The resort was so fresh!! When I told everyone where I was going for Spring Break they were all so convinced I'd be staying in a cardboard box in the middle of nowhere. Yeah right!!!! The resort was AWESOME!!! The lobby was huge and all open, just like the airport. There were even two separate parts to it, plus a huge bar.
After we got our keys we rode on a golf cart to our building. There were at least 11 buildings with 75 rooms in each one. Each building had three floors and 25 rooms on each floor. We stayed in Building 24. Alissa, Emily, and I were in room 206 and Laura, Kim, and Abby in 305, right above us. Our rooms had 3 beds, 2 chairs, TV, closet, mini-bar, etc. We were tucked in the back of the resort, but had a good view of the center of everything, right by the pool, stage, restaurants, lobby, etc. The only problem with our room was that the curtains didn't open properly and the light switches seemed to do something different each time. We had found a page on the Internet called "Debbie's Dominican Republic Page" and read reviews of our hotel on there. We had been told to bring a radio, so we had that. We did not, however, have a clock. Oh well. We had our watches. But how much time were we going to be spending in the room anyway????
We ate dinner that night in the buffet. The food was really yummy and there was lots to choose from. My favorites were the rolls, French fries, and pastas. We all loved the Mango Juice!! My favorite desserts were the ones that had the chocolate mouse.
Our first night in the D.R. we played in the waves in the ocean. I had forgotten that it WAS the ocean and therefore had saltwater. I had a big surprise with the first mouthful I swallowed!! :-) It also burned our eyes. We stayed in there for 30 - 45 minutes, saying how much fun we were having and nobody had even left yet!! Ha, ha!!
Each night the resort's Fun Club did a show with the kids that they looked after during the day. Then there was dancing. I got a real shock on the first night when someone came to me and tried to get me to dance. Yeah right!!! Laura went with him because I refused to leave my chair. Alissa was the big dancer. They loved her!!! The rest of us usually went to bed pretty early. We're poops and we know it. Laura, Abby, and Kim usually went up first and me and Em a little later. We were usually in our room by 10:00 every night, if not earlier! I showered every night first. Then Emily and I wrote in our journals and watched a movie on HBO. The movies were all in Spanish. Emily found the Closed Captioning and we could at least read it. (The subtitles were in English.) Emily usually went to bed first, then me. I went to bed at midnight, Em at 11:30. Alissa came in at all different hours.
We had a meeting with our Tour Representative on Saturday and met a couple from Holt. They were nice. We listened to all the things to do and decided that the Monster Safari was the best. We decided to do that on Tuesday.
Saturday night, Alissa met a boy from Marshall. He said he was 16, but there was no way he was that old. We decided maybe 14. :-) His name was Nick. He found Alissa again on Sunday night and she introduced him to the rest of us. She later told us that when she first met him on Saturday he asked her who she was with. "Five of my friends." "Where are they?" "In bed." "Are they losers or something?" "NO! They're just tired." Crack me up!!!! He hung out with us the rest of the week.
We laid by the pool all day Wednesday. Nick came down with us. We got into a conversation about middle names and he said his was Paul. From then on he was Nicky Paul. Abby and Laura shouted it out to him one night in front of his family and he was all embarrassed. :-)
Our typical day began between 8:00 and 9:00 when our maid walked into our room saying "Hola!" Go away!!! So then we were up. After two days of that, we decided to hang our "No molestar" sign on our door when we went to bed each night. That gave us until about 10:00 or so.
Then we went out and laid by the pool all morning and part of the afternoon. (We started at the beach and then moved to the pool.) I lathered up constantly, but still got burned. I burned my chest (forgot the lotion there), tops of my ears, and the part on my head by my bangs. I was very careful after that.
The others liked to wear dresses a lot, but I didn't bring any. I only had two shorts and tops that were nice(r) so I wore those a lot. We tried out the Italian restaurant and the Mexican one, too, but were not impressed and went back to the buffet.
We went to the mercado three times. We were so obviously tourists and the owners flocked to us. "Come see my store!" "Pretty lady, over here!" "Come look!" Oh my God! Get away from me!!! I hated bartering. Laura did it all the first time and then Alissa the second time. We all got matching t-shirts that time. One lady followed me all over the store and I wanted to turn around and smack her!!! I bought one thing for everyone in my family. All five of us got matching sarongs. They're kind of tie-dyed and say Republica Dominicana along the bottom. Mine is turquoise, Kim got yellow, Emily red, Abby navy blue, and Alissa purple. On Thursday we waited TWO HOURS for Abby to get her hair braided!!!
