Puerto Rico Attractions & Museums

Whatever You Crave, It’s Not Far Away

Bacardi Rum Distillery, the ‘Cathedral of Rum’ - For those of you who only drink to cure a cold---or prevent one---there’s a place in Puerto Rico you dare not miss. Yes, you are, oh, so right: It’s the Bacardi Rum Distillery, the largest rum distillery in the world. And you can’t beat this; it is only 10 miles from Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Resort. So you’ll have the perfect opportunity to peek in on the Bacardi Rum Distillery, which some say is the most popular destination in all of Puerto Rico for visitors, whether they drink or not. Here you will receive a complete guided tour of the incredible facilities at the “Cathedral of Rum,” covering every nook and cranny of all the many faucets of this distinctive operation. And it will be explained in a way that will refresh the bon vivant while educating the novice as well. You will be properly impressed with the huge fermentation vats and dazzled by the high-speed bottling process. After you learn the nuts and bolts of current production, you will hop on a trolley, which will whisk you off to the Bacardi Museum where the history of rum will unfold for you, from the time that rum was the drink of choice in the Thirteen Colonies to the present. The tour concludes at the lofty pavilion, where you can sample this world-renowned rum at its refreshing best and purchase, if you have a mind to, souvenirs and Bacardi products to savor the memories. You can usually find an energetic band of artists, musicians, and vendors to supplement the arts and crafts that catch your eye. Free, guided tours depart every 20 minutes Mon-Sat 8:30am-5:30pm (last tour at 4:15) Sunday 10-5 last tour 3:45. Route 165, K.m. 6.2 Int. 888, Catano, Phone 787-788-8400
Rio Camuy Cave Park (35 miles away) northwest of San Juan. Here you can experience the world’s third largest underground river cave system with its spellbinding cathedral ceilings of stalactites, enormous columns, floods of flowstone, and sparkling crystal draperies created over millenniums just for you to visit.
Prime Outlets Puerto Rico - And for those who can’t wait to find souvenirs and keepsakes of Puerto Rico, Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Resort guides its guests to Prime Outlets Puerto Rico within minutes of the resort area. Here shoppers can regale themselves with fine clothing, apparel for adults and children, accessories, specialty items in brand names with high value and low prices.
Arecibo Observatory: So Close, Yet It Takes You So Far - We all dream about being out of this world, while clinging tenaciously to good old terra firma. The centuries-old dilemma! Ah, but there’s a special place in the hills of northwest Puerto Rico that you may not have heard of. At the Arecibo Observatory you can savor the wonders of space beyond your wildest fantasy, all the while with both your feet on the ground. Arecibo Observatory is the largest radio telescope in the world, a mere 35 miles from Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Course. The Observatory staff welcomes visitors; of course, we can’t disturb the scientists delving far into space where no ‘man’ has gone before. However, you may follow your flights of fancy at the adjoining Angel Ramos Foundation Visitor Center, where you can start with astronomy and then move on to atmospheric science. You will learn firsthand how this gigantic radio telescope permits scientists to probe radio emissions of distant galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and other cosmic mysteries. The Arecibo Observatory is a wonder in itself with its 20-acre, 1,000-foot diameter dish panning the universe for totally new stellar events that amaze the eye and often confound the conventional view. A number of planets outside our solar system were discovered right here at Arecibo Observatory, little more than a half hour ride from Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Course.
The Angel Ramos Foundation Visitor Center opens Wednesday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, and holidays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission to the facility, which is administrated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, is $4 for adults and $2 for children and seniors.
Old San Juan - The ancient history of Puerto Rico still intrigues all tourists and natives alike. And Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Resort wants you to know that stroll through Old San Juan on one of the walking tours available brings this whole historical dynamic into prospective.
Caguana Indian Ceremonial Park near Utuado and Tibes Indian Park at Ponce. Here the prehistoric cultures will draw you back in time as far back as 400 B.C.
The Ponce Museum of Art houses the finest collection of European art in Latin America, including the finest Italian Baroque, British pre-Raphaelite, French Academy works of art, and Spanish paintings. And the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico almost bursts at the seams with its premiere collection of Puerto Rican paintings, sculptures, and graphic arts. Besides the 18 exhibit halls, the museum boasts an atrium, auditorium, shop and restaurant, and a sculpture garden.
El Comandante where the finest Thoroughbreds racing in the Caribbean strut their stuff at breathtaking speeds.
