Punta Cana

I'm back, friends! My trip to the Dominican Republic provided just the downtime I needed. No more headaches!! It was pure relaxation. I guess the warm sun, turquoise water, white sand, and fruity blended cocktails will do that to you ;)

A quick recap: getting to the Dominican Republic from California is a pain! There are no direct flights so we laid over in Miami for five hours. Not many flights go down to the Caribbean island so the best travel plan we could do was leaving LAX at 10:30pm (traveling on the same plane as Patrick Dempsey), arriving in Miami at 6am, boarding a plane to Punta Cana at 11:30am, and arriving at 3:30pm. Whew, were we tired and hungry when we got to our resort. The four hour time change took a bit to get used to as well (Waking up at 8am local time was like waking up at 4am LA time.).

Unfortunately when we arrived at out hotel, they put the three of us in a two person room...looking at a fence. Not cool. The next room wasn't much better better as far as sleeping arrangements but it had an ocean view. We were all really disappointed with the resort. It's supposed to be the second best in Punta Cana but we weren't fans. Maybe it's because we had such a great stay at the Iberostar in Riviera Maya a few years back. I highly recommend that resort!

Our resort at dusk

So many palm trees!

Shops right on the sand

I think the fact that there were only like 15% Americans at the resort was hard, too. I know it's a culture thing but it's difficult to get used to ladies with no tops on...especially the really old and really large ones. You could tell we were American because our culture is WAY more modest. We wore cover ups and my dad had shorts on that went past his knees lol. I knew that the banana hammock thing was inevitable, but I even saw some dude take his tiny suit off! so.not.cool.

For the eight days and seven nights we had the same routine - we ate A LOT, drank A LOT, and hung out at the beach A LOT. I've only stayed at all-inclusive resorts and I wouldn't have it any other way. Our biggest worry all week was having to adjust our lounge chairs to point in the direction of the moving sun throughout the day.

Sunset in paradise

Warm, inviting water

So peaceful

Many of the pictures are on my dad's camera so I'll do a follow up post with more pictures, including our dune buggy excursion.