My mother, brother and I took a trip down to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic for a family reunion celebrating my great aunts (my Abuelas sister) 100th birthday! To get there, we took JetBlue and had a great experience.
We got to the airport around 8:10 AM, plenty of time for our 10:25 AM flight. Bag check was a bit confusing at first, regarding the information to input. There was no wait to get a kiosk to print the bag tags, as there’s literally dozens of them!
Security was quick, it didn’t take more than 10 minutes thanks to TSA pre check. After security I got breakfast, and sat down at a gate and took some pictures of nearby planes.
I took plenty of pictures, including an Emirates A380 go-around. I went to the other end of the terminal to try and catch a Hawaiian A330, but the boarding area was too crowded.
The aircraft I took to Santo Domingo, N950JT
Boarding began around 9:40. My group (A) boarded the plane a couple of minutes after the pre-boarders in wheelchairs and Mosaic customers did.
Seated in my seat 4F, which is an Even More Space seat. The legroom was great, and the perks of expedited security and boarding the plane early (group a) were also great!
Pushback was on time, hearing the engine start up was nice.
We taxiied to the runway a few minutes after pushing back. The taxi wasn’t that long, and when our plane was on the taxiway parallel to 22R, I saw an American Airlines 777-200 roll right past, accelerating down the runway to London.
Believe it or not, we were the only ones in line for the runway. The 777 took off before we crossed 31R, so we taxiied right on to the runway and lifted off at 10:37 AM.
I filmed the engine spool-up and the climb out. A few seconds after takeoff we were already turning southeastbound.
FlyFi and DirecTV worked for just over an hour before the aircraft went out of the service area. Snacks and drinks were given out around an hour or so into the flight. There was a wide variety of stuff to choose from, so I went with the Terra chips and apple juice. Terra chips are amazing!
The cruise was very enjoyable. I watched some NFL network while the plane was still in DirecTV range, I watched the start of Mean Girls (which I finished up on the flight home), tracked my flight on the map feature on the TV, and looked out the window enjoying the views.
JetBlue has great service and they made the flight very enjoyable.
Around 20 minutes away from arrival, we began our descent north of the Dominican Republic. We were at 18000 feet when we passed by the northern part of the island and at 15000 feet when we flew over land.
Descending over the beautiful Dominican countryside
Making the approach into Santo Domingo. We came in fast for most of it but slowed down once the plane was on final approach.
Final approach to runway 17 over some villages by eastern parts of the city. The main parts of the city are around 30 minutes west of the airport dependent on traffic.
¡Bienvenidos a Santo Domingo!
We touched down at 1:37 PM. I recorded some of the final approach and landing, and was able to take pictures at the same time. As we were slowing down the runway, we were kicking water up, likely from a previous passing shower.
We taxiied to the gate and we pulled in next to a Spirit A321 preparing for departure to Fort Lauderdale.
We disembarked the plane, I thanked the flight crew, and then we headed down the jetway and straight to immigration and customs. The line for immigration was decent, we waited about a half hour.
There was a little kid who was running around a bit, and he (likely accidentally) knocked down part of one of the railing poles. It made a loud noise and a lot of people in the line looked. What really made me mad was, the parents didn’t even bother to go fix it, they just laughed! We went through immigration and customs, got our bags, then went to wait for a relative to come pick us up.
¡Bienvenidos a Santo Domingo!
