Dominican Republic with 6 year old

[vitahelp]

Please can anyone clarify if Dominican Republic is a safe place to travel to with a child? And, at risk of sounding like a snob, is it naff/tacky?

You're going to get a range of answers here but from my personal experience I wouldn't have felt safe walking around outside the resort area . And when we did go outside the resort we were hounded by people trying to sell stuff . I didn't feel safe at all .

Agree with this. There are better places to take a child that age.

What are you looking for OP ?

Been a couple of times to the Punta Cana area. Only went out of the resort on guided tours, but we mingled quite a bit with the locals who were all friendly and no hassle at all. Lovely place, best beaches I've seen, and I get about a lot.

Our first long haul holiday with our DC was to DR as the flight isn’t too long, our youngest was 5. I found it a nice place for a resort based holiday, I’ve since been back.
I did prefer St Lucia, Jamaica and Cuba.

@ExplodingCarrots thanks for sharing, this is what I was a bit worried about. It would be the first time any of us have ever stayed in an AI/can’t leave the resort type place and I’m not sure what we would make of it.

@Meadowfinch I was originally looking at Europe in August (Portugal/Italy/Greece) but found it to be very expensive this year so wondered about spending a bit extra but going out of Europe. With DD being young we do still want a beach/swimming pool type hol though which is what brought me to Dominican/Caribbean/Mauritius etc. Dominican appealed to me as you can fly there direct from Manchester Airport which is our closest and the flight isn’t too long.

@CitizenZ Thank you for sharing. The beaches do look amazing and since this would essentially be a beach holiday it is a big plus.

@BusyPoster Yes the shorter flight is what appealed to me, and direct flight from Manchester. I would love to go to St Lucia and also looked at Cuba which is somewhere I’ve always been interested in. Where did you fly via to get to these places, or were you able to find a direct flight from your local airport?

Lots of people love it, I think it's perfectly safe if you plan to stay in the resort, but it's probably not the kind of place you are going to be able to wander about as you please.

Even if you were planning on just staying on the resort we were still hounded on the beach . There were also loads of dead dogs on the highway so that really upset me . I'd recommend looking somewhere else , you can get better for your money . We always go to Greece in the summer and I'm content walking around the towns and not been hounded once .