Dominican Amber Museum Experience

Back in June 2023, I visited the Dominican Amber Museum Experience in Puerto Plata, a coastal town in the Dominican Republic about an hour north from the city of Santiago de los Caballeros. This is not to be confused with the Amber World Museum located in the capital, Santo Domingo. With some of the best branding I have seen from a small organization, the Amber Museum proudly (and legally!) uses a logo similar to Jurassic Park thanks to a savvy bargain made by the owners many years ago. The Jimenes family, who also started Centro León in Santiago, still owns La Aurora cigar company, which in turn owns this museum.

As described on the tour, amber is the petrified resin of ancient trees. The stones come in different colors, including white, yellow, orange, brown, black, and blue. Dominican amber is unusual because the stones are clear, allowing viewers to see tiny animals and plants preserved inside. Amber containing a walking stick insect and a spider were mounted in cases depicting a representation of the original animal. The most famous amber was the lizard with a broken tail. This stone was used in the original Jurassic Park film, earning the museum the right to use branding materials related to the franchise.

Dominican amber is so valuable to researchers that some pieces are shared with the Smithsonian Institute, self-proclaimed as “the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex”, which is based in the United States. One particularly large piece of amber lived in a protective case with the Smithsonian logo. In addition to sharing its resources, the museum focuses on the labor conditions of amber miners. Amber has historically been excavated from deep underground where miners work in dangerous conditions. A brief documentary showed miners describing this difficult work, while a diorama on the second-story porch depicted the entrance to a mine, not more than a grass tent stretched over a hole.

Next, visitors see how cigars are made from seed to roll. Tobacco begins its life as seedlings in a greenhouse before being transplanted in vast fields. The plants are harvested, dried on wooden racks, and pressed together into thick blocks. Finally, they are brought to a factory to be rolled into cigars. Although I appreciated the opportunity to learn about this process, the transfer from amber to labor rights to cigars was somewhat jarring.

As a major cruise port in the Dominican, the Amber Museum is set up with international tourists in mind. The guided tours are given in English, Spanish, and French. The second floor is accessible by elevator. The rooms are dimly lit for ambiance, but this makes some artifacts difficult to see. The gift shop is expensive and sells jewelry, cigars, and coffee, another recent Jimenes family purchase. The tour guide wore a coffee company shirt and seemed new at his job. While he followed the script exactly, he did not yet have the confidence or knowledge to answer additional questions. He also appeared to be the only employee in the museum at the time and would have benefited from a mentor. Tours are $100DR per person, or about $2USD, and take an hour. Like many stops in Puerto Plata, avoid this museum when a cruise is docked.

Abby Epplett’s Rating System

Experience: 7/10

Accessibility: 7/10