Our Dominican Vacation - April 2008

Day 1: It’s Sunday April 6th and we are here in the Dominican. We arrived last night. The most amazing thing was walking out of the plane, going down the stairs and feeling the warm humid breeze. It was PERFECT. Like a comfy blanket.

The whole travel process was close to perfect. Going through security in Toronto was a breeze – no line-ups – the flight was uneventful… well from what I remember. A bit of background…. the last few years, since we had kids, I’ve become quite nervous about flying. So yesterday I asked my mum for an anti-anxiety pill. She gave me a couple and warned me that she never takes more than half or else she gets way too tired… well I’m REALLY nervous about flying, so when we got to the airport in Toronto I threw a whole one back and followed it with 2 of the most delicious mojitos…. So I don’t remember too much after that. Before I knew it we were here. HA!

Anyhow, last night we were brought to our room by “the bus”, basically large golf cart. It was dark so we didn’t see too much. But we did hear the waves from our room. This morning when we woke up it was like waking up in paradise… we have a little patio outside out room. That’s where we are sitting right now.





If I look straight ahead I see a bunch of thatched umbrellas, a sea of beach lounge chairs and the ocean.



The beach here is amazing… there is a constant breeze…. which is much needed because it’s hot – about 33C today I think. With the breeze though you don’t even break a sweat. We spent a couple hours at the beach which was long enough for both of us to become quite “sunkissed”. CJ is actually quite pink all over his front and I am pink in several spots where I missed with the sunscreen.

There is no lack of food or drinks here. Everywhere you turn there are restaurants and bars. This “all inclusive” is the way to go. I have taken quite a liking to a planters punch. And CJ has found his fav… it’s a combo of presidente beer with a shot of mama juana… Mama Juana is a local specialty. It’s made from rum, honey, red wine and some barks and other odd things. It’s really tasty. It’s warm and sweet and delicious! It’s nicknamed the “Dominican Viagara” HA! The reactions that CJ and I have gotten when ordering mama juanas is priceless. I am sure I went bright red today when we were making dinner reservations. We were standing in front of the desk and CJ was holding his presidente in one hand and a mama juana in the other. The woman at the desk said something to her colleague sitting beside her… she motioned at his drink with her head and they both giggled… She then proceeded to warn CJ that the combination of beer and mama juana’s was quite potent and to be careful. She continued to explain that when drunk in moderation, it should make him happy though… then she looked at me and said “but this should make you VERY happy…. Very happy… ”. I’ll leave it at that.

The grounds here are gorgeous. The resort has a number of 3 story buildings scattered around the property. Each building is brightly painted in happy colours – red, yellow, blue. The trees, plants and flowers are so lush and gorgeous. The pathways are made of large terra cotta – gold colored stones. There are small ponds and waterfalls everywhere. Relaxing spa-like music is piped out along the pathways, and more upbeat fun Caribbean music is played at the bars and pools. There are 2 large pools here. One has a swim-up bar. The pools are so big and the beach is so inviting and extensive that you never are without a beach chair. The pools are never crowded and I never felt like I didn’t have privacy at the beach.






So tonight after dinner we headed to the Resort’s evening entertainment – the Beach Party. When we arrived it was pretty cute seeing a few of the kids at the resort all gathered together and being led in dances like the hokey pokey and the chicken dance. I was sitting on my lounge chair starting to miss the kids, when a bunch of partying folks danced onto the beach and jumped on the stage… one person, with shortish, wild, curly hair and a tight white dress was the most adventurous… dancing like a crazy person. “Is that a guy or a girl?” I asked CJ… “That, honey, I believe is the European gay contingent”, was his reply. Ha ha ha. And I believe he was right. These guys were hilarious. Unfortunately the beach party was cut short by a rain shower and we ran for cover leaving the guys to dance, groove and grind away on the beach (they were pretty hammered though, so I doubt a bit of rain was gonna stop them)..

Day 2: Today was actually much the same as yesterday. We woke up, we had breakfast and we went to the beach. This time we went into the ocean. It was so fun. The water is clean and warm and there are these amazing waves here on the east coast (apparently the west coast is more protected/calm). But CJ and I had a ton of fun jumping up into the waves and trying to body surf them. Maybe one day this week we’ll actually grab one of the body boards that the resort provides (baby steps).
One of the very cool things about being here is that I am not self conscious about being in a bathing suit at all. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I will never see these people again, maybe its cause people of all sorts of shapes and sizes (many bigger and many, many smaller than me) are walking around. There are a bunch of big bellied men walking around in speedos, several beautiful (and some not so much) women walking around in skimpy bathing suits and topless. I guess it just makes for a very non-chalant approach to body image. It makes me realize that we people in North American spend way to much time and energy stressing about body image.

