We started off the morning by making a long walk down the pier to the Taino Bay Cruise Port where we stood in line for 30 minutes waiting for a couple who were late arriving and then boarded a bus for our "Small Group: Highlights and Flavors of Puerto Plata" excursion. Our first stop was Parque Central Independencia, a central park surrounded by the most interesting buildings, and home to the Cathedral of San Felipe, which was closed on the day we visited. We walked around the town square before heading to a shop, Island Treasures for rum and coffee tasting. We spent far too much time in this glorified gift shop as most of us were standing around waiting to go onto the next stop.
We walked to the Paseo de Doña Blanca, a red-painted alley street dedicated to Mrs. Bianca Franceschini, a pioneer in the development of the early tourism industry in Puerto Plata at the end of the 18th century. Our guide gave us a brief overview and then we had free time to walk up and down the street, although there was not much to see.
We walked next to the Umbrella Street, a colorful promenade of gift shops, bars and restaurants. We stopped at El Rincon Del Cafè to sample hot chocolate.
We convened in the square again and stood around doing nothing since the Cathedral was closed before walking to our bus and going to the Dominican Amber Museum to visit La Aurora cigars. We were treated to a demonstration of cigar rolling and could smoke our own cigar, which neither of wanted to do, and then again spent far too much time in their gift shop. We would have liked to have seen the Amber Museum and its displays of amber and fossilized insects, including the one that inspired the cane in Jurassic Park. The museum is allowed to stylize its logo after the Jurassic Park logo in exchange for allowing the movies to use its amber piece with the mosquito in it.
We boarded the bus and headed to a small restaurant called "The garden pop" with some gardens behind it where our guide pointed out some of the local plants before we headed inside for a buffet lunch of Dominican foods. The food was good but not fairly bland and they didn't have the promised plantains.
The bus took us next to Del Oro chocolates where we watched a small video about chocolate production and sampled a hot chocolate and a brownie and then had some very small chocolate samples. Again the emphasis was on getting us into the gift shop where we spent too much time again.
Fort San Felipe was commissioned by King Phillip II of Spain in 1564, and completed in 1577 and still stands to this day. We didn't have time to go inside but we took photos from the exterior and then were delayed by the same couple from the morning who spent far longer than the 10 minutes we were told to spend.
The delay at the fort meant cutting short our rum factory tour at Ron Macorix. We got to sample five small samples of rum and then were ushered to the gift shop.
We arrived back just in time for all aboard and changed clothes and went to the martini bar and IYKYK before the evening show, which was Rebel, A Classic Rock Experience. We had seen these three tenors on a previous cruise. They each had performed on Broadway and the West End before creating a show that had a Las Vegas residency for a number of years. They were really good and this time we had seats in the front to watch them as opposed to the far side where we were last time.
After last night, dinner was nothing to speak about. J. R. tried the pork again, this time a tenderloin wrapped around sausage and it was equally inedible as the first night's. We wanted to go to the show "Hotel" in the club but the venue is far too small to fit the number of guests so if you don't get there an hour early, you either don't get a seat or have horrible sightlines due to the upper level of the Club.
