We went through our hometown travel agency, Salem Travel, for this trip. We have used them twice now, our first being our honeymoon to London, England. We had a blast and they took care of EVERYTHING for us, so naturally, we went back, and again, they took care of us-eventhough we had some travel hiccups this time, but that's another story I'll address later. We flew out on Sunday march 8th rather than Saturday March 7th because Salem Travel found us a non-stop flight leaving Sunday, and a non-stop flight back the following Sunday. We flew Frontier Airlines and the plane was much smaller than the one we took to London. The flight to the DR was as enjoyable as a flight can be. Smooth air, arrived early, and for this girl who doesn't like to fly, it was pretty much a dream come true.
We had a service arranged to pick us up from the airport and take us to our resort in Punta Cana. After research we finally decided to stay at the Grand Bahia Principe, located on "resort row". The resort was very lovely overall. Palm trees framed around both sides of the sidewalk throughout the resort, perfectly trimmed bushes, flowers everywhere, 3 main pools complete with volleyball net and swim up bar in the middle, and a little slice of the eastern shoreline where guests could lay on the beach or go to the grill/snackbar.
We were put in villa #30, there were around 70 villas, each with 18 rooms. (3 floors, and 6 rooms per floor) our first room was number 30104. Villa 30, room 104. I was less than impressed. The bathroom smelled of paint thinner-strong enough to make us both sick by the next day- there was hair all over the floors, our sheets were NOT fresh sheets, and our sitting nook had a hole in the upholstery and our sliding glass door to our bottom floor balcony didn't lock. Not only that but there was a pack-n-play in the middle of our room. Its great the the resort offers that for families traveling with children, however...our reservations clearly said 2 adults and no children. The next morning (Monday) we went to front desk and requested a new room and were given the same villa, but top floor instead of the bottom floor. Someone had just checked out of it and the maid hadn't been there yet so we were told to put our bags down and go out for the day. We spent Monday exploring the resort, finding the restaurants and making our reservations for the formal nights. We also met with a representative to get our tickets for the off-resort excursions we had booked through the travel agency. When we came back to our room, it seemed cleaner, and no awful smell. But alas, our sheets still had hair and dirt in them and through my broken Spanish I found out that they didn't change them! I paid our maid $5 and she gave us clean sheets. I was pretty proud of myself for communicating well enough that she knew what we needed.
Let me tell you- $5 bought me a new best friend! The rest of the week we had clean sheets, extra towels, fully re-stocked mini bar with sodas and water, she even mopped our floor twice that week!
Tuesday was our first excursion. By now, my husband and I are getting antsy. We are both the type of people who don't know how to relax. We walked around the resort several times the day before and explored the resorts theater and lobby area where we could get 1hr of Wi-Fi a day. We were picked up Tuesday morning after breakfast in the buffet hall in an all-terrain jeep/bus thing called the BAVARO RUNNERS. I was most excited for this trip. They took us out into the countryside for a day of adventure. The first stop was at a ranch, where you had the option to horseback ride. Well...my husband is afraid of horses so we walked around and ended up making friends with a donkey who, if you said 'hola' to, would answer. Every.Time.
From there, we went to a sugar cane plantation and got to taste the juice from a cane stalk. We saw someone making cigars, and headed to a plantation where they harvest cocoa beans and make them into chocolate and also coffee. Naturally, we had all of the free samples :) Lunch was served at a restaurant in the jungle, and we headed to our last stop of the day, a cave! They gave us helmets and basically said "Ok we will meet you on the other end".
Wednesday was our day for the Saona Island excursion. They came to pick us us at 7:20am so we didn't get breakfast this would prove to be my downfall.. So we get in a bus, full of Canadians. The tour guide spoke English, but he spoke in French for most of his spiel. It took us about an hour to get to the docks, but once we did, they loaded us into a small speedboat and took us out to a catamaran sailboat. They told us it would be about a 2 hour sail, and we were sailing to Saona Island to eat lunch. Once we got out to sea, they started up the music and the guides on the ship started grabbing people and asking them to dance. My husband loved it. He was dancing and having a great time! I, however, was sitting. Trying. Not. To.puke. My stomach was ROLLING. It took me about 20 minutes, but I finally started feeling better and even danced a few songs. Then...I turn around and someone else had puked in the middle of the boat. Seeing it set me off. I ran to the side of the boat and it was all over. I puked two more times after that before we got to the island.
