A Summary Of Our Trip To The Dominican Republic
Paradisus Resort In Punta Cana
So our trip began at 4 am with a big mosquito trapped inside our vehicle with us. I eventually killed it after 5 minutes of panic by the girls in the back seat. Then we get to the airport and my girlfriend's GPS tells us to "turn left" which results in us going the wrong way down a one way path. Then airport security confiscates a bottle of suntan lotion, which is larger than what is allowed although it is only half full. I then get a pat down presumably because I am wearing cargo pants. We change planes in North Carolina and have only 20 minutes in between flights. Of course, when we arrive there is some complication with the door attachment, and so precious minutes are ticking by while we wait for this to be resolved. During this flight (the much longer one), I am sitting next to what can only be described as a non-petite woman, and eventually I lose the battle for the arm rest between us. Her significant other has the window seat and is periodically coughing violently throughout this 4 hour flight. Once we land in the Dominican Republic we are handed paperwork to fill out in order to get through customs. Fortunately, because I read and have a book with me, I have a pen that we all share to fill this form out.
Once we leave the airport I see a Wendy's, and comment on the spread of Western Civilization. The drive to the resort is 25 minutes, and as we travel I begin to think that this country looks very much like Cape Coral, Florida. Traffic is interesting here because there are only two traffic lights and no stop signs between the airport and the resort, and during this entire trip none of us ever see a woman driver. It is all men, which may explain how this system is able to function so efficiently and with so few accidentes.
The resort is called Paradisus and it is beautiful, although I cannot really understand anything anyone is saying. By and large I can comprehend about 33% of what people are saying, which is better than it ever was at my local Walmart in Florida. Anyway, on the first day, before we have had the chance to enjoy anything, they take us on an excursion in an attempt to get us to purchase some sort of membership where we may have access to all of their locations world wide, blah, blah, blah. Our saleswoman was a very nice person (we'll call her Mel), and she was genuinely sweet; however, she dragged us out of the resort to another location where she wanted to show us the company's new hotel design (where live models were posing as statues). Along the way we were stopped by the Federales (or is it Policia?). I guess it was just some sort of random check, but it was unnerving for a moment because who knows what could happen? We have no rights in this country. So, over two hours go by and the kids & gf (let's call her Anorexia) are getting pissed. We tell them we are not interested, and after making us wait another 15 minutes or so, they finally bring us back to the resort with generous gift coupons that the ladies would later use in the various gift shops.
Finally I made it to the pool, and got my first drink at the pool bar. You swim right up, have a seat, and order what you want. A fellow traveler told me to get their local drink called mamajuana, which translates into 'baby maker' according to our guide, Mel. Back to Mel for a moment, she kept referring to me as Jason Statham. I fancy myself more of a Ryan Reynolds type, but she insisted I look like Jason Statham. Anywho, during our stay we hit the buffets, which were surprisingly high in quality with what they presented, and we dined at a different restaurant every night. This resort has great variety in their a la carte dining such as Japanese, Mexican, Seafood, etc. Of all of the things I will mention (the hotel room, the customer service, the amenities, the scenery, etc.) the single best thing about this place was the quality of the food. Every meal at every place was spectacular.
They tell you not to drink the tap water, and thus everything is bottled. When the waiter comes around to fill your glass it is always a bottle of water that they are using. They also tell you not to pet any wild animals. There were several feral cats running around our room, and I would hear them fight at night. There was also a couple of guys on the beach with a small monkey and a couple of parakeets offering to sell pictures I assume. We tried to avoid frivolous spending as much as possible. Upon arrival they tried to sell us VIP treatment for another $100 a day, or so. We decided not to do it. Rather than get free room service we walked to the various bars and restaurants. Access to a spa? I get that at my local gym every day. Sorry, no sale!
Another amazing thing about this resort was the fact that not only can you smoke freely almost anywhere, but you can smoke cigars freely almost anywhere. There were two places on the grounds where you could purchase cigars. I went to the cigar shop and bought two Cohibas for $40. Later I would find a few cigars sitting where someone (presumably drunk) left them behind. I probably prorated those two cigars I bought down to $8 each.
On the first morning Anorexia went somewhere and left me to sleep. Before getting out of bed, while watching TV, an adolescent black kid with a backpack on tried entering our room through the sliding glass doors in the back. At first I waved almost as if to say, "Occupied! Wrong room!" and he waved in kind as if to say, "Oh sorry, wrong room, my bad!" but the more I thought about it the angrier I became. First, you have to walk over bushes and between closely planted palm trees to get to the back patio (i.e., it is designed to be hard to access). Secondly, why are you going through the back and not the front door if your intentions are not nefarious? Thirdly, what's in the backpack and why are you wearing that? It would come in handy for looting would it not? No, I am convinced that this little thieving shit was trying to see which rooms were empty and unlocked so that he could ransack them. Later, the cleaning staff would go to the back patio to empty our ashtray, and leave the doors unlocked. Were they in on it? They fucked up something with the doors because after their first visit to clean the room the doors would no longer lock. I had to rig it so that they would . . . American ingenuity at its finest.
