I had booked our air separately and we flew non-stop from New York’s JFK airport into Puerto Plata, which is on the North coast of the Dominican Republic. We had been quoted a price of $35 per night per person for a hotel located right on the beach, with pool , breakfast, and dinner included. The room was to be a 1-bedroom apartment overlooking the pool area and there was to be a 23% tax added, but if we stayed 2 or more nights, we would get a 20% discount. I was apprehensive due to the low price but an old acquaintance had recommended the place if we did not need all the amenities of an all-inclusive.

We arrived at Puerto Plata Airport and after a short wait for our luggage, were faced with a long line at customs. For some reason, the customs agent walked directly up to us, about half way into one of the long lines, and told us to go. So, we did and were happy not to have to wait in the line because the agents were going through the bags of passengers very thoroughly. Most of the passengers on our American Airlines flight from JFK were Dominican and had huge bags packed to the limit with stuff other than clothes and personal articles.

As we exited the doors of the terminal, there were ropes to either side and those waiting to greet arriving passengers as well as the guys that help to carry luggage were not allowed inside them. There was a uniformed police presence and we had a clear and easy walk to the line of waiting taxis. We didn’t want to just grab the first taxi that asked so we walked off to the side to grab a beer. I had heard that tourists were being aggressively hassled at the Puerto Plata airport as "maleteros" were demanding that they carry passengers’ luggage a very short distance and then demanding high payment. We stood around and watched, and while they were eager to help, I did not witness any problems and they seemed to take no for an answer quickly and moved on when arrivals did not want help. Whatever problem had existed before seemed to have been taken care of.

We ultimately selected a cab and were charged RD$150 (US$10) for a 15 minute ride to our hotel in Sosua.

Arrival at Sosua by the Sea was uneventful. The reception area was tiny as this was not a huge hotel. We were checked in and minutes later a porter carried our bags to our room. I had received an E-mail confirming that we would have an apartment size room overlooking the pool area. When our room did not overlook the pool, I returned to the reception and was informed that the only rooms that overlook the pool were studios. Apparently, they were not honest when I made the reservation, which was done in English via E-mail.

I returned to the room but the air conditioner was only blowing warm air. We switched to another room but it had the same problem. The third room had air that worked, but not great. During the trip, the temp never got below 75F per my travel thermometer but it was adequate.

The room was very nice and it was quite large. There was a separate bedroom with a tiny balcony that contained a small table and a couple of chairs. It overlooked kind of a passageway between buildings that had plenty of foliage. We never used the balcony. The bedroom had a single full-size bed (not queen or king) and I found it a little on the short side. There was adequate space to put my clothes in the dresser and vanity. The bedroom had a phone.

Outside the bedroom was a single bed, a sitting chair, a coffee table, a dining room table, a TV with HBO and lots of cable channels in a variety of languages, another phone, a safe (for which we had been given the key), a bar (unstocked), a sink with a mini-refrigerator below it, a stove and oven. No utensils were provided but they could be obtained from the restaurant if needed and I had noticed some in the other rooms that I had turned down for lack of air. This place was big and comfortable and also had a ceiling fan.

The bathroom was split into two parts so the toilet and shower were in a separate room with a door (very small). The sink and mirror were just outside in another little room (no door) and a wall to one side that provided open closet space with a pipe below a shelf and some hangers.

The room included plenty of extra pillows and so far, I felt I was really getting a bargain. The floor was tiled and the furniture was wicker. The place was in good shape, but not outstanding.

We had problems with the shower during our entire trip and the hotel staff was not able to do anything about it accept to offer to move us to another room. The problem was that if any hot water at all was turned on, only scalding hot water came out of the shower head. We managed by just barely turning the hot water on, and I mean just barely, and it was acceptable, although very difficult to maintain a decent temperature as it varied between ice cold and scalding hot. Also, the hot water pressure seem to be reduced to a sputtering (all faucets) many times during our stay where no hot water at all could be obtained and this apparently was a problem with the hotel’s pump.