Naturally, when you are seasick you totally want to go eat lunch, right? Oh heck no! One of the men on our boat went and bought me a sprite and tried to find me some peanut butter. He said he lived on the coast and was a fisherman for awhile and peanut butter worked for him because it was so heavy it would keep his stomach from rolling while he was on the water. While I was on the boat puking, I had a woman feed me a motion sickness pill and the woman next to me held my hair back and told me to keep breathing. After I didn't eat my lunch, someone fed me pepto bismol tablets and like everyone checked on me. I was embarrassed that I got sick, but looking back I'm so grateful that all of these people were there.
The island was very pretty. We even met a sand crab! This little guy was chasing people around making them scream and someone in the group caught him. This crab just sat in his hand and let him carry him around. When the guy put his hand down in the sand to let him go, the crab just continued to sit in his hand. When it was time to leave they brought the speedboats (much to my happiness!!) and loaded us all up and headed back. Or so we thought. We get about halfway back and get to a part where the water is a wonderful turquoise blue. They stop the boat, throw out anchor and say "alright everybody off!" We were told to wear swimsuits for what we thought would be swimming at the island beach we just came from. Nope. The water was only waist deep! In the middle of the sea! So we got to swim for about 30 minutes. By this time I was feeling much better, and the speedboats didn't bother me at all so the rest of the ride was wonderful.
Thursday was our final excursion and the one Micah had been looking forward to all week. The ziplines adventure! The ziplines were in the middle of the jungle/mountains that we were in Tuesday. We got to do 12 lines in all, and it only took us an hour and a half or so. The tallest line was around 7 stories tall, and the longest one was long enough that I stopped before I got to the end. I had to turn myself around and crawl to the end. Of all the things we did, I felt the safest on the ziplines. They put two harnesses on you, a helmet, and all of their lines are double lines. So you are attached to both of them. It was wonderful and not scary at all.
Friday was a "relaxing" day. We don't relax well, so we went to the pool. We only stayed for maybe 30 minutes, but we were told that we were cute by a group of spring breakers that were at the swim up bar. Other than that, we went to the lobby and used our free hour of Wi-Fi and waited for our dinner reservation at the French restaurant that evening. Except, no one told us that the location of the restaurant was not the same as the location on the resort map, and we ended up running around until a nice bellhop saw us and took us to the right area.
Saturday. Only one more day! By Saturday we were more than ready to come home. Saturday we spent most of our day catching up on sleep and lounging around in the room. Our dinner reservation was at the Japanese restaurant and it was the best food of the week! After dinner, and chatting with a nice Canadian couple, we headed back to our room and packed up our things. (Luckily...)
Sunday. Travel day! We got up early and went to breakfast. Our representative told us that our ride would be waiting for us at 9:30am so we ate breakfast and went back to the room to wait. We got a phone call at 8:48am from a bellhop speaking broken English saying "your ride here. It leaving. You have to pay cab if you not here now." ...wait...WHAT? I explained we were told 9:30 but we were ready and we would come now. He said "I come get you". So we got our bags and went down. There was a bellhop waiting so we jump in his cart and head to the lobby to check out. Well, apparently there was another bellhop who just happened to be there when we came down because this one had NO idea what we were talking about. Our ride had left.
After a frantic 5 minutes, the bellhop who called us found us. He said the ride was coming back for us. Ok. Problem solved. We can go home now, right? WRONG.
we get to the airport without problem. Get to the desk to get our boarding passes and...they can't find record of us. We have to pay to come home. THANK GOODNESS I had paid the credit card bill from my phone the day before because we had to charge an extra $450 to come home. We get through security and customs to the gate that our boarding passes say. Inside this airport there are not boards telling you flights like there are in America...our gate says Cincinnati.
Fantastic. Looks like we are going to Ohio instead of St.Louis. whatever. At this point, we just wanted to get back to the states. Turns out, we were in the right place and Cincinnati was set to leave 20 minutes before our flight, so they shared a gate. We got on the right flight, and all was well. Oh, except that the flight was twice as long (thanks tailwind) and it was full of choppy air. My ears didn't pop taking off or coming down. My head felt like it was going to explode. In fact, it took my ears 2 days to pop.
Overall though, we had a great time. The food at the Grant Bahia Principe was Ok. Not fantastic, but certainly edible. The hotel itself was clean, the grounds people kept it looking pristine and our second room was just fine. Will we go back? Probably not. But then again, we aren't really beachy-do nothing people. We loved our excursions and getting out into the country to experience it and I am glad we went.
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