What exactly is an AI

the idea of an AI is to keep you from spending your money anywhere else. they provide you with food, entertainment and a piece of the beach (that is private for hotel guests only).

the bottom line though is AI---no guests, no chicas..

With respect to Kyle's post and point of view, while his comment about "no guests, no chicas" is almost always true at AIs (All Inclusives); it is also totally irrelevant to the vast majority of tourists to the DR. While there is a fairly small market segment to whom this is important the largest demographic groups (by a country mile) vacationing in the DR are couples and families, neither of which could care less about "guest" policies at AIs.

AIs are marketed as a relatively inexpensive and definitely convenient way to vacation in the DR and other areas. They range from very economical vacations for the masses to upscale luxury accommodations with lots of marble, jacuzzi tubs, butler and concierge service, gourmet dining and many included perks. Of course as the guest amenities climb in number so does the price tag.

Most of the AI guests don't pay a day rate but pay a rate set by a Tour Operator who block books the hotel rooms, arranges the flights from your point of origin and in many cases arranges the transfer from your arrival airport and your hotel/resort and combines these into a package vacation price.

It is generally possible to pay a day rate by booking on the hotel/resort's website but unless you are getting a deal the rack rate will often be more expensive than many Tour Operator's package which includes airfare.

If you have any specific questions, please post and we'll do our best.

Gregg

with respect to FireGuy's post, no guests covers a wide range. for example, some AI's don't let your friends come up to your room unless you are a hotel guest. i had a groups of friends all travel to the DR and we stayed in different hotels. we could not even come to each other's rooms, we had to talk in the lobby.
as far as the chica part, there are a lot of people that do care and is relevant to quite a majority of people especially the ones who date REAL dominican women.
sorry i didn't paint a cloud with a silver lining in it but that's me.....

be safe, have fun !!

Kyle is, generally speaking, correct; no guests means no guests (due to the all-inclusive nature of the resort) but if it's really important most resorts have a day (or evening) rate which will permit short term guests to visit with you and partake of the resort offerings or you can choose to meet on neutral ground for lunch or share an excursion, etc., etc.

In general the no chica rule is etched in stone and they won't be permitted access, period. Fortunately this is of little or no consequence to almost all AI guests, few of whom date Dominicanas. The vast majority of those who wish to date Dominicanas know the AI rules and simply stay in guest friendly local hotels which are generally found closer to the local bars where the chicas may be found in the evenings. While there are exceptions, AIs are more often than not located geographically away from the chica bars.

Gregg

AIs......sigh, after having sold timeshares in a previous life, I'l share my .02 cents

AIs are for those afraid to mingle within the society of the country they are visiting. AIs are for those who want someone else to book the trip, fun, sun and outings

AIs.......not me......I don't want mass food, bar booze and gringas around me on a prsitine beach......give me local flavor, local color, and the ladrones that walk the the streets (I'm one too)

On a recent trip I saw many an arm band in the streets of the city out "looking for fun".....

I wit Kyle on this one!

Unfortunately many on this site lose or never had a true idea of the numbers of tourists who come here and it is not ever about the chicas......... The majority of tourists come for a vacation and not for the girls.

Most tourists arrive as part of a package offered by a Tour Operator as Fireguy indicated. They don't care about "guest friendly" and many times comments directed at that just confuse the issue.

All Inclusives are often a good reasonable introduction to a new country, a new area or simply a convenient way to vacation. It packages all the elements for one stop shopping which is a huge selling advantage. For those more adventurous souls they can always coordinate their own trips.

AI's for the most part package everything into one so you don't have to think about anything unless you want to.

We always recommend that you get out of the hotel and get a taste of this country. Next time you come back, maybe you will stay outside the AI and have more of an economic impact directly. there is so much to see outside the AI but it is a really good base! I know many people who visit regularly and always stay in an AI but get out of the hotel often.

planner said:

there is so much to see outside the AI but it is a really good base! I know many people who visit regularly and always stay in an AI but get out of the hotel often.

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Exactly.
If I had to stay on the resort, I wouldn't even go.
Plus the price difference on the flight alone is often negligible or even nonexistant.

The AI is a nice secure home base and a sanctuary away from the chicas.:laugh:

AI, means, A-rtificial I-nteligence. In other words, A place were robots are made. But don't try to go there. It's usually dangerous because of radiation and such, plus I was once subjected to unusual probing. I think it's mostly an alien-jacking place for unsuspecting tourists. If I were you, I wouldn't key-in "DR1", Oh ****, I just did! aaaaarrrghhhh! Nooooooo!!!!

pyratt said:

AIs......sigh, after having sold timeshares in a previous life, I'l share my .02 cents

AIs are for those afraid to mingle within the society of the country they are visiting.................

