Cost of 14 days in cabarete?

I'm currently planning a two week trip for summer of 2010 to Cabarete. A group of childhood friends and I are going over to have the time of our lives before we part ways going to college or into the workforce. I have been to Cabarete twice already, but always with my family so I never looked at the costs too much. After reflecting and asking my parents a bit, I came up with some rough estimates.

$25 USD per day per person for 2 meals a day at restaurants as well as drinks in the hotel room. Mostly eating at cheaper places, or dining based on good deals (cafe pitu's rasta pasta, Dominican special at LAX, etc.)

$20 per night per person for hotel room. Currently at around $19 (with tax) per person per night for a double on the main beach the various sans souci locations are looking good. Maybe rent a condo or apartment depending on number of people.

Please feel free to critique me on the prices, after all that's why I'm posting. I know its too early to plan specifics of the trip, but I want to give everybody I know who's interested a good figure so everyone has enough time to save up money from summer jobs, and wont have to cancel last minute.

Also I'm thinking the airfare from SEA to POP, will be around $650 from glancing at travel sites, but feel free to correct me on that as well.

Thanks in advance for your help!

catcherintherye said:

I really don't think you are going to have the time of your lives with that kind of money. You might be able to pull it off, but "the time of your lives" deal is going to be a stretch.

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Thanks, your definitely right about that one. And in all honestly I'm Romanticizing it a little too much, were probably not going to have an outstanding trip on funds like that. Then again most the people going wont really have anything to compare it to, so the bar is only set at better than a family vacation.

100 dollars a day is still cheap, although I think ill either need to shorten the length of the trip or find ways to bring the food bill down like making breakfast and lunch. But for the cost of a road trip staying at a motel 8 ill take Cabarete any day. I was lucky enough to say cost was closer to $1500, as opposed to the 1250 that I initially calculated to compensate for the uncertainty about the price of airfare.

Any suggestions on how much of the $100 per day i should plan on spending on what (hotel, food, assorted) would be appreciated, as well as any good threads about planning the costs of a trip would be greatly appreciated.

Just a little update. Decided to cut the trip down in length to 7-10 days (depending on cheapest travel) and bump the hotel and food costs up to 75 per day, after many hours of research into other hotels and concluding that the sans souci hotels were a good bet (we wouldn't have to pay for a double bed that would only end up sleeping one person or share a double bed). The fact i couldn't seem to find any photos of the hotel rooms worried me, and i continued to search for competition in that price range. I finally found a picture of the rooms in the sans souci family of hotels albeit a 2 very small ones, but its a done deal in my mind. They were definitely worth $20-25 US a night (rates with 26% taxes included) for a beachfront hotel.

Still leaving 50- 55 dollars per person for food drinks and alcohol.
We would still be bargain hunting , and eating a light breakfast from the bakery($3?), but we could eat 2 meals a day at restaurants for 25 dollars and even have a beverage or two with the meals. Most alcohol consumed would be bought in stores instead of bars.I would be surprised if anyone attending could go through bottle of brugal (~$3) and 2 liters worth of cola (~$2) and 3 grande presidentes (~$5) in a day. And figuring an additional 10 dollars a day for non alcoholic beverages and store bought snacks seems generous (unless we need to buy our own water). still leaving between 5 and 10 dollars left for tobacco, a drink or 2 at a bar, or souvenirs. And near the end of the trip any remaining excess funds can be used for an excursion somewhere.

Let me know if any figures seem off, or something like that. And i have factored in an emergency and random surcharge fund into the total cost reported to those considering going.

kmorris said:

As for your alcohol consumption, I am not a rum drinker and I agree that would be enough, but 3 grandes in a day?

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Very good point, I think for the heavier drinkers in the group (which isn't heavy by means) Ill warn them about bringing along more money for beer, luckily most them wont mind rum. I think 1 guy in particular will likely find him self with a lot of left over money for booze, as he seems to get somewhat drunk after 3 or 4 light beers.

Also having emergency funds is very important, i figure that if everyone has 50-100 planned into their budget, that will be $400+ already anticipated to be spend so if someone gets mugged or needs to see the doctor we wont be in big trouble, and if its serious between the ATM and the Bank we can likely figure something out.