Last week Brad and I vacationed in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic at the Iberostar Grand Bavaro Hotel. It was FABULOUS!!! The trip was an adults-only trip with me, Brad, Brad's brother, Justin, and Justin's wife, Christina.
I couldn't really decide the best way to blog about the trip so please bear with me as I try to describe our journey to relaxation.
Our trip began early last Sunday morning from the Pensacola airport.
We were ready to enter the country with our customs and immigration paperwork ready to go. Neither of us were really sure if we filled it out correctly, but after getting through customs we realized it didn't matter; they just wanted a record of our visit.
A view of the lovely Punta Cana airport. It was all outdoors with thatch roofs and really big fans. It reminded me what you would think a Hawaiian airport may look like. When you first enter the airport you get in line to get your tourist card, $10 per person. Then you proceed to the line where you turn in your tourist card. It was kind of funny that no sooner did you get the card you were handing it back over. After we got our luggage we went through customs. This consisted of a guy shuffling us quickly through grabbing our customs paperwork.
On our way to the resort we had a "War Eagle" moment. The couple we were riding with were wearing their Auburn gear. Turns out the girl had graduated from Auburn and the couple lived in Birmingham. You can't go on a trip without your "War Eagle" moment!
We arrived in paradise a little after Justin and Christina and they were able to give us the low down on the resort. Above is the view from our room.
What was the rest of the trip filled with? Eating, relaxing, more eating and more relaxing.
A typical day food-wise for Brad and me included a room service delivery of coffee (with the coffee always came a small plate of breads and pastries), breakfast at the huge buffet, lunch at the huge buffet, a mid-afternoon snack of nachos while playing bingo, another snack of cheese and bread while getting ready, then on to dinner with included 3 or 4 courses. We finished off each night with an order from room service of pizza and either a club sandwich or ham sandwich. Yes, we were little piggies.
The breakfast buffet had pretty much anything you could possibly want. There was sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, omelets, potatoes, other style eggs, all sorts of pastires, all sorts of fruit, all sorts of cereal and yogurt, and even some stuff that none of us would eat. My typical breakfast included a ham and swiss hot pressed crossiant with a little bit of fruit. I changed it up a little on a few days by having bacon and potatoes. I think Brad's plate changed every day.
The lunch buffet was not your typical buffet. It had anything and everything you could possibly want, some things you probably wouldn't want (cow tail??) and if you didn't see what you wanted you could order whatever you wanted. I heard where some people had lobster with their lunch every day. I pretty much stuck with hamburgers and nachos for the most part. I am a creature of habit and once I find something I like, I stick with it.
Dinner - yum! Each night was a different experience. We were all good about trying different things and I think we could all agree that the Japanese restaurant was our favorite.
So, what did we do during the day and at night?
Day - RELAXED!!!
Really, the resort had different things for you to do if you wanted throughout the day. Your Star Friends would come around looking for "2 million people" to play whatever.
Brad won the air riffle shooting contest the day he and Justin participated. He won a great hat!
Brad with one of our favorite Star Friends, Jose Luis.
Christina and I did water aerobics one day.
Brad, Justin and Christina kayaked. I stayed back to get my one book a year read.
Relaxing on the beach, where you (or maybe just met) had the chance of getting cold if you were in the shade.
And this is where we spent most of our time - in the pool! Here we are chatting with some of the new friends we made. As you can tell, Brad is not in the picture. He turned into a little chatty cathy with all of his new friends. I guess you can tell he has been hanging around me for a long time - I love it!
Night - a little of this and a little of that
The resort had a couple of shows in their theater while we were there. We enjoyed the ones we went to. Here Christina and I are posing with Michael Jackson after the Michael Jackson show. Some of the other shows included a magic show, Dominican night (which we did not see) and Boogie Nights.
The other nights we were at the ship karoking and dancing (yes, Brad and I actually danced, probably a first for us, but hopefully not a last!). The karoking was fun! The other people may not have enjoyed but I didn't really care. After hearing some of the others we agreed we needed an up beat song to liven up the crowd. So, we gave our best shot at "Sweet Home Alabama"!
There you have it - the short and sweet story of our relaxing vacation! We missed Paige like crazy and we both talked about how we couldn't wait to get home to get our big Paige hugs (she gives the BEST hugs)!!!
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