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I have heard similar statements often and I would say that my experience has not made me to agree with it. I have had the opportunity to visit the DR 4 times. Each time I have flown into Santiago and I usually stay there, other than making side-visits for a few days to either Sosua or Santo Domingo. In santiago, I always stay at the Aloha Sol and in Sosua, I always stay at Club Residencial and in Santo Domingo, I stay at the Marriott but usually eat out at all these hotels. I have a very close friend (dominican) living in santiago that I usually spend some time with, when I visit but other than my friend/his family and the hotel/restaurant workers that I come across, I really can't say that I have mingled with dominicans. I attended the same college with my dominican friend here in the US before he went back to santiago and we have always kept in touch. If not for him, I think that my experience would have been further limited.

What I am trying to say is that I really do not see how staying in an AI (with frequent visit to the town) versus staying in a regular hotel would have made much of a diiference for me with mingling with dominicans since the staff of these AI's are also dominicans unless someone is going there for the girls. Sosua is an interesting example because other than sitting at the bars and talking to the bar girls, I am not sure what other mingling with dominicans is available considering the fact that almost all the customers are gringos.

Personally I am not a great fan of sitting at bars and talking to girls (not saying anything is wrong with it) but I just generally have found Sosua to be very boring and although I go to clasico disco atimes and might end up meeting a girl there, everyone knows the type of girls that go there and almost all the males there are gringo men looking for girls.

From my personal experience, I am of the opinion that unless someone is going to the DR for girls, there seems to be not much difference in mingling with dominicans whether you stay in an AI ( and make visits to town once awhile) or you stay in a regular hotel. Just my opinion.

Sholly

FireGuy said:

The vast majority of those who wish to date Dominicanas know the AI rules and simply stay in guest friendly local hotels which are generally found closer to the local bars where the chicas may be found in the evenings.
Gregg

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I don't think taking a chica out of club for the night is "dating". If we talk about foreigners dating Dominicanas, or being married to them, etc., they can book in together. No problems whatsoever. She just has to be at check-in. Usually no ID asked for. If she is not at check in, her name has to be added to the reservation AT CHECK IN, and when she comes her ID is asked for and compared to the reservation record. If it matches, she is let in.
Also it is important that the girl loks like a girlfriend and not a hooker.

This goes same for AI's as well as city business-class hotels (Melia, Hilton, Jaragua, Intercontinental, Embajador, etc.)

rubio_higuey said:

I don't think taking a chica out of club for the night is "dating". If we talk about foreigners dating Dominicanas, or being married to them, etc., they can book in together. No problems whatsoever. She just has to be at check-in. Usually no ID asked for. If she is not at check in, her name has to be added to the reservation AT CHECK IN, and when she comes her ID is asked for and compared to the reservation record. If it matches, she is let in.
Also it is important that the girl loks like a girlfriend and not a hooker.

This goes same for AI's as well as city business-class hotels (Melia, Hilton, Jaragua, Intercontinental, Embajador, etc.)

Click to expand...

I have to disagree with the "looks like a hooker part".....I have seen many hookers on the arms of older gringo's in many 5* establishments in the DR. Also, how could the hotel judge/differentiate since many gringas look like bigger p&^as!

Looks like we have strayed off topic.....

AI's are horrible prison-like places that try to keep you (and your money) there through intimidation and feeding you unlimited amounts of cheap booze and food. They even put a hospital band on your arm so that if you go out all of the ladrones know who is a really easy target.

Unfortunately many on this site lose or never had a true idea of the numbers of tourists who come here and it is not ever about the chicas......... The majority of tourists come for a vacation and not for the girls.

not to get off track on this thread (sorry moderator), but who are the majority of tourists to the DR ?? anyone know of any stats ? would the DR be better off economically if ALL SINGLE MEN kept in their pants and stayed at AI's ?
planner, i agree with you but i must say that a lot of men (and women) come to the DR, check into an AI and then wish they never had for that one reason we're discussing. oh yes, women do visit the DR for the same reason men do !!
AI's can be wonderful places but it is really what you make it....

What else is there to do...."besides sit in bars and talk to girls"

If you're at an AI, you can sit on a beach and look at tourists.....!!!

