group of people around jan 10th or so came back from the riu bambu on a charter plane, 18 of them had a norwalk virus thus our travel agent is in the process of diverting us to a different location... most likely not even in the DR at all. as valued customers we were told that the new warnings that apparently the problems in Puerto Plata are now becoming problems in Punta Cana and that my specific travel agency which deals with apple vacations has told the apple people that they will not send anyone to the DR until the CDC takes the island off its warning list or whatever they call it.

They say they won't do anything about it (i.e. stop making reservations there or call people who have reservations to warn them) until the hotel issues a statement that it is a problem. After visiting this site and seeing all the complaints I called Apple. The agents response was "Oh, yeah we've had some calls about that hotel (Riu Taino)." But for $50 I was switched to another hotel and I leave tomorrow.

we traveled with Apple last week. home yesterday. the day before we left , i finally got my TA to call Apple. they told her we could switch to another resort for $50. we had 1 hour to decide. we kept our travel plans and went to the Bambu. we did not get sick. Many people did and at other resorts as well. i feel bad for the DR. they are trying their best to clean up the problem. i feel bad for the people that go who have no idea that there is a problem and get sick..some because they were not given the opportunity to prepare for the problem. the DR can not survive without tourism. most of the people at the Bambu were from Europe. i really do not know if there were as many sick among them or not. i do know there were some.