I mentioned the TV earlier. Let me just say that I am incredulous about how much better their TV channels are than ours. We were able to get about 175 channels, 165 of them were in Spanish, but those other 10 were great! Not only were they in English such as TNT, FXX, TBS, etc., but their movie channels were stellar. Unlike the utter crappola that HBO plays here in the States, their movie channels played movies that I actually want to see and enjoy watching. Granted, we were not there to watch TV, but during those moments we were chillin' in our room we got to see snippets of The Karate Kid 2, Identity, The Lost World, and a host of machismo flicks starring Stallone, Swarzenegger, and Statham! They even had Black Panther playing in Spanish with English subtitles, and I remember thinking, "Is this even on DVD yet?!"
Anyway, all throughout the resort they had nice music playing, either New Age or Techno (but not migraine inducing Techno). The beach sand was soft, there was a constant nice breeze coming off of the shore, it was not nearly as humid as Florida is, the water was sky blue, the palm trees were bright green, it rained only intermittently and usually while we were sleeping, there were some beach boobies if you know what I mean, I worked out at their adequate gym a few times, the shower was always hot, the toilets always flushed, and our room's dorm sized refrigerator was always stocked with soda, water, and beer. Periodically people would try to sell you shit, our room number kept getting confused with someone else's name, the service was adequate but not great, walks on the beach would result in seeing random things (mop, pallet, wood with nails sticking out of it), Anorexia crashed on her bike and hurt her ankle, eventually the bugs riddled my legs with bites, I had a small bought of diarrhea on day three and had to rest for 12 hours to recover, it took me three days to realize that the only difference between Coke and Diet Coke bottles is the color of the cap, I said 'Hola' about 17,000 times because you have to say it to everyone, my flip flops hurt my feet, and I was chased by a very small crab who looked like he meant business, but all in all I am stunned at how smoothly everything went.
Two out of the four of us wanted to swim with the dolphins so we had this guy quote us a price (only to increase it by $10 the next day), and said it would only take about an hour. Anorexia asked me to be there upon their return so I hit the gym real quick and then made my way back to the lobby. After an hour I looked for the guy who set this up, but he was gone. Another fella told me that it typically takes two hours, and so I made my way to the bar. Incidentally, I decided that rather than drink watered down Long Island Iced Teas (which they refer to as 'Ice Tea') or weak dirty martinis it is much better to do shots where the alcohol is pure. I alternated between mamajuana, tequila, and Dewars shots. Eventually, it was three hours since they left, and then four! I finally found the original guy and he was way too blase' about it. He told me they have to stay for other shows in addition to the dolphin swimming, which he made absolutely no mention of originally, and that he would let me know if anything was wrong. I was pissed, and went back to the bar. This was our last day, and so it kind of ticks me off that I wasted so much of it drinking at the bar, but also not really. I had already worked out, I had already ridden a bike around the entire resort every day multiple times, I did not want to lay on the beach and get bitten up any more, I did not want to just sit in the room and watch TV, I guess I could have swam in the pool, but I did not want to leave the valuables in the room, so I was sort of stuck at the bar. Normally this would not be a problem, but it caused me to crash at about 8:30 pm, and so I missed the show that night. It was a Cirque Du Soleil type of deal, but that's okay because Anorexia recorded everything on her phone. I myself recorded the Michael Jackson impersonator on my phone the night before. Now that was a good show!
Also on the last day one of the lawn maintenance guys cut a couple of coconuts open for us so that we could drink the juice inside. That was pretty cool. Anorexia and I had watched the sunrise a few times, and so we made sure to do so on this day as well. Shortly after I went to the pool for one last swim. I was amazed to see that I had the entire place to myself (ostensibly since everyone else was suffering from a late night or a hangover), but for an entire hour I swam and floated around in complete solitude soaking it all in in an attempt to download the experience into my long term memory mainframe. We made sure to say goodbye to our favorite members of the staff, ate breakfast, had a few drinks, and were soon on our way back to the airport. Again, I am stunned at how smoothly getting through customs was in both countries. In fact, the guys at customs in the Chicago airport were very laid back, and even funny. A vulgar millennial snowflake began pissing me off while we were waiting at our gate, but I was encouraged to stand down.
In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised at how well this trip went, and I admit I was silly to be so against going from the start. Perhaps in the future I may be more willing to venture off somewhere, but only to a few locations. Overall I much prefer to stay in the States, but have to admit I had a great time and highly recommend this destination for anyone who can afford it. Please feel free to inundate me with any and all questions regarding this journey we embarked on.
