Dominican Getaway Part 3: The Final Installment

So here we are, it's now Friday and we have another excursion planned for that afternoon. We get to sleep in before having a nice continental breakfast. We take in a little pool and relaxation time before grabbing a quick lunch. Our ride arrived around 2:00 to take us on our Pirate boat snorkeling adventure! When we arrive, we board a small boat that takes us to this big pirate party boat. Before boarding the "ship", our guides put on a little pirate sword fight for entertainment. We then board our ship to take us on our adventure.

The whole ride on the ship was filled with entertainment and people from all over the world. Believe it or not, there weren't that many Americans aboard that ship. We had people from Chile, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and everywhere in between. Our MC had to speak in Spanish, English, and even Chinese! We had an awesome MC and crew. It was nonstop music and dancing on the party boat. They try to get everyone involved and teach you how to do all the Latin dances. They played a few American tunes, too. The best part of this adventure was stopping in the middle of the ocean for snorkeling! They provided the equipment and life vests and we just jumped in! This was my first time to snorkel, and it took me a while to muster up the courage to just jump in open water (I have a fear of open water). Alas, I "took the plunge" and jumped in. It took me a while to master the snorkel. For some reason I kept trying to hold my breath when I went under.When I relaxed and realized I just needed to breathe normally, I really enjoyed the experience. I saw starfish, reefs, and schools of fish. Here's a selfie of Mr. Hubby and I after we came up from our snorkeling adventure:

I really wish we had gotten some pics of us actually snorkeling, but we didn't have a way to do that:(

There was more dancing and fun times on the boat. 

Our next stop was a shallow pool in the middle of the water where we could all get out and swim. The water came up to our waists for the most part. Swimming in a real life wave pool! The best part was they kept the music playing with the crew standing on ledges still showing us dance moves! It was when the started playing the "Macarena" that the pinnacle of coolness had been reached on the Caribbean! I mean, how cool is it to do a throwback 90's classic in the middle of the ocean! After our swim, we got back to our boat and had a snack of nachos and fresh fruit. We rode back to our hotel for a shower and some downtime before we went back to the Colonial restaurant since we missed our reservations at the Italian restaurant. We called it an early night since the next day was Saturday and we had a full day ahead of us.

The next day we were headed to Saona Island, a small island off the coast of the Dominican Republic. We had an early start. At 7:40am we were headed to pick up other people who would accompany us on our journey. We drove to the island of Bayahibe. That is where we would take our small boat to our catamaran to begin our journey to the small island.

We had someone taking video of us throughout our whole journey. Each group had its own tour guide. Ours just happened to have the name Chanel (as in CoCo Chanel)! This was another party boat with people all over the world and lots of music and Latin dancing. It was a little more subdued than our pirate journey, but still lots of fun. Here are some pics of our view from the catamaran:

The water was absolutely stunning! We had a nice leisure ride to a small beach about 5 minutes from Saona Island.

I know those bandannas look legit, but we didn't feel the need to pay $5 a piece for them. Although, Mr. Hubby has a certain hottness to him with that thing on;)

When we arrived at the beach, we had time to swim and lounge on the beach for a few minutes before lunch was served. This was an all-inclusive trip (and another one of our free ones!). Mr. Hubby and I went for a swim before lounging on the beach before a lunch of chicken, sausage, fish, rice, potato salad, and fresh fruit. We searched for a while for an empty picnic table. We found one at the same time another couple found one and decided to share. It was nice getting to visit with another couple. This couple was older than us and from France. When we sat, the asked if we spoke French, but we had to simply say "English." They said they could do English. They had a son who lived in London and had to learn English. We had a nice lunch and conversation with the couple. We spent 2 hours on this particular beach before boarding a speedboat to a shallow pool where there was an abundance of starfish. We didn't get the best picture of one:

We got to see one and touch one up close. I even got out again into the open water for some ocean time!

Next, we took a short speedboat ride to the Island of Saona:

On this small island, 200 people live there with no water and electricity and small shops. They have to get water all the way from the island of Bayahibe, which is a 25 minute speedboat ride away. We relaxed on the beach for 45 minutes while other swam and shopped.

