Dominican Republic vacation

This is going to be a weird post to write because while I had a fabulous time at the beach with my husband, best friend, and her new husband and his friends, the trip itself was not without its problems.  Two things are sure to me upon our return:

(1) I will never use AAA to book another vacation again (we found out that everyone else on the trip had paid significantly less per night for the hotel than we did)

and

(2) I don't recommend vacationing in the Dominican Republic

We tried to check in for our flight late Monday night so that we could make sure to get good seats.  This is when we learned that our flight time had been moved up significantly, but no one ever contacted us to tell us.  Nice, no?  It also turns out at this point that Alan's dad could no longer take us to the airport b/c he has a new job.  So, what to do, what to do?  We packed frantically that night and I went to work wearing the clothes I'd wear on the plane, carrying the big beachy bag I'd bring with me on the trip.  From work, I'd meet Alan at the BART station downtown and we'd take the train to the airport.  This meant he'd have to cart both of our carry on bags with him the first leg of the train trip.  Lucky him.  I was so antsy all day and had the hardest time concentrating, which was made even worse by the fact that I was waiting for something else to go wrong with this trip since from the very beginning we've had difficulty with it. 

We get to the airport and all is well.  Check in was a breeze and we had time to eat before boarding our flight to Miami for our 5 hour layover.  Yes, five hours.  Obviously, I would never book a trip with a layover this long if I could avoid it, but when DELTA canceled our flight through Atlanta and we had to re-buy our tickets, this is what we got to make sure that we arrived in the DR on the same day, around the same time.  C'est la vie.

Miami looks beautiful flying in, but the airport is ugly and gross and has no good food options.  At least that's the case for the American terminal.

Flying from Miami to the Dominican was absolutely beautiful - turquoise water as far as the eye can see with islands dotting the landscape.  We flew over the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos and Cuba before reaching Hispanola (the island that comprises Haiti and the Dominican).

Touching down in the DR is interesting as the airport is just a bunch of little outdoor huts.  Reminded me of the airport in Kona.

Oh the humidity!  Within minutes I was sweating like a buffalo.  Pretty.

This is where my surly attitude and "leave me alone!" nature starts to kick in.  The second you get through customs to the baggage claim area, you are assaulted by taxi vendors and airport transfer people from all directions.  We were with a company called VIP and they walked right up to us and just took our bags - once we figured out what was going on we saw that they had our names, but still.  They just took them out of our hands.  We had to run to keep up with the guy as he took our bags to a random van driver.  And then he stood there staring at Alan, finally saying, "tip?"  Um, you grabbed our bags out of our hands, we had to run to keep up with you and now you want us to give you money for the experience?  Le sigh.  This was a sign of things to come for the remainder of the trip.  Everyone who looks at you expects you to give them money for the pleasure.  By the end of day 2 I was over it. 

We got to the resort and went to check in.  The guy who took our information also absconded with a voucher that AAA gave us for a "honeymoon dinner" and special check in procedures after they kept messing up our reservation.  Yeah, we never got any of that.  The guy took our information and walked away.  He came back with some towel cards and told us our room wasn't ready - please come back at 3pm.

We walked around for a bit and ran into one of Alan's fraternity brothers so we hung out in the bar with him.  But this was only after we sat at a different bar earlier and got absolutely no notice or service. 

At 3pm, we checked back in.  Nope, still not ready.  Please come back in 20 minutes.

Went back in 45 minutes and STILL not ready.  In the meantime the bride & groom had arrived and they had had their own harrowing trip to the area having flown through Puerto Rico. 

When we went back the final time we stood around for awhile while they tried to figure out if our room was ready.  Finally they said it was, they gave us our key and off we went.  We got to the room only to find that the cleaning crew was STILL in there.  So far, the logistics were impressive.  Actually, in talking about impressive, I was *really* happy with our room and the view.  In all respects, this was a great room and location within the resort.  The grounds as well were just lovely.

Having met up with a bunch of other people who had checked in at this point it became clear to us that when we checked in we were also supposed to get our dinner reservations.  If you stay a week at the resort you are supposed to get three reservations to the specialty restaurants.  Well, we didn't get any. 

That night we met up with a couple of people for dinner at the buffet - one word:disgusting. Everything was just BAD.  Not bad for a buffet, but downright bad.  I ended up eating pasta.  At a tropical resort.  Yeah, that bad.  That night we must have hung out at the bar (the running theme of our trip) but I can't remember what we did.

The next day dawned bright and early and we hit the beach with our friends, having secured one of the palapas by the rock wall.

photo courtesy of Flickr user jOnathan

And yes, the water WAS that turquoise.  And the sand was just wonderful - soft white powder.  This was our first time to the Caribbean and the beach here was nothing like what you'll find on the pacific coast, or even most of Hawaii.  The only beach that can rival this one is Lanikai in Oahu. 