You gotta be kidding me.....first...LEAVE SOUSA....try the Colonial Zone or the other HISTORIC AREAS on the island, fish, dive, kayak, hike, mountain bike, LEARN THE LANGUAGE....do some volunteer work....I could go on....

The "Dominicans" in the AI's are in fact Dominican...but their world INSIDE is not the same as how they live....or act....AIs have RULES for the guests and the help......

Believe it or not, not ALL tourists are coming to the DR just to "come"....some of us actually like the sights, smells and feel of "a different world".....

I guess I'm not just an AI guy........"What time's the dance...oh look BINGO...they even have a casino.....ohhhhhhhhh"

By the way, Jimmy Buffett don't sing about AIs in any of his wild Caribbean music..........diffrent strokes for diffrent folks! Most important....ENJOY!

Believe it or not, not ALL tourists are coming to the DR just to "come".

some are incapable but don't they have medicine for that ? :ermm:

not to get off track on this thread (sorry moderator), but who are the majority of tourists to the DR ?? anyone know of any stats ? would the DR be better off economically if ALL SINGLE MEN kept in their pants and stayed at AI's ?
planner, i agree with you but i must say that a lot of men (and women) come to the DR, check into an AI and then wish they never had for that one reason we're discussing. oh yes, women do visit the DR for the same reason men do !!
AI's can be wonderful places but it is really what you make it....[/QUOTE]


Kyle, there are sites full of stats. We get more then 5 Million visitors here. Do you really think they come for girls, men, sex or sex tourism? The vast majority come here for a family or couple vacation!!! I don't know exact stats but I would be shocked if it was more then 1 or 2 % who came for the "chicas".

Yes we do have a sex tourism industry. But the reality is that the largest percentage do not come for that, don't know about it nor care about it. Many are shocked when they learn of it.

For the purposes of this thread I will doff my moderator's cap (and recuse myself) as I have been involved in the discussion and while the discussion is straying a bit, everyone is being pleasant (please don't change on my account - LOL). I will leave it entirely to the discretion of the other travel moderator, hlywud, as to how, if at all, he treats this thread (unless people become uncivil).

The OP asked "what is an AI" and I think my first post in this thread (numbered as #3) more or less satisfies the OP's question. Virtually everything else is extraneous to the OP's question.

Let's agree:

1) AIs are not for everyone (but then neither are guest friendly local hotels, chica bars, or Dominican novias); we are all different and each of us has the right to vacation in the manner which best suits us without being chided for our choices.

2) AIs, generally speaking are vacations for the masses, but there are some outstanding examples of accommodations and cuisine to be found in the midst of the sea of mediocrity which is common in the ubiquitous AI rooms and buffets. It is simply not fair to these examples, to generalize. IMHO, AIs offer great VALUE for the vacation dollar when compared with doing it all separately, at least from my part of the world.

3) AIs offer a safe haven or sanctuary for the unadventurous traveler but there are increasingly more and more examples of AI tourists who cover their wristbands with a watch and actually walk outside of the enclave. Some of us travel in taxis, publicos and guaguas and yes; some of us even eat in local restaurants, both ex-pat and Dominican and see the local sights without being herded around in those "monster" trucks.

The DR hosts some 4+ million tourists annually (deference to planner but I think this is the target number for 2007) and just over 50% of them land in Punta Cana, an artificial Tourist destination which doesn't even boast a decent town so I can assure you that virtually zero percent travel there for chicas or girlfriends. Puerto Plata (province) starts out with some 14,000+ AI hotel rooms (4500 in Playa Dorada, 1000 in Costa Dorada, 2500 in Cofresi, 1500 in Maimon, 500 in Luperon, 2000 in Sosua, 1000 in Cabarete, 1000 in Rio San Juan) a number which is not close to being rivaled by the small local independent properties. As previously stated the vast majority of these guests are couples and families who are not here to partake of the spicier Dominican offerings of the chica bars. Yes there is a segment of the traveling demographic who are here for chicas but they are an infinitely smaller group than those here for the sun and the overall travel experience. I expect that landings in La Romana and Samana mirror somewhat what happens on the North Coast, where AIs are more numerous than alternate accommodations and I expect that SDQ and STI have many less tourists than the other international airports so their contributions are more negligible.

Those are my thoughts for now.

Gregg

Great post Gregg! You may be right - the number I used was the expected for 2007 and is not a confirmed number. However, your other stats and comments are right on! Well said.

Do you really think they come for girls, men, sex or sex tourism?

was this question part of the survey mi amor ? :laugh: