This year?s official Ministry of Labor calendar bodes well for domestic travel. For starters, Dominicans will enjoy a record long Christmas season as the authorities decided to move to Monday, 10 January the celebration of Epiphany Day, instead of moving it to Friday, 7 January. Thus, school children will be off until 11 January.
Furthermore, the moving of holiday celebration to other Mondays in the year makes for several long weekends in 2005. These are:
Altagracia-Duarte. Friday, 21 January (Our Lady of Altagracia Day) through Monday, 24 January (Duarte Day) for a four-day long weekend.
Easter. Good Friday falls on Friday, 25 March, but many will take off from Thursday, 24 March for another long weekend.
Labor Day. 1 May Labor Day holiday is moved to Monday, 2 May for a three-day long weekend.
Corpus Christi. Starting Thursday, 26 May-through Sunday, 29 May. While Friday is officially not a holiday, many will make it into a four-day long weekend.
For more information on this year?s and next year?s holidays in the DR, see http://dr1.com/travel/prepare/holidays.shtml