Punta Cana

After talking about our girl trip for a couple of years, I am sad to say that it has come & passed. I can't believe 5 days in paradise went by so fast! My friend Deb flew in Sunday night & we left the house at 4:00 that morning to meet Destin at the airport. The 3 of us then flew to Atlanta, where we met up with my sister:

 



 

Oh yeah, Flat Stanley decided to join us on vacation too:

 

 

Finally we arrived in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic:

 

 

I have to write about the airport because I never remember the details. When we first arrived, I thought it was a pretty cool airport because it looked like a big tiki hut. And then I thought it was weird because they made us pay $10 before we even made it to Customs to enter the country. They did not ask for documentation or make us fill out anything, just made us pay. I honestly thought I was being taken advantage of because I have never had to do this before, but they said it was a government fee?!

 

30 minutes later we finally arrived at our resort. The resort was beautiful & the lobby was open air. The girls got to relax & have a welcome drink while I fought with the receptionist:

 

 

It took us almost 2 hours to get our room, but we finally did. Unfortunately, we paid for the trip in advance months ago & I brought a credit card to file for incidentals, but I didn't bring the exact credit card that we paid for the trip with. Who cares?! My name was on the registration, I had a credit card with me & I had my passport to prove my identity. Let's just say I ended up having the manager call Bryan & somehow they worked it out over the phone. We did get upgraded to a nicer room, which was definitely a perk!

 

 

They also spent the rest of the week making it up to us. We got champagne & fruit delivered one day, a bottle of wine & dessert the next & they ended our trip with a lobster dinner. We might have gotten the better end of the deal?!

 

Here are a couple of pictures from the resort. The first is standing in the lobby & looking out when first entering the property:

 

 

I really think all of the palm trees are native. The beach was lined with them, even off of our resort property. It was like a jungle of palm trees. The rest of the island (from what little I saw driving to & from the airport) looked pretty dry & desolate.

 

First  you pass the pools:

 

 

and then you end up at the beach:

 

 

I didn't take a ton of pictures of the water, because honestly, it wasn't as pretty as I was expecting. Everyone told me that Punta Cana had the best beaches on Dominican Republic, so I was a little disappointed when we got there. Apparently there is a big reef out pass the beach & it is completely sea weed from the reef to the shore. Not just sea weed floating around, but sea weed, growing & living on the ocean floor, so a lot of it would wash on shore. Because of this, the water was more green looking than blue or turquoise & it seemed kind of murky with the color & all of the sea weed floating around. It made it harder to find sea shells! But the beach was beautiful - white, crystal sand - my favorite. Don't get me wrong, I was disappointed about the water but that did not stop me from getting in it or laying by it every day!

 

We also had a pretty view from our room:

 

 

Our first night there we enjoyed the Mexican restaurant & we went to the nightly show, but we didn't stay up too crazy late because our day was pretty long:

 

 

It was only the four of us that first night & then two more joined us the next day.

 

I hate to warn you that I have so many pictures to share, but I am going to break it up into several posts. First off, it takes too long to upload the photos & secondly, you probably get bored when my posts get long. But since I do not scrap book, Facebook or print pictures, this is the only way I share my memories. And let's be honest, I do not have the best memory so I enjoy looking back & remembering the little details :)