Anyhow, after socking up some sun, both CJ and I moved to the wonderful shade of our thatch-roofed umbrella. I can’t tell you how nice it is to read a good book, lying on a beach chair beside the person you love the most, listening to the waves and feeling the warm breeze. Amazing.

There are a few kids here at the resort and every time I would see one my heart would fall a little. I miss our kiddos very, very much. But I am also very cognizant of the fact this vacation would not be a relaxing one if the kids were here… and that is the whole point of this trip – to recuperate and rest.

Speaking of rest, I had another wonderful nap this afternoon. There is nothing like a bunch of sun to make you truly appreciate an afternoon siesta. I woke up when CJ came back from his adventures. He had walked up the beach to the flea market. He came back with a beautiful necklace and earrings for me and a set in pink for Kenzie-boo. He is a sweetheart. We then headed over to the lobby which has become our favourite hang-out for a number of reasons.

a) it’s beautiful,
b) the bartender knows CJ well now and treats us very well, and
c) it is a great spot for people-watching.

Oh yeah, and d) they serve some great fried plantain and other yummy snacks.

Day 3: Tuesday April 8th. It’s about 4:30 in the afternoon and we are here in our room having a little quite time to read and/or nap. So far today has been another close to perfect day. Yesterday did end so well. At about 6:30 I started to feel kind of crappy. Headachy, stomach burbling etc. Turns out that I was hit with something that could have been Montezuma’s revenge. Okay maybe I exaggerate, but it sure put a damper on the evening. We had to skip going out to the Brazilian restaurant for dinner and I spent the between lying on the bed or sitting on the throne… lol.

Luckily woke up this morning feeling great. CJ and I made a point of going easy on the food and drinks today. It’s just too easy to go overboard when everything’s included. WE spent the morning on the beach – alternately being lying in the sun, or reading in the shade or playing in the ocean – the waves are so much fun to play in. The water is warm and salty.

We needed to check some things on the internet so we headed to the lobby to use the computers there.





After that we took a lovely walk up the beach to the flea market.



This guy was hilarious. He stopped haggling with us in order to take a picture of a woman walking topless on the beach.




It was fun but also very draining to do the haggling. We ended up buying some necklaces for the family. I am pretty sure we paid too much, but luckily we didn’t spend too much money and managed to survive the experience without losing too much money. Walking along the beach, we were asked to go parasailing. We said “no” for today but I am on the fence about whether or not to go tomorrow. On one hand I know it would be an amazing experience that both of us would LOVE. On the other hand I might have to get wet and I am by nature quite lazy. So we’ll see.



So after our little siesta here, we have rebooked for dinner at El Pino (the Brazilian restaurant). Maybe tonight after dinner we will actually go to the resort’s entertainment night. We wanted to go see the Michael Jackson show last night (the one which our good friend, Jean Luc, the Sunwing rep, so highly recommended) but since my stomach erupted we missed it. Tonight’s show is Mr. Caribe or something like that. I told CJ that if it’s a talent show he had to go play his guitar. That would be so cool.

We didn't make it to the talent show, but we did have a nice dinner at a Dominican restaurant on the resort.



Day 4: Wednesday: It’s 4:00 and I am sitting on our patio feeling a warm breeze on my face, a plate of nachos beside me, waiting for CJ top get back with some ice so we can make some rum and cokes. I am missing the kids a lot at the moment. I think that if we were going home tomorrow afternoon it would be perfect… okay maybe Friday morning. By then I’m sure I’ll be ready to go home. But Saturday seems so far off… and in fact we get in so late on Saturday night that it’ll actually be Sunday morning when we land. So we won’t be seeing the kids awake for another 3 and a half days and that makes me sad. I want to hug them and I am worried about them missing us and/or being homesick. My mother is an absolute saint for taking care of them all week. I know they will be well cared for and loved, so at least I don’t need to worry about them. I hope she is holding up okay. I worry about her. She always tries to do so much.

Okay… so a debrief of our day:

1. Woke up late
2. Had breakfast
3. Lay on the beach
4. (This is where things went a little bit off… CJ and I decided to) go for a swim / jump in the waves.

So we were in the water having a great time when his face fell and he looked terrified. I thought I had a giant jelly fish or something like that on me so I started splashing madly and jumping up and down in the water. Then he yelled – “NO, I lost my wedding ring”. He looked over at me before he started diving down into the water over and over again. He looked so devastated it broke my heart. To me it is disappointing, but it is only a ring. We can get another ring. What’s important is what it symbolizes and that is our marriage. Our marriage is still as great with or without the ring. I tried to comfort him but he was so down. We spent quite a bit of time diving down trying to find the ring, but with all the waves, the sand at the bottom was always flying around and we couldn’t see the bottom. It was truly like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Unfortunately we did not find it. I think getting a new ring for CJ will be one of the first things we do when we get back home. I wish I could find his ring for him right now.

