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!