US Mail to DR..How fast?

Is anyone familiar with sending US 1st class mail to the Dom. Republic? How long does it normally take. Is Express mail much faster. It costs $18.. How about return mail from the DR?? Thanks for any help.

When I send express it takes about 3-4 Business days to arrive. If I mail on Friday it is almost always there on Wednesday, once it was Monday. Regular mail mostly 10 -14 days. I have had some arrive in 7. I am getting ready to try something else to see if it speeds up the process. The Post Office says everything goes airmail for international, but on a couple of them they seem to mark the envolpe with the airmail stamp and it seemed to arrive earlier. Maybe it was just luck. I want to mark a couple myself just to see what happens. I have sent letters UPS ($27.50) and it normally arrives overnight. However this week it was delayed in Santo Domingo because of the strike. Mailed Tuesday, arrived Wednesday, delivered Thursday. Reason given for the delay was recieve on strike. Mail coming this way, usually if mailed on Monday I recieve the folowing Wednesday, about 10 days.

Jerry

It is also very important where you are mailing to/from in the DR. If it is a small village, it could be several days before it gets to the distribution center

My mail to the DR has taken 2 weeks to a month to get there. Some items were never received. I have never received anything that was sent from the DR to me. They seem to take better care of the things I send in official looking manila envelopes clearly marked from the USA than things that look like average letters.

I've heard that almost all letters that go to the DR are opened by Postal employees looking for money, checks, etc. and then thrown away. Is this true. I've been told that the only thing that actually gets delivered are postcards since they have nothing inside.

There are several services in the Dr such as EPS, P.O. Box, etc that consolidate mail and send it to Miami for mailing. To receive mail you have it sent to Miami P.O. box number. The reason these services prosper is that the Dominican Postal Service is unreliable.

The government mail service has considerably improved in the past few years. May I say that there is no guarantee you will receive your packages or letters when using a private postal service. If you need security that your package or letter will arrive, send it by Federal Express or DHL, UPS. Those services permit you to track it on the Internet. Personally I have desisted from using my privatized mail service and use only the local government mail service for receiving books, magazines, letters from the US. I believed the certified mail service works pretty well.

I am also surprised on how much the gov't mailing system has improved. I usually write letters to family members once a month, and have had no problems, even sending them to Villa Altagracia among all places. I still will use Federal Express for certain things though. FedEx is simply the best US mailing service IMHO.

Regards,

Natasha

I didn't know one could send letters out of the US or to the US certified. I do that with important mail inside the US. How does it work and at what cost to send, for example a legal size envelope with 4 pages, or a manila envelope with photos?

Arco,

I can only speak on FedEx. I have sent important documents to the DR using FedEX overnight service from Pittsburgh and Wash. DC. The cost is US$25 for the usual manila envelopes that can only fit documents, ect. Depending what time and which days you send it, it might not get there overnight, taking two or three business days to arrive. Let me add that sending anything else besides a manila envelope like a two or three lb. package is very costly. Hope this helps.

Natasha