Del Oro Chocolate Factory — Attraction in Puerto Plata

We came here as part of a tour, and were told we would be touring a chocolate factory. There is no factory here- it's a tourist trap, souvenir shop & cafe. There's a table with bowls of ingredients and they give you an explanation of how chocolate is made but you will not see any actual production of chocolate.

We sampled and purchased several bars of chocolate. I was very disappointed by the low quality of the chocolate. First- the wrappers look like they were printed on a color copy machine. Opening the wrapper you can see chocolate dust at the bottom, uneven edges of the bars, scratch marks all over, dull color. Very poor presentation- and the taste was equally mediocre. Very bland! "Fine Dominican Chocolate"?? Definitely not. A $1 Hershey bar is far superior to this garbage. Sorry to be unkind but I have to be honest with my review. Skip this place and don't waste your time...

Our taxi driver Yeison has taken us here twice. First because it was a popular tour stop and the second time was because I had to go back to get more brownie mix! The factory is small but worth the tour! First you enter to a sample of the brownies and hot cocoa. Both are delicious and that hot is temperature hot so be careful. To your left I believe is a small lab and to the right is a display of how things are processed. You will follow up with a short video describing the process. The whole place smells yummy. At the end of the tour there is a shop (of course). This is where I am in my glory. I highly recommend the chocolate bars, brownie mix and the hot chocolate is delicious too (but I have yet to buy the hot chocolate mix). If I could link Yeison's cab service I would! We will certainly go back the next time...

The Del Oro Chocolate factory was one of my favorite spots on our tour of the Dominican Republic. The scent of chocolate grabs you as soon as you walk in the door. A hostess served us delicious samples of hot chocolate and brownie. They were both delicious but the samples left us wanting more.

We watched a short video that talked about they raise cacao plants. Then an employee talked about chocolate processing and showed us samples of cacao beans in the various stages of processing. It was interesting and educational.

The gift shop had a large assortment of organic chocolate bars, hot chocolate mix, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, and other gifts...