LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Horrible experience in the Dominica Republic 

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Dear Sir:

My name is Evelyn Vasquez, and I would like to let the department of tourism both here and in the Dominican Republic about my horrible experience while I visited Dominican Republic two weeks ago.

I arrived at Punta Cana on July 23, 2005, for a week long vacation in which I was traveling with my two children and 15 other relatives. We stayed at the Barcelo Bavaro Resort. While at the resort we found that a lot of the staff members lacked customer service training, some were rude, not helpful and very laid-back. (I know that they work long hours, but we are your customers and we are paying for the services, it was not free.)

But we made the best of it, my horrible experience was at the end of my stay, July 30, when I was suppose to leave the country. When I headed to the airport to leave that was when I realized that my documents (birth certificates for me and my children) were gone while at the ticket counter, the birth certificates were not in my Liberty Travel pouch, which was were I thought I put them.

Well after searching all by luggage and going back to the hotel to look in the room to see if by chance they were in the safe, I did not find them, (while back at the hotel I looked for help and the people at the hotel were not helpful at all). 

Well, I went back to the airport and the clerk there, Leonel from American Airlines, was very helpful but told me that unfortunately I could not leave the country with the proper documents, because all I had was my marriage license and driver’s license but no document for my children, and he told me I would have the go to the American Consulate, and get permission to leave the country.

He then got me a taxi, a guy of his confidence, and we had to go from Punta Cana to Santo Domingo, (which costs me $110 US). I then had to look for a hotel, (for my kids, my sister who stood with me so that I would not be alone and myself). Which meant I wasn’t able to leave Saturday, but had to wait until Monday (a business day).

I spoke to Ryan Hailey at the US Embassy, who told me to get faxed over copies of my children’s birth certificates and photos to take to the US Consulate that Monday so that I had something to present to them being that I had no other documents.

My husband who was here in the USA, faxed that over and that Monday I went to US Consulate, but when I got there the people were so rude and abrupt, they just told me take a number, when I was finally called to see the agent at the US Consulate and I explained my case she was of no help and just gave me papers to fill out for a passport.  How dumb could she be that she knew I had no birth certificates and in order to get a passport I would need by birth certificate.

She also told me I would need medical records immunization cards and all these documents that at that moment I did not have. Therefore meaning I would have to stay another day in order to get them overnight. (Well I am sorry I didn’t get her name because she also needs customer training), she would not even let me see the interviewer to at least hear me and give me some guidance as to what else can I do to leave this country.

It was an experience I am still having nightmares, and this was not the end, when they told me I had to report it to the police and I went to the Palace of the Police, it was unreal what my sister and I had to go thru just to get my report processed and no one is helpful or knows anything. They too were rude and obnoxious.

Well, which meant I had to spend another day there because the process takes a day. Then I had to have my husband FedEx my kids birth certificates (which he had to go to Manhattan and get new ones because they wanted originals), and so delaying us another day for the FedEx to come.

I then went to the US Embassy and the guard would not even let me out of the taxi and I told him to hear me out a least, he told me I had to go back to the US Consulate, I told him I had been there and they did nothing, he said unless I had a political and governmental issue I could not see anyone in the Embassy.

But my issue was serious my job was on the line, my apartment, my emotional state, my children’s well being and all that stress that this situation caused me. I felt that there was no human concern by anyone in the American Consulate or US Embassy which is a shame because my tax money as little as it my be goes to the government and these are the pay back we as US citizens get.

Therefore, with all these obstacles I finally got the FedEx from my husband on August 3 and went straight to the airport in Santo Domingo, where I went thru another obstacle because after going to immigration and explaining to them my problem they told me it would be okay for me to travel with marriage license and my driver’s license as ID, and when I go to the airport they did not want to let me travel with it even have a police report about my lost documents, this was becoming very sickening, and finally the supervisor called immigration to get an okay, but by then there were no flights for us to get on to New York, or Miami for that matter, the earliest they could book us was for Thursday, August 4. Finally I was getting out of that country, which traumatized me, made me spend lots of money I didn’t anticipate on spending. 

The moral to my story is that I could not believe that we as tax payers and also paying taxes to the Dominican Republic for entering and leaving that country, having contributed to their economy in some small way because we bought stuff, ate in their restaurants and stayed in their hotels, have no secure help from the US Government in these islands.

It is a shame because all the Caribbean Islands have beautiful beaches and lots of history, but at the cost and agony I had to go thru and anyone who this would happen to is beyond me and not recommend worth going to these places. Even if it was my loss or the possibility that they may have been stolen, the fact remains that all 18 of us that went felt my experience thru me and would never return to this country.

Anyone who would ask me I will tell them this story and not to bother going there due to my experience with the people, its government and our government there, they were of no help and only caused me anger, emotional stress and spend more money then anticipated for my vacation, which I saved to go on for a good time not this.

Thanks for your attention to my complaint.

Evelyn Vasquez

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