Let's begin with me backtracking to when I first came on this site to post a simple request for private transportation. I immediately was harassed and bullied with comments to the fact I was a 'stupid tourist' for simply trying to set up private transportation rather than using the local transportation service.
As conversations and badgering went on, I realized that the DR transportation is heavily unionized taxi drivers. I get that locals need jobs and tourist offer this. However, we were a private group of friends wanting to just relax with no itinerary. Transportation companies kept hounding me trying to get me to 'admit' that we were a tour group which was furthest from the truth.
So we contacted a friend who had family in the DR who were willing to drive us privately. No schedule. No itinerary. Just paid to be available on the off chance someone would want to explore another town. After day one of being in our private rented estate with a guarded main gate, and a gate a each estate, somehow the local Cabrera taxi mafia (I say that with as much politeness as possible), had 5 cars block our drivers in from picking up any of our friends from the airport or allowing us to go anywhere.
Twelve taxi drivers came out screaming and yelling at our friends relatives/drivers. The estate manager called the local police. More screaming and shouting. The tourism police were then called who were suppose to 'represent' tourists/guests to the DR. Tourism police who understood no english whatsoever, so we had to have our house manager translate for us. After five hours of arguing between our drivers and local taxi drivers, it was agreed that we could have our own cars IF rented by my husband. We of course had proof that the cars were indeed all rented in his name, insured in his name and paid for by him. Of course that was not good enough, now we could have the rental cars but they were not allowed to leave the premises. NO airport runs to pick up our friends or to leave on the last day via these rental cars.
So we asked ourselves why rent the cars at all? Returned them. Released our drivers.
These unioned taxi drivers feel that we would be taking away from their profit/income by hiring our own drivers. Did they not know, we rented three estates in their city? Three estates which employed 12, 17 and 23 staff that we paid and tipped for? That we hired three different local musicians to play for our dinner parties? That had we not been so bullied and frustrated by the way the local taxi union treated us, we would have gone into the different cities to shop and explore rather than just staying on the estate and keeping to ourselves.
In the end, half of our guests left via taxi begrudgingly for the poor way we were treated. The other half, not accepting the behavior of the local taxi get the upper hand, chartered helicopter flights out.
It was comical to have the tourist minister come see us on our last day and invite us to his office (which we declined) and hope the next time we come back, that we get a chance to visit his office.
It's a beautiful country, spectacular oceanfront views, warm people if it were not for the ridiculous taxi union. Would we go back? Hesitantly and only would by helicopter charter.
Sorry taxi mafia, had you simply asked that should we travel in town locally, to please consider patronizing your local taxis we would have absolutely done so. You're mistake was muscling your way through both our private gated estate, making a scene with your screaming match and bullying us into not being allowed to even have our own cars.
We also learned prior to leaving that the cities were notorious for bullying tourist into using their unionized drivers frustrating the rental properties. Not to mention how many tourist would come back with the reputation the taxi drivers have?
Not a welcoming DR.
My suggestion to anyone traveling outside of the close airports for 1 to 2 hours look into chartering helicopters to get you where you need to go.
As conversations and badgering went on, I realized that the DR transportation is heavily unionized taxi drivers. I get that locals need jobs and tourist offer this. However, we were a private group of friends wanting to just relax with no itinerary. Transportation companies kept hounding me trying to get me to 'admit' that we were a tour group which was furthest from the truth.
So we contacted a friend who had family in the DR who were willing to drive us privately. No schedule. No itinerary. Just paid to be available on the off chance someone would want to explore another town. After day one of being in our private rented estate with a guarded main gate, and a gate a each estate, somehow the local Cabrera taxi mafia (I say that with as much politeness as possible), had 5 cars block our drivers in from picking up any of our friends from the airport or allowing us to go anywhere.
Twelve taxi drivers came out screaming and yelling at our friends relatives/drivers. The estate manager called the local police. More screaming and shouting. The tourism police were then called who were suppose to 'represent' tourists/guests to the DR. Tourism police who understood no english whatsoever, so we had to have our house manager translate for us. After five hours of arguing between our drivers and local taxi drivers, it was agreed that we could have our own cars IF rented by my husband. We of course had proof that the cars were indeed all rented in his name, insured in his name and paid for by him. Of course that was not good enough, now we could have the rental cars but they were not allowed to leave the premises. NO airport runs to pick up our friends or to leave on the last day via these rental cars.
So we asked ourselves why rent the cars at all? Returned them. Released our drivers.
These unioned taxi drivers feel that we would be taking away from their profit/income by hiring our own drivers. Did they not know, we rented three estates in their city? Three estates which employed 12, 17 and 23 staff that we paid and tipped for? That we hired three different local musicians to play for our dinner parties? That had we not been so bullied and frustrated by the way the local taxi union treated us, we would have gone into the different cities to shop and explore rather than just staying on the estate and keeping to ourselves.
In the end, half of our guests left via taxi begrudgingly for the poor way we were treated. The other half, not accepting the behavior of the local taxi get the upper hand, chartered helicopter flights out.
It was comical to have the tourist minister come see us on our last day and invite us to his office (which we declined) and hope the next time we come back, that we get a chance to visit his office.
It's a beautiful country, spectacular oceanfront views, warm people if it were not for the ridiculous taxi union. Would we go back? Hesitantly and only would by helicopter charter.
Sorry taxi mafia, had you simply asked that should we travel in town locally, to please consider patronizing your local taxis we would have absolutely done so. You're mistake was muscling your way through both our private gated estate, making a scene with your screaming match and bullying us into not being allowed to even have our own cars.
We also learned prior to leaving that the cities were notorious for bullying tourist into using their unionized drivers frustrating the rental properties. Not to mention how many tourist would come back with the reputation the taxi drivers have?
Not a welcoming DR.
My suggestion to anyone traveling outside of the close airports for 1 to 2 hours look into chartering helicopters to get you where you need to go.
