Well apart from a short cruise last year this was my first "real" cruise. I travelled alone and chose this particular cruise because of the itinerary and the timing.
As I was alone I booked all HAL shore excursions - more later.
On arrival at Fort Lauderdale it seemed a bit chaotic. Nobody tried to take my case from me so I didn't realise I should have handed it over until I went through security so I ended up taking it on board myself. This was fine as I could take it straight to my cabin which was ready. Disembarkation was much better and very well organised.
unfortunately there had been a lot of rain the day before so my catamaran tour was cancelled. I now know you need a "back up" choice for a tour in case it doesn’t run so on the spur of the moment I did the Coconut Cove Beach break. The drive there was almost an hour and was pretty hair raising on the top of an open sided truck along unmade up roads! If you had a bad back you would have been in real trouble. The beach itself was quite nice but it was in a cove so you couldn’t walk very far and at each end there was a lot of litter. Not sure if that is normal or just got washed up by the bad weather the previous day. The part we were all sitting on was fine. Because of the previous bad weather it wasn’t worth snorkelling as the water was very murky. The guys looking after us provided entertainment and looked after me when I had a cut on my toe.
The port itself was very high security and you couldn’t really just walk out of it. You needed some kind of transport. The town outside was quite shabby. I don’t know if Puerto Plata is more interesting but I have to say that area of the Dominican Republic has put me off every visiting it again. The scenery wasn’t particularly interesting and everywhere looked shabby. Maybe I am being unfair to the country – I don’t know.
unfortunately there was very heavy rain when we arrived and all tours were cancelled. After a couple of hours the rain eased a bit and many people left the ship to explore the town which was quite badly flooded in the streets. You had to wade through the water but it was warm and there were a few shops open. A bit later I walked away from the town towards the beaches as there was less flooding there and got to Divi Beach. Because I was on my own I decided to get a taxi back to the town in case there was any more rain and it got difficult. The taxi driver was very helpful and said Eagle Beach was only 5 minutes away so he took me there so I could at least see it. I want to go back it was beautiful! I then went back to the port and had another walk around the town – much of the water had gone down by then.