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.
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