If you cruise a lot, you will most likely at some point find yourself in the Dominican Republic. There are currently 4 ports in the DR. One of our favorites is Amber Cove.

While there is a lot to do in this port, we always do the same thing and absolutely love it… The beach! And the beach we go to is a local beach called La Playita.

This beach is quite literally next to the port, but there is a huge wall separating it, so you can not access it directly from  the port. Fortunately, it is walkable or a short taxi ride from the port.

We always choose to walk there and usually taxi back. So in order to get to this beach, you are going to walk all the way through the port past all the shops and pools until you see the above taxi/ excursion pick up, continue walking past all of this and you will come to a gate. Once through there,  you are going to go to your left on the main road. From there, you are going to continue for about a half a mile. Now during this walk, there will be tour guides and taxi services that will try to convince you to take their tour or go to better beaches etc. Kindly decline and keep walking.

The first left you are able to take off of this main road is where you turn. You will be on this road roughly another half of a mile. At some point, you will question where the heck you are going as you walk past taxi depots etc. Trust me, keep going it is worth it. You will then start seeing signs for the beach.

Then you will come to a gate and someone will greet you asking if you want a table and chairs which are FREE! You will follow them through some little shops and voila, you will suddenly walk onto a beach full of palm trees and it’s secluded. They will set the chairs and table up for you wherever you would like to sit. Then they will give you a menu for drinks and food.

The nice thing is this is a local beach, so not very crowded. You almost feel like you have found a hidden gem that most people dont know about. Best part is that access is free, table and chairs free,the drinks and food are fresh and local and very inexpensive.

There are so many good things here. as you can see above, the ship is literally right in front of you,and the water is pretty shallow, so you can walk out quite a ways. There are rocks off to the side that you can climb and collect shells. I do as always recommend water shoes as you never know how the terrain will be.

The locals are incredibly friendly and not pushy. The server who brought you the chairs and table is your guy throughout. they wear a number. They take your order and bring back your items to you. another nice thing is that you do not pay until the end. When you go to leave you find that number shop by the entrance and your person will find you and walk you there. You can browse their shop but aren’t obligated to buy and then you pay for the drinks/ food .

There are braiders there, and they will ask, but do not pressure you, and if you say no, they are nice and kindly leave you alone. Another cool thing above is that occasionally they have animals they bring around that you can take photos with. Now, unlike every other port I have been to, they did not charge anything at all nor ask for a tip. It was simply something nice for everyone to enjoy.

Once we settled our bill, we then got a taxi back to port, which can be found right at the entrance to the beach. Which, by the way our taxi ride cost $4.00.

If you get back to port with time to spare as we do, there is still free fun to be had. At the port, there is a free water area that is huge. Swimming pools, lazy river tons of chairs and loungers, bars, music, etc. Now some may choose to do this instead of the beach and that is also a good way to spend the day.

There are also tons of shopping opportunities at the port. Although, in my opinion, for the most part you aren’t going to find any great deals there. If you want that, I would suggest going out of the port and finding local vendors.

So this is how we spend our time in Amber Cove. It is always great to see this as a port on the itinerary. A relaxing, fun, and inexpensive day.