Excellence Punta Cana
We traveled to the Excellence Punta Cana during the week of June 9-16, 2007. This resort could just as easily be called Excellence Uvero Alto as this is the town that it is in. No one would know it so it gets the Punt Cana name. As you are driving to the resort you will know you are close when you go through Uvero Alto. Also, there will be a number of comparisons to Playa del Carmen, Iberostar Quetzal and Riu Palace in this report since that is primarily where we have traveled to in the past.
Our departure was out of Houston and the departing flight left at 6AM on American Airlines. I had plans on getting there 2.5 hours early, park in short term and just check in, then leave to go get a decent breakfast. American Airlines do not adhere to the rule of checking in 2-3 hours prior to flight so that plan was blown out of the water when they did not open the counter until about 6:15 and with only 2 attendants. This was not a rapidly moving line. We ended up getting checked in and had to run the car back to long term parking and my good, reasonably priced breakfast idea was trashed. Bear in mind that most of the places in the Airport don’t open until 7-7:30 and there was a long line waiting at each establishment. So we paid 20 bucks for 2 breakfast burritos, a cup of coffee and a soda. Bummer. Flight was late taking off but uneventful after that. American shows some movies and other assorted stuff on their in flight TVs and all you need is a set of earphones to listen. They will sell them to you for 2.00 or you can use your own. Arrival in Miami was a little hair raising as I thought it was the roughest and fastest landing I have been on. Arrived at the terminal and had to walk to the other end of the airport to find out connecting flight. This is a LONG walk and they could learn a thing or 2 from IAH on their trams. After our 3 hour layover, the flight leaving was on time and uneventful.
We arrived in Punta Cana at approximately 5:00. This is not a completely modern airport and you exit the plane on the tarmac and walk to the gates. They are actually Palapa Gates which we had a good laugh at. From here you will be led to customs. At the entrance you will have to go through a line that has a couple of Dominican girls dressed in some traditional dress with fruit on their head to have a photo taken of you. Don’t worry about the photo now as you will have the chance to purchase the photo on your departure for $8.00. Immediately after the photo you will need to go to a small booth in the middle of the area to purchase your visitor card for $10.00 each. They will hand you a card and you need to keep it handy to show the officer. Hopefully you have filled out the little blue immigration form on the plane and can go directly to the officers and get checked out. One form per family. After you get checked by the officer you will go about 20 yards and will have to hand over the card you bought for $10.00 before you can proceed. Keep in mind this is all in an open, Palapa covered area that is not air conditioned so my advice is to wear cool comfortable clothing. Now we head to the baggage carousel and retrieve our bags. Pretty painless so far. Proceed toward the exit and you will see a sea of porters wanting to take your bags for you. Not really necessary but we let them as they helped us locate the travel group in the airport. They are VIP Travel and all wear bright yellow shirts with VIP on them. Hard to miss if you know what to look for. We didn’t so we just relied on the porter to help us out. From there we had a short walk to out transportation, a new minivan with good A/C. We had to wait a bit for another couple to join us and then we were off. This was a pleasant ride compared to our return. More on that later.
The road to the resort is very different from the highway that takes you from Cancun to Playa Del Carmen. It is a winding 2 lane road that in spots is pretty bumpy from pot holes. Also, it is not a straight drive and has several turns that were taken to get to the resort. Overall, it is a little bit of an adventure and I could see if someone was prone to motion sickness then this drive might set that off. The primary mode of transportation seems to be small motorcycles (100 CC or so) and they ride them 2 and 3 at a time. The cars that travel the roads have very little respect for these bikes and I wondered if we would hit a number of them along the way. Never happened so that was a good thing. After just over an hour we arrived to the resort. Finally, after being up since 2 that morning to catch the plane and traveling all day.
At the entrance we were greeted with cool cloths, fresh juice and friendly faces. Quickly we were led to the front desk in an open air lobby that closely resembles the Iberostars with the main difference being that you can see the water from the lobby. The resort itself is set up to run parallel with the ocean versus perpendicular as is the case with most of the resorts in the Playacar area. At check in you are greeted with a platter of Petit Fours while checking in. Check in was very efficient. Prior to our arrival we had emailed the resort about our room request and our 25th wedding anniversary. When we arrived they had us in a different building but when asked if we could change they cheerfully checked and honored the request. The only problem was they asked us to wait a few minutes while they sent someone to our original room to move their welcome anniversary gift. Turned out to be a small fruit tray and champagne. The room we ended up with was in building 6 and I would say for convenience to all the resort areas, restaurants etc it was the most centrally located. Becca had read this somewhere so that is what we went for. The view was not that great but since we are rarely in the room it isn’t an issue. The front desk will give you the option of selecting a room upgrade for a fee and/or joining the Excellence Club. We didn’t do either so I can’t tell you if they are worth the price. We felt they wouldn’t be worth the extra cost although they are supposed to have ocean view rooms.
