purchased some beautiful jewelry unique to this island. He was so much fun, took many pictures of us at our request. Very knowledgeable and we would take him again when we visit the island. I would highly recommend “Pop Dominican Travel” to everyone. You won’t be disappointed. Charlie from California!

We chose this tour after reading good reviews, unfortunately our experience was anything but good. Our driver seemed to have little interest in showing us around, tour was estimated at 4 hours, ours lasted around 2.5 hours, thankfully. We visited a rum factory which our driver said was not the best rum, a cigar factory that was actually a small shop in town, a chocolate and coffee factory again a small shop where they tried to get you to buy small bars of chocolate for 20$ probably 2$ Back in USA. We were rushed through pink street and umbrella street, we had to ask to go to the fortress as the driver did not offer to take us and when we got there did not seem happy that we wanted to get out.