Those palm trees were our view while we were lazing on the beach. After our lounge time was over, we took the 25 minute speedboat ride back to Bayahibe. A long speedboat ride in the middle of the ocean bouncing up and down on the waves was very exhilarating! We had a long ride back to the hotel. We got our shower and had some time to relax before our 8:30 dinner reservation at the steakhouse. Dinner was great! We went back to our room to do some packing and preparing for our departure the next day. We got to sleep in a little before having a nice breakfast. We departed our hotel at 9:50 to pick up other people who were headed to the airport. We got to the airport and went through ticketing, bag checking (don't even get me started on American's bag policies and the way I was treated at that airport!), customs, and security. We arrived at our gate and waited about an hour before boarding our plane to Miami. Once we arrived in Miami, I understood why we had a 3 hour layover. After deplaning, we had like a 20 minute walk to passport control to fill out immigration forms at a kiosk. Then we went through customs; it was pretty quick even though the lines were long. Next up, claiming your bags. We had a hard time finding out which of the 10 baggage claims our flight was on. It wasn't until we walked all the way down to number 10 that we found out ours was at number 1! We got our bags and went through another customs area before re-checking our bags. Next up, security again! Then we rode the sky train to our gate where I had to grab some food. After all that, it was just about an hour wait until we boarded the plane to go home. We arrived at 9:00 that night. 

We had the best time! We feel so fortunate to get to have these adventures. We can't wait for our next one. In the mean time, Mr. Hubby and I will continue to enjoy each others' company right here at home. We love our date nights and our currently looking for new things to do on those! I love being young and married to my best friend! My summer is coming to an end in a couple of weeks. It's been full of fun and excitement!

Thanks, for coming on this journey with me!

Dominican Getaway Part 2

OK, now it's time to talk about things we actually did while we were on vacation.

We woke up to catch an early breakfast since someone was picking us up at 9:00am to take us to the Hard Rock Hotel for a tour (and an unexpected sales pitch). We got to the hotel and were instantly amazed at everything we saw. We were led to the area where we would get our "sales pitch." I could describe this hotel, but it would have to be a whole new post. Let's just say that the tour inspired My. Hubby and I to visit one of their other all-inclusive locations in Mexico next year:) We decided to hear the sales pitch to the end. We were at the hotel for 3 hours before we could finally leave and head back to our resort and start really enjoying our vacation. We go on a tour of the hotel and listen to the representative explain the member/timeshare program. She takes us to their office where a sales rep. comes by and tries to sell you the big package. Of course, we turned that down. I mean, it was the price of a good used car, and the monthly payments were essentially a car payment for that used car. And since Mr. Hubby and I could use another car well.......so then they bring in the boss who has a much cheaper offer. We deny that and she takes us to the check out to receive our free gifts. Well, of course the check out person has one last ditch offer to give us. We declined and just got our 2 free excursions and the ride back to our resort. We did manage to snap a few shots of the hotel. The one with the swimming pool is actually a huge guitar!

We got back to our hotel and decided we wanted some lunch and to spend the rest of the day in the pool. Since we didn't have anything planned for the next day till 1:30, we were able to enjoy a bit of the night life. We posed for a quick selfie before dinner:

Did I mention how much I love that hat!? Since we didn't have reservations, we went to our good stand by Colonial Buffet. After dinner, we decided to go to our room and play some cards until the show later that evening. The show was dancers doing all kinds of Latin dances. They had some cool costumes and performances. We really enjoyed it.

The next day we woke up to get some breakfast and spent some time reading by the pool. Yes, even Mr. Hubby read! I finished a book that I had started on the plane. We had some swim time before lunch. 

