Puerto Plata [POP]

[wowzz]

Mrs Wowzz and I are looking to go for a nice long warm holiday to the Dom Rep next Feb. We have our self-catering villa sorted BUT - how do we get there?
Chater via UK or scheduled via New York - any advice would be most welcome - and just to make things more interesting we live in Southern Spain!!
[please, not a Spanish charter flight!]

[ALLMCC]

I think Air Europa fly from Madrid to POP if that's any help.

[Keyvon]

It's Puerto Plata, not Playa Plata.

Several UK charter airlines (Thomson, Thomas Cook, Monarch) provide direct flights from airports such as Gatwick, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow to Puerto Plata.

[PaperTiger]

American Airlines MAD-MIA/MIA-POP.

[HXdave]

if you are thinking of using a flight from spain to the UK to then get a charter flight out to POP, just be careful with your connections. based on 2 seperate tickets will mean that if your flight spain - uk is delayed / canx, it will have no bearing on your flight uk - POP.

my best bet is maybe like papertiger says by doing a through ticket, otherwise allow plenty of leewat (even overnight) for your UK connections.

[Hartington]

It all depends on precisely where in Southern Spain.

Malaga - Spanair via Madrid or Condor via Frankfurt

If we assume you can get to Madrid Air Canada via Toronto and a through ticket with an Iberia connection to Madrid would overcome the multi ticket issue. Quite possible even though they'rein different alliances but possibly expensive.

[wowzz]

Thanks to all of you who took the time to reply.
In case you are interested, in the end I decided on a Thomson charter, direct from LGW to POP, with us flying into LGW the day before on EZY.
The drawback being that the duration of our holiday is only 3 weeks, rather than our preferred 4.
I looked at the various options suggested that would allow a 4 week stay, the most obvious one being ALC/MAD/MIA, but in each case the outbound and return sectors required a lay-over in MIA. That in itself would not be a deal breaker, but to be honest I couldn't face going through US immigration in MIA twice in 4 weeks!
Just one plea - if you have any better ideas, please don't write, as I have now booked the flights, and would, for the time being, prefer to live in blissful ignorance!

[PaperTiger]

I just found this great deal on....

;)

[Nipper1011]

You have chosen a pretty painless option compared to some of the alternatives. You might want to contact the Embassy of the Dominican Republic (just Google for locations in Madrid and/or London) to get pre-paid tourist cards. This will save you from a long queue when you arrive in POP.

[wowzz]

Thanks Nipper - excellent idea -will do so.

[cym]

was in POP a few months ago and tourist cards took about 5 mins.

Would deffo go for a TOM charter - their longhaul 763's are great, 2-3-2 seating. One word of advice, ring them and prebook actual seats rather than just seats together via the tour operators reservations system (they consider seats one behind the other as next to - I dont and got stung by that one on our outbound flight)

Brilliant place, great people - enjoy ur hols!

[wowzz]

Again - thanks for the info. We are going flight only [booked direct with Thomson] and have booked extra legroom seats [ie bulkhead or exit row] so in theory we should be seated together [not sure what Mrs Wowzz thinks about that] or at the very least be seperated by the aisle.
According to Thomson, they will be e-mailing us 2 months prior to departure so that we can choose our seats ---WHICH---
brings me to my next question --
Best seats extra leg-room seats to POP on TOM066 from LGW [I love this forum!]
Wowzz

[Wingedplumber]

Wowzz,

You'll have an awesome time. It's a great country and good airline to fly with. I went a couple of years ago and stayed at the "RIU Bachata". Itwas absolutely fantastic. Have a good time :ok:

[BlueTui]

I'd go for row 20 A/B or F/G its over the wing. The centre seats(CDE) are used be people crossing from one aisle to the other and the Xleg rooms seats at row 14 are behind the toilets- very busy. Row 11 gets extremely cold during the flights.

Hope this helps. When you book get confirmation and print it out- make sure you take this to the airport in case of any confusion(AKA cock ups)