5. Read

Both CJ and I have been doing a lot of reading. Today I finished a book call “Angry Housewives Eating Bon bons”. It was amazing. Just the type of book I like to read. It was about 5 women, all different personalities, who become friends through a book club. The book chronicles their lives from the time they are in their 20’s having children and through to the time they are older and have grandkids. It made me long that type of friendship. I think that when we get back home I will try to organize our own book club – maybe with Sue, Helen, Bev, Jackie, Vicki and me – maybe even Angela. I really hope they are into it. I think we would all have a lot of fun.







Day 6: Friday (last full day) Yesterday was our excursion day. In hindsight we probably should have stayed at the hotel. The tour was advertised as a 1 and a half hour drive to the other side of the island where we’d take a huge catamaran to an island which was also a National Park, and then we’d come home on speed boats and the bus and be back at our hotel by 7:00.

What ended up happening was that we got on a bus at 7:00 am and then stopped at 7 other hotels to pick up more people before finally heading across the island. Our tour guide spent 90% of his time speaking in French and 10% speaking (very hard to understand) English – which was probably appropriate since 90% of the passengers were French speaking. I would have liked to hear more about the island, culture, politics, economy and history. The trip across the island took about 3 hours rather than 1.5. The big joke here is that a Dominican minute is about 5 of our minutes. But I believe I remember the Jean Luc telling us about the excursion and he specifically clarified that he was talking our minutes. In any case we finally arrived at the state park at about 11:30. Instead of getting on the catamarans we got on the speed boats.



I was actually a bit afraid when we first took off. The boats were racing each other and jumping over huge waves. I was squeezing CJ’s leg so hard my arms hurt. After about 20 minutes we arrived at what is called the “Natural swimming pool”. It’s actually a HUGE sand bar that extends for hundreds of square kilometers between the main Dom. Rep. island and Saona Island (the national park).



The boats stopped racing and we all jumped in. We spent about 30 minutes standing around in the middle of the ocean on this giant sand bar. The guys on the boat opened up bar and handed out rum and cokes to all of us in the water. 2 or 3 of those “Cuba Libre”’s go down pretty easily in the minute of the ocean. Suffice it to say, I was much more relaxed on the second part of our speed boat trip.

Unfortunately that was probably the best part of the trip. I was surprised when we got to the island to see beach chairs, picnic tables, bathrooms, big roofed barbeque areas and a bunch of vendors on the island. I had truly been expecting a deserted island where we would sit on our towels on the white virgin sand. This was way too touristy for me. (I had expected the untouched feel of Blake Island in Seattle). In any case, I really shouldn’t complain. CJ and I sat on comfy lounge chairs under a big palm tree and read our books and drank rum and cokes and ate a delicious hot meal of local specialties before leaving the island about 2 hours later.





This time we got on a catamaran.





It was a beautiful boat and I would have truly enjoyed the 3 hour sail back if it hadn’t been for the splitting headache that started to come on. There was more drinking and load music and beautiful views and perfect weather. WE arrived back to land at about 6:00 and started the long journey back on the bus. I was pretty annoyed that the bus stopped at a touristy market on the way back… all I wanted was a cool shower a few advil and a clean bed. I guess it was my headache that put a damper on the day more than anything else. But I also wonder if I would have had that headache in the first place if we had just stayed at the hotel and laid on the beach reading. Bitch bitch bitch.. I can’t believe I just bitched about a day on speed boats, Caribbean islands and catamarans…

So to today. So far today has been perfect. CJ and I bought all our souvenir gifts this morning. We bought most of the things from the gift store but there were a couple things we were missing and had to buy from the flea market. We also got CJ a replacement ring until we can get the real replacement once we are home. I think poor CJ felt really incomplete without his ring. I’m glad he has one on his ring now to make him feel better. Luckily I think we over estimate what the things would cost so we walked away feeling good about our purchases and I’m sure the vendors weren’t too disappointed either. Now once again we are in our room about to take a little siesta nap. As much as I am enjoying this vacation and am truly feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, I can’t wait to see Kenzie and Seb in less than 2 days.

WE also went to the casino tonight. It was a small one and we lost all our money. But it was still fun. This is when we were waiting for our lift to the casino




Saturday: Today was a long day. We spent the morning with a short trip to the beach and then came back to our room and packed our bags. After lazing around for a while, we called the front desk to have someone pick us and out bags up. We then spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around the lobby having a few drinks, people watching and waiting for our bus. Then we were taken to the airport where we went through the usual check-in, security etc. We finally boarded the plane. Poor CJ was so sick on the plane. He had some stomach issues and was constantly running to the bathroom. I felt so bad for him. Luckily we arrive home safely and were happy to give the kiddos hugs and kisses before collapsing into bed.

It was a great trip.