Thursday was our anniversary. We decided that afternoon after pool and lunchtime that we would do horseback riding on the beach. I mean, doesn't that sound like a romantic way to spend your anniversary? Yeah, we couldn't have been more wrong. Don't misunderstand, it was a great experience. It's just not one I think I would like to do again. I really think I wanted to do it more for the experience and pictures anyway. It was hot and long. We took an open bus to the ranch. While we are driving in an open vehicle at around 60mph, Mr. Hubby's hat flies off his head and gets ran over by a car. Luckily, we had a nice driver and guide. They backed up and retrieved his hat. The bill was broken, but still wearable. We were with a young family from Canada. I loved getting to meet people from all over the world on this trip! The ride was only supposed to be for an hour, but I know it was way longer than that. It was really hot, long, and uncomfortable. Just when I thought we might be coming up on the ranch again, we headed in a different direction. When I thought we were finished, I was told it was a break. During our break we got to see some locals and how they make cigars, coffee, and other natural herbs. I didn't want to climb back on the horse, but I did. The guide told me not to worry because we only had another 10 minute ride back to the ranch. I could do 10 minutes! I swear my horse was stubborn! He kept wanting to run, and I was so not OK with that! I'm a slow and steady rider. I hadn't been on a horse in 10 years! Trust me, I was totally feeling it later in the day and the next day. We rode through some forest on a trail to the beach. The horses ran along the beach. We even had to cross a natural fresh river! That was so scary. We had to do it coming and going. There was a photographer going with us the whole way snapping shots. He put them on a CD and was trying to charge us $50 for it. The other couple wasn't having that price, and neither were we! We managed to get it down to $30. You have to have pictures of stuff like this, and it wasn't easy snapping your own with your phone....especially if you have a horse that doesn't follow directions! So here are some shots of me and Mr. Hubby riding horses on the beach:

The scenery is stunning! The pictures turned out really well, too. You will see a pic of me and Mr. Hubby trying to slow our horses down as the galloped along the shore line. After our ride, we came home to shower and relax before our dinner reservations for the evening. This was one of 2 nights we were able to actually get and keep our reservations for dinner. We ate at the Hibachi restaurant for some Asian food. It was delicious. In keeping with our anniversary tradition, we took our annual "anniversary selfie" this year with the beach as a backdrop:

We had a great anniversary, despite being sore from the horseback riding. Since we paid for the horseback riding, our next 2 days were our free excursions we got from listening to the sales pitch. We will save those for the 3rd and final post. Stay tuned.....

Summer Shenannigans #3: Dominican Getaway Part 1

OK, so we've had this vacation booked since spring break. We've been waiting for months to go on this vacation. As I sit and write this, I picture myself one week ago today playing on a huge pirate party boat with people all over the world and snorkeling in the Caribbean Ocean. Sigh! Anyway, we are back.  We were ready to come back to our wonderful country after experiencing some time away. This trip was different from our last trip to the Caribbean-which was our honeymoon 4 years ago to the Bahamas. Comparing the two, I'd definitely say the Bahamas are more "Americanized" than the Dominican. It's a completely different culture that we experienced. We pretty much took it for granted that everyone would speak English....WRONG! I've never been more appreciative for my limited Spanish speaking skills than I was on this trip. The staff at the front desk spoke some English and the representatives for different companies, but the waitstaff, cleaning staff, and taxi drivers spoke little to no English. We wanted to watch TV some nights after an exhausting day....NOPE! At least not unless you spoke Spanish. There were only like 10 TV channels, and only one channel was in English and it was NickToons. Sigh! Oh well, thankfully our room came with free WiFi and we brought our iPads with Netflix. Movies and card games it was on the nights we were too exhausted to go do anything else (which was all nights but 1)! I don't want to overwhelm this blog with info and pictures, so I'm going to divide it up into 2-3 parts....depending on how much I end up saying. We uploaded very few pics to social media because I wanted to include most of the pics on the blog. So here we go! Our journey begins.....