Aventuras Tierra Adentro offers a myriad of adventures for the amateur including canyoning, body rafting, and rock climbing. For the team-building events at the corporate level, there are the exhilarating activities, known as Jungle Games. Here in one place is the opportunity to sample all of the adventurous delights you’ve always planned to explore: Rappelling on a secure speed-controlled rope; crossing a cable stretched across a canyon on a pulley; spelunking into dark cave created by Mother Nature that requires your helmet lamp to decipher. Or you can travel down the canyon taking on the challenges of frothy white water, waterfalls, and cliffs.
La Casa del Rey Museum: While Puerto Ricans live for today and plan for tomorrow, they never forget their rich heritage and all the many peoples who have made this island a paradise so envied around the world. So it’s not surprising that Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Resort is within easy reach of La Casa del Rey Museum. If you don’t want to drive there, a stroll of two short miles will take you to the entrance of La Casa del Rey Museum, the “King’s House.” Here you step back in time and join with the Archaic Indians the first settlers who arrived from Venezuela about 4500 B.C., but were eventually replaced by the Tainos around 800 A.D. Christopher Columbus didn’t sail into the island the Indians called Borinquen until 1493 and he renamed it San Juan Bautista, for St. John the Baptist. In the 1500s Juan Ponce de Leon founded the first permanent settlement and renamed the island, for obvious reasons, Rich Port or as they say in Spanish, Puerto Rico. La Casa del Rey Museum is the oldest building in Dorado, constructed as an inn in 1823. For years it served as a Spanish garrison. Then in 1848, Jacinto Lopez bought the building and quickly added two wings, making his new residence into a U-shaped edifice with an interior patio. And in 1978, the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture restored the building and it soon became the popular museum of today that natives and tourists alike find vibrantly alive. The museum opens 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
Rincon Beach: A Golden Opportunity to Bask in Nature - Just 75 miles from Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Resort you will discover Rincon Beach, which modestly calls itself Puerto Rico’s best beach town. One quickly sees why. Here you may surf, dive, fish, or go sailing, and that’s just for starters. For the adventurous, there’s jet skiing, kayaking, snorkeling and spelunking in local caves. The choices at Rincon Beach go on and on. Where others would be content to suggest a barefoot stroll along the beach, Rincon offers you the opportunity to ride a pony along the beach and over the hillside trails. The golden beach is complimented ever so subtlety--but gloriously--by its lush emerald hills. And when your eyes grow accustomed to the hues and shades of this bit of paradise in Puerto Rico, the town of Rincon shows you why it is called Bellos Ataredeceres, the city of beautiful sunsets. Each day extends another chance to delve into Rincon Beach’s crystal clear waters at temperatures so pleasant that you soon realize why fishermen find such a mind-blowing variety in their catch, which may include marlin, dorado, wahoo, swordfish, and Spanish mackerel. And then when you decide it’s time to linger and drink in that marvelous sunset, the sea’s most magnificent inhabitants, the humpback whales, show up to cavort in the most unexpected ways for your personal entertainment. There is little wonder why all the guests at the Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Gold Resort return from Rincon Beach with beaming smiles on their faces.
El Yunque: The Magical Rain Forest, Where Even Frogs Sing - Forest lovers, hikers, adventurers: Your wildest dreams come alive in El Yunque, the oldest forest reserve in the Western Hemisphere, which is only 50 miles away from Embassy Suites Hotel Dorado del Mar Beach & Golf Resort. Here, the frogs sing, yes, sing to gain your attention as you journey through El Yunque’s 28,000-acre preserve, which is so large that it is divided into four separate forests and includes eight kinds of lizards, 50 types of birds, even 11 species of bats. No wonder the 13 breeds of frogs need melodic voices so they aren’t overlooked. And when you stop to picnic, you have even more opportunity to enjoy the truly diverse vegetation of some 240 native tree species---23 of which can only be seen in El Yunque, 50 native orchids and some 150 types of ferns. Nor does El Yunque forget the casual hiker. Paved forest paths take you down to one of the world’s most spectacular waterfalls. And an additional mile takes you to the top of Mount Britton, where you can look out not only over the rain forest, but the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and much of Puerto Rico as well. And despite the lush variety of forest life, there isn’t any ferocious or poisonous animals for you to worry about. Admission is $3.00 for adults, $1.50 for children 5 through 12, seniors and younger children are free.