The pool was nice but nothing spectacular. Free unlimited beach towels were provided in the pool area as were beach chairs. One did not have to sign for the towels. When we arrived, there were hardly any other guests at the hotel and we practically had the pool to ourselves. The only shortage was of beach umbrellas if you wanted shade. There were a few, but not enough. There was also a grassy area where one could hang out on beach chairs, and some guests did.

The hotel was located on a rock cliff and it was really quite beautiful. There wasn’t a beach directly in front of the hotel, just rocks, but to the right was a small beach (about 50 yards wide) that was bordered on both sides by rocks so it was only accessible via our hotel on one side and a couple of the hotels behind it and on the other side. This beach area was fine for swimming and usually had 10 or fewer people on it, a couple guys with jet skis to rent, and some hair braiders. There were sidewalks that wound through the rocks (a very nice walk at night) and occasionally a beach vendor would pass by. It was easy to get drinks. Either the jet ski guys would retrieve them for you, or you could walk 40 feet in any direction and be at the bar of one of the hotels (including the one at Sosua by the Sea).

Off to the left side of the rock cliffs of Sosua by the Sea is the Casa Marina Hotel. This is a huge all-inclusive hotel with the nicest beach in Sosua. Its beach is not as big as the public beach called Sosua Beach, but I think it is the best looking. It turns out that almost all of the bars and restaurants at Casa Marina are open to the public, as is their beach and their vast water sports selection. So the residents of Sosua by the Sea can simply step down the stairs and be on a huge flat beach and rent whatever they want.

Everything in town including restaurants, shops, cafes, bars, stores, etc. are within walking distance of Sosua by the Sea and there are motoconchos standing by everywhere if you don’t feel like walking 2 – 10 blocks to get wherever it is you are going for RD$5 (US$0.70) per person during the day and double that price after dark. There are also plenty of taxis standing by right out front. None of the 3 main discos in town are walking distance unless you want to walk about ½ mile.

The included breakfast and dinner at Sosua by the Sea, while limited in selection was very good in quality. The breakfast include eggs cooked to order and fresh squeezed juices. Service was excellent when the hotel was relatively unoccupied and dropped to just plain good when lots of other guests arrived towards the end of our 9 day stay. Drinks were not included, nor was lunch, and we were bored with the food at the single restaurant by the third day and opted for some of the surrounding places in town. Food was of good quality and service was excellent, and I mean excellent, everywhere we went. This was a refreshing change from what I had experienced at other Caribbean destinations.

On Friday and Saturday nights, a special restaurant in a romantic setting was also available at an extra cost at Sosua by the Sea and guests on the meal plan at the hotel were offered a generous credit towards the cost of eating there but we never got the chance to try it. It looked real nice but I was more than satisfied with their tasty dinners and marvelous setting that was included with the hotel.

Amazing as it was to get all this at such a low price, for some reason, we were only charged US$25 per person per night at the end of our stay. I did not question the charges and was very happy with my stay. I did tour the fabulous Casa Marina resort next door, and they were charging about US$80 per night per person, all-inclusive. They had a few massive and gorgeous swimming pools. I might opt to stay at Casa Marina next time, just because it also seemed like a great value, but for the money we paid at Sosua by the Sea, I was ecstatic with the place. The staff was 100% friendly, they hustled, and always served us graciously and with a smile. For budget travelers, this place definitely gets a thumbs up. It was small enough that every staff member there knew us by the end of our stay.

The town of Sosua is quite quaint. It was very clean with freshly paved asphalt roads and no shady characters hanging around the street. Just about anything you want could be bought at the local stores, at least anything somebody on vacation would want, and it was very peaceful to walk the streets at night and stop at the various outdoor bars and restaurants for a coffee, a beer, or a bite to eat.

Down to one side of town was a street where all the small independent vendors were located. It was a street lined with shacks, end to end and on both sides of the street, selling locally made wares, t-shirts, stuff from Haiti including wood carvings and paintings, etc.

At the end of the road was Sosua Beach. Sosua Beach was in the shape of a big horseshoe in its own little cove. It was a nice beach and the back side of it was lined with more shacks selling trinkets, t-shirts, local wares, beach food, etc. There were lots of independent water sports available such as water skiing but I was disappointed at the lack of boats with sufficient power. We skied 1 day behind the best boat we could find but later opted to water ski behind the 7000cc jet skis that were available for rent over by Sosua by the Sea. The water was very calm on some days and not so calm on others with small waves breaking on the shore, sizeable enough to play in.

The sand was a golden brown everywhere we went and we found it difficult to walk on it in our bare feet because the sun really heated it up.

The 3 main discos in Sosua were Casa del Sol, High Caribe, and Copa Cabana. Casa del Sol had cheated us as we had been handed coupons for free entrance but they refused to honor them when we arrived and we had to pay a small cover charge. Inside was a huge warehouse style disco with good mix of tourists and locals. They did a short Michael Jackson act-alike one night and we had a great time. This was the place to go earlier in the evening. The other two discos were typical of any American glass-and-chrome disco, were well air-conditioned, very nice, and had modern disco lighting and sound systems. They were a little dressier and were 80% tourists. Most of the locals were Dominican men dancing with tourist women, and they sure know how to dance. Both High Caribe and Copa Cabana were first class discos. They didn’t get real crowded until after 1:00am. My favorite place aside from the discos was a big outdoor bar called Merengue Bar.

For RD$75 (US$5) each, we took montoconchos (125cc motorcycle taxis) and the same price (RD$150 or US$10) for a taxi for the 15 minute ride to the town of Cabarete. There, we encountered a beach town with, at some spots, businesses so packed together is was difficult to find beach access. This was definitely wind-surf territory. The water had a decent surf breaking on it and the beach was huge with soft sand. The back side of the beach was lined with place after place to eat or drink and they set up tables and chairs on the beach for dinner as dusk approached.

The water had hundreds of wind-surfers out in it and the beach had a continuous flow of blowing sand in the area between the beach and 6 inches above the beach. The stuff we left sitting in the sand was covered with several inches of sand after only ½ hour. We rented some beach chairs to lay down along the back side of the beach and there wasn’t a problem with the blowing sand further from the water.

Down at one end of the beach, the businesses that line the back side are replaced by small sand dunes and it was easy to find a relatively secluded spot to drop our stuff off and hang out swimming in the water for a couple of hours. The main beach was loaded with surf boards and wind surf boards.

We wanted to find a pool to rinse off in because the local spigots of water that we found between some of the restaurants for some reason were not putting out water, even though we had seen them running earlier. We checked a couple of the places with pools on the beach by they wanted over US$100 for a room so we crossed the street to the other side and checked into a hotel for the afternoon for US$50 so we could use their pool. The price was all-inclusive but there wasn’t any food available until 7:00pm and we left before that so we never got to eat anything there.

We toured Puerto Plata one day and saw some of the historical sites related to Columbus but thought it kind of old and run down compared to Sosua and Cabarete. We also toured the mega resorts that make up the Playa Dorada Complex. We found that area to be quite fabulous and private, with some nice golf available and some very good-looking grounds and hotels. I believe the complex is made up of about 7 mega-hotels, each being all-inclusive. This is where I would stay if I had no interest in sampling the true Dominican culture or interacting with the locals and just wanted a luxury Caribbean vacation without hassles.

Sosua by the Sea was a great value for the budget traveler, with an excellent location a good pool, very good food, excellent service, big rooms, and we would not hesitate to go back. The town of Sosua was very clean and quaint and we had a great time. Cabarete had a huge beach and the town was a bit congested and built up for my tastes but a wind-surfer’s paradise. Puerto Plata seemed old and run-down compared to the other places but had a few historically interesting sites. Playa Dorada is recommended for those looking for a luxury all-inclusive isolated from the locals. I’ll definitely be back to Sosua.