Our flight left at 5:15 that Tuesday morning. So we were up at 2:00am to do some last minute packing and drive to Mr. Hubby's parents' house so they could give us a ride to the airport. With it being international travel, you really have no clue how long it's going to take to go through everything. There were a lot of people at the airport for that early in the morning in the middle of the week. We made it in plenty of time. I decided that I wanted to arrive in style, so here is what I traveled in:

Mr. Hubby donned cargo shorts and a ninja turtles T-shirt with his ball cap and flip flops. Typical. So we had a layover in Charlotte, NC for about an hour. It was enough time for us to find our gate and grab a quick snack before boarding the plane. We arrived in Punta Cana, DO around 1:30 (their time-they are an hour ahead from us). We had to go through the long lines at customs. Luckily, they had the immigration forms on the plane for us to fill out to save some time. We also had to pay a $10 entrance fee into the country. The lines moved surprisingly fast. We went to claim our bags-WIN! both our bags were present and accounted for. The airport was really unique. I'd never seen anything like it. We landed and were like: "is this the airport? It looks like a hut!" Everything in the DO looks like a hut! There are no terminals, so they wheel steps up to the door of the plane and you walk straight out of the plane onto the ground. A bus takes you to the part of the airport that you need to go. Now, coming back we didn't have to take a bus. We walked straight out of the airport and boarded the plane. They open the front and the rear doors of the plane for you to board.

We had to search for our transportation next. We made the mistake of asking someone for help. There are people all over that airport that are representatives for something or other trying to sell you something. We were unaware of this; however, we approached someone for help. They were friendly and led us to someone else (who he said had "something" for us since we were celebrating our anniversary). They didn't lead us to our transportation. So we listened to this guy tell us about the new Hard Rock Hotel and how they were giving tours to people who were staying at least 3 nights in the DO. He said it was their way of advertising. If we went, we got 2 free tickets to 2 excursions of our choice. It sounded good. We figured we'd go check it out and get the excursions. He never mentioned their was a sales pitch. We had to find that out from our transportation representative at the hotel. Just in case you're wondering, we didn't buy anything and we got our 2 free excursions (more on those later).

So we find our transportation and are handed a voucher that tells us we have to meet our representative at our hotel the next morning at 10am. Problem: we were leaving to tour the Hard Rock at 9am. I tried to explain this to the guy, but he kind of blew me off. I'm guessing it's because he didn't understand, so I let it pass. I figured I would talk to the driver or someone at the hotel when we arrived. So we're driving to the hotel and I decided to try my luck on the driver. I suspected he didn't speak English, but I asked anyway...in Spanish of course. I got the answer I was expecting. So, I tried to muster up all the Spanish I could remember to try to communicate with him my problem with my transportation voucher. It didn't go over too well. Let's just say that I spoke more Spanish than he did English! However, when we arrived at the hotel I did manage to communicate effectively enough to where he understood I needed to speak to someone who could help me that spoke English. He found the representative for our hotel and he was able to help us out. This guy was a huge help throughout our entire stay. We sat and chatted with him for a while. He was the one who told us about the guy at the airport who was trying to sell us a timeshare. He gave us some good advice that helped us out.

Next stop, our room! It didn't take long to check in. They had drinks being passed around while you checked in. They carry your bags to your room for you, but we totally had to carry them back during checkout. This was our first time staying in an all-inclusive resort. The resort had a unique feel to it. It was all open. There were no doors in the lobby. The rooms were in what looks like apartment buildings. Ours was all the way in the back of the property. Our room was not too bad for the price. Here are some shots of the general room and our view from our terrace. BTW...our favorite part of the room was the big walk-in shower!

To be honest, the bed wasn't the most comfortable. But then again, when are they ever? We unpacked a bit and decided to take a little tour around the property. By the time we got settled, it was almost 5pm. They start closing the pools around 6. So we didn't get into any adventure that day. We also couldn't make dinner reservations because you can only do that between 7-10am. We ate most of our meals in the Colonial restaurant. It is a huge buffet. We did manage to snap a few pictures of the beach by our hotel. We also got a picture of the main swimming pool that had a swim-up bar for you to get all kinds of drinks....even coffee! This is the pool we enjoyed most of our stay.

We did walk barefoot on the beach our first day there. We ate dinner at the buffet and called it an early night since we'd only slept 3 hours the night before and traveled all day. We had a 9am adventure the next morning. 

Stay tuned for more posts of our Dominican Getaway where I'll tell all about our real adventures on the island and our fun excursions.