Prior to the trip, the bride & I had been pouring over TripAdvisor reviews like fiends.  For some reason people think within their reviews, posting pictures of themselves in bikinis doing ridiculous things is somehow what the readers of the site are looking for.  To that end, there are more pictures of middle-aged women in bikinis posing with parrots than you'd ever expect to see.  I told Heather that if we saw the parrots she HAD to take her picture with them.  Challenge issued and accepted.  On our first full day the parrots did not disappoint as they photographer and bird handler made their way down the beach for photo opps.  Alas, I do not have any pictures of this myself, but rest assured, Heather had a parrot on her head!

And then we made our way to the swim up bar for several rounds of especial.  Oy, vey.  I stumbled back to the room after several hours hanging out with the group and downing my fair share of the unlimited alcohol available to us.

That night we had a group dinner at the Dominican restaurant.  The soup was one of the best things we ate the entire trip.  The entree, while beautiful, was gross.  Have you ever had mushy lobster?  Go to the Dominican - ever piece of lobster is its own mushy delicacy.

The next day Alan hit up the rock wall and then we hit the beach and pool again.  Rinse, lather, repeat.

While sitting out there, the famed "the monkey nearly bit my daughter" monkey of TripAdvisor fame also made its way along the beach with the photographer and its handler.  I'm not dumb enough to let a monkey sit on my head, but I did manage to capture a picture of said monkey.  Strangely, the photographer was pissed at me for taking a picture OF the monkey but not WITH the monkey.  He kept making comments to me about how I already GOT my photo of the monkey.  Weird seeing as how they didn't charge for taking the picture - only when you bought it.

The remainder of the day - until dinner time at the JapOnaise restaurant with the masses.

I had hoped dinner at the Benihana-style Tokio restaurant would yield different results than our previous meals since it had been the best reviewed specialty restaurant on TripAdvisor (henceforth known as TA.com).  Alas, it was not meant to be.  Behold, the tempura.

Do you detect a running theme here?  Bad food.  Bad check-in experience.  Bad service. It was sometime during day 2 that I realized even though we had left a tip for our maid that we would not be receiving good service.  It took several days into our trip to get new towels or toilet paper.  And seeing as how the food poisoned me, the latter was a necessity. When we'd leave notes with money asking for these items, we didn't get them.  Our bed was made, but the linens were never changed.  I don't know about you, but I'm at the beach - sandy and covered in sunblock ... perhaps I might like some fresh sheets every couple of days.  Nope.  Not meant to be.  The service at the resort was awful.  If you asked for something, the chance of getting it - except at the bars where the service was excellent! - was slim to none.  By the beginning of day three I was really starting to resent the staff whose answer to every question no matter what it was is "no, sorry."  And then they;d walk away. 

I tried asking nicely.  I tried asking forcefully.  I tried speaking Spanish, all to no avail.  When a sign at the front desk said that they had no new dinner reservations available but that they were open to changing times for currently held reservations and I tried to do that, they told me they couldn't do it because they had no reservations available and then pointed to the sign which said they could do what I was asking.  Um, read your own sign maybe?  I wanted to pull my hair out.  It was useless asking for anything.  I understand I was in a foreign country asking for things in English; and one might wonder how I can expect them to understand what I'm saying, but we KNOW they spoke English.  We KNOW they were just being lazy or messing with us. 

Exhibit A: On our first day there while at the front desk I asked about our room.  The girl spoke plenty good English, enough to carry on a conversation with me.  When two days later I asked her about the dinner reservations she told me (obviously not remembering the conversation we had in English a few days later), "no English."  And then she walked away. 

The only thing I can surmise from my experience with the majority of the staff at this hotel is that they have no desire to do their jobs, they think Americans and Canadians are dumb and will just put up with it.  Oh, and they think it's funny.  A dealer at the blackjack table told her pit boss (in Spanish, not realizing the gambler's girlfriend is fluent in Spanish) that even though he had 21 she didn't feel like paying him so she was going to just keep saying "push" - obviously thinking he'd give up when he became so frustrated by trying to communicate with her. 

Oh, and the casino.  Yeah.  One of the slot machines conveniently would break whenever someone had 43 credits.  They'd pretend to fix it and then tell you that you didn't have your credits anymore and then they wouldn't pay you.  This happened to two members of our party, plus I heard another person at breakfast complaining about it.  Three people in one week?  Yeah, a little fishy.