As we found out through the week this is a primarily American/Canadian resort. We met a few couples from England, France, and some Latin countries but primarily this seems to be an East Coast American and Canadian destination resort. The service staff tends to speak English very well and even when I would offer some replies in Spanish they would stick with English. Most of the remaining staff such as the grounds crew and maids are Spanish speaking and were very friendly.
As I said the general make up of the resort is east coast Americans. This is essentially a couples resort as most of the people there were either getting married onsite, honeymooners or celebrating an anniversary like we were. I would recommend this resort for groups who are paired up as well but not for singles unless you have no desire to meet another single for the week and are looking for a place that you would be left alone and have no “action” during the time you were there. Also, this is an adults only resort and was a nice change from the kids at the Iberostar. It tends to be quiet if you want it to be but there are a lot of activities to join in with if you desire. Beach volleyball, aerobics, dance lessons, Spanish classes, fruit carving demonstrations, tennis are all available if you want to join in plus a lot of other resort type activities. What is very noticeable is the lack of water sports going on. There was no parasailing, banana boating, waverunners etc in the ocean at the resort. They do have a dive shop type area that you can sign up for those things and I am assuming you go to another area to do them. We didn’t look into it as we have done that in the past and it wasn’t a big deal for us on this trip. They do offer boogie boards for use in the ocean if you would like. There is supposed to be a 1 hour time limit and then you are supposed to return them and check them out again. I didn’t know it and kept it all day both times I used it. They make you take a life vest but don’t make you wear it.
The beach at the Excellence was amazing. Unlike the pure white sand of Playacar, the beach is a light tan color. It is not brown. The sand is very soft and there are no rocks, stones or pebbles on the beach or in the water at the resort. It is a very long and wide beach. The water is very clear and you can see you feet in the water when you get past the area the waves are breaking in. This is a shallow entry beach. You can walk about 30-40 yards into the water and the depth is about 4 feet. The waves for the week were pretty calm and tended to be in the 1-3 feet size until the last 2 days we were there. Those days the waves looked to be in the 3-4 feet size and could be fairly rough. Best thing to do on those days is to get past the area that they are breaking so they don’t beat you around. The area on the extreme right of the resort gets close to a reef that slows the waves down substantially. It is the place to go if you don’t feel comfortable with the rougher surf. The further you go to the right the calmer the surf becomes. At this point if I were comparing the beaches to Playacar I would give the edge to the Excellence since they are so much larger. There isn’t the constant barrage of walking vendors at the Excellence either. I saw one guy one day who was making the palm leaf hats but he didn’t approach anyone off the water so I feel like the resort security keeps them from being a nuisance. In the afternoon a couple of guys that work on the resort site will walk the beach to see if anyone wants to sign up for a 4wheeler tour or go horseback riding but it is very low pressure.
The beach is .4 miles long according to the hotel information and has a lot of Palapas to get under. It was hard to tell if the towel game was going on as there always seemed to be towels on the chairs and no one would ever show up. I felt like there was a gentleman in the morning that would lay towels out on the chairs and you just needed to go pick a spot. Becca didn’t agree with me and she felt they were being saved. I do know they put rolled towels in all of the chairs in the pool areas and they are not being saved when they are rolled up. Un roll then and spread them out on a chair and they are now reserved. We generally woke up and headed to the beach between 8-9 and dropped off some personal items to make sure we had a Palapa we liked and then went to eat. Regardless, there always seemed to be enough shady spots if you wanted one and plenty of chairs to lay in. You may need to move one or 2 from another area but there was never a day that there weren’t any available. The water was cool, almost chilly when first entering but quickly warmed up. They do have people that walk the beach and pass out the drink of the day and will take orders for drinks but it is not consistent to the point you could just sit and never get up. Not a big deal for us with our insulated mugs which we never felt out of place with. You get some funny comments from the bartenders especially Benjamin at Cafe Kafe. Great guy by the way and makes amazing drinks. Also, about 12-12:30 they will have guys walk the beach passing out little 10 inch pizzas. Usually cheese or pepperoni and always HOT and tasty. A couple of days they walked around with burgers and nachos in to go boxes.
After spending the day at the beach we would head to the pool to swim until we went to the room. The pool closes at 6 daily for some reason. We didn’t always get out at that time and were never told we had to leave. The pool swim up bar is called “Blue” and closes at 6 as well. We would spend an hour or so there having a few drinks and winding down. The swim up bar generally had a group of people but you never felt crowded or unwelcome. Drinks were good there but not as good as the beach bar, “Cafe Kafe.” At this point we would generally head to the room.
Rooms are nice, roomy and well appointed. They have a HUGE Jacuzzi tub in each room. These are located in the room itself. The shower was decent, not as large as the Iberostar but adequate. There was never a shortage of hot water and the shower head had plenty of force to wash thick hair. Like I had to worry about that. LOL. The mini bar is stocked with assorted sodas, waters and beer daily. The in room safe is fairly large and can hold some fairly large camera equipment. (for the camera buffs