I know it's probably not fair to judge a whole country by the people working at a resort, but by the middle of our trip I had decided that I would never go back to the Dominican Republic.  The lazy assholes running the place, paired with the slimy vendors they let in who had no problem lying and touching you was just disgusting.  I feel like I was robbed.

All that said, I was happy and excited to be there for my friend's wedding and the terrible food and service could not rain on that parade! 

After spending the day of the wedding at the adults pool (although um, it was overrun with kids?!), it was time for the wedding.  I acted as one of the unofficial photographers as their package did not include photography. 

Unfortunately, the food at the reception did a number on my belly so I couldn't celebrate properly with the group - instead it was back to the room for a night of sickness for me.

The next day I woke up bright and early and secured a giant palapa at the adults pool for everyone to hang out.  In the middle of the day there was a giant rainstorm but we were protected from the elements.  Since it stays warm while it rains it was really fun to be out there watching the skies open up with torrential rains.

As I said before, our days were a mixture of beach, pool and bar so I can't really tell you what we did on any one day since we did the same thing everyday.

On the last night with all of us around we had reservations at the French restaurant.  On the menu, laminate duck and Gordon blue chicken.  I'll let you figure out how the meal went.

Our last morning on the island was somewhat difficult, but very much in keeping with the rest of the travel experience.  At 10am we got a call telling us that our taxi to the airport was ready to pick us up for our flight on Continental Airlines.  Um, we have a reservation for a 12:50 taxi for our flight on American.  After haggling with the guy for a couple of minutes, Alan and the man agreed to 12:30.  Sometime around noon Alan double-checked and much to our dismay, a cab was on its way to pick us up.  By this time I was ready to go and just get home since I had to be at work the next day as well.

We squeeze our way into a taxi that was filled to the brim for our trek to the airport.  It was a hot, humid day and the a/c was ill equipped to handle the weather.  When we get there we were attacked by porters wanting to grab our bags and wheel them the 30 feet to the departure check in line.  I was tired of giving people money to do their damn jobs - and poorly, I might add - so I wouldn't let him have my bag.  I probably looked like a petulant child, but I don't care.  He grabbed the bag from Alan, wheeled it 30 feet and then stood there staring at Alan for him to give him money.  He didn't, and I'm glad.

We finally checked in, telling the ticket agent what flight we were on which was departing at 3:30 (not at 4:05 which it was scheduled for, btw).  We went through customs and security and stopped to go to the bathroom.  When I heard they were calling final boarding for a flight to Miami, I checked our boarding pass and saw that the damn lady had put us on THAT flight - two hours early!!!.  So we ran through the terminal trying to make our flight.  At one point as I scurried through the food court I said, "I hate this effing country!" to which I received a standing ovation from a group of 10 or so Americans.  Clearly they'd had a similar experience in the Dominican.  We made our way onto the plane - just barely - sweating and cursing, and left that awful country.  And no, I won't be back.  If you're a fan of Hawaii, do yourself a favor and don't go to the Dominican.  You've been warned.

The interesting thing is, since coming home I've heard from four people that they're planning on going to the DR.  I don't get it - when did the DR become a major tourist destination?  And what did people read to convince them that was where they wanted to go?  Is it because it's cheap?  If so, I say to you - you get what you pay for (although in our case we could have gone to Hawaii and stayed somewhere nice for what we spent). To be fair, I did hear that the Riu property was amazingly beautiful.  But the Barcelo?  Yeah, beautiful but toxic.

Comments

[Stephanie]

Awwwww. You poor thing. What a crummy experience (not including that amazing blue water, of course!) I bet Paris is looking better and better now...

:-)

[ei-nyung]

When I saw the photos you posted before this entry, I made a note to myself to ask you if you'd recommend going to the DR. After reading this blog entry, I suppose it is pointless to ask. :( It sounds like the airlines just started things off with a bang w/ the schedule -- that is the worst thing. Ugh.

The sand & water does look stunning though. You & your friend Heather look fantastic in the pics, despite all the stressful events. :)

[Laura]

The water looks amazing but it doesn't even seem worth it. To pay for good service and to receive the kind of service you guys got is reprehensible. Is there anyone you can complain to?

[Kristin]

If that wedding dress of hers is the Jcrew sophia dress, I wore the same one at my wedding. She looks just lovely! Sorry about the poor trip though!!

[Heather]

Kristin - yup, it's the JCrew Sophia dress! I love that dress. As for the rest of the trip, yeah, Becky's assessment is pretty darn accurate. But hey, first time in a new country I think we all expected some, um, 'adventure' I guess is a pleasant way of putting it...

[ei-nyung]

Heather, let me chime in on how lovely your dress looked/looks on you! It fits so well and flows in such a lovely way that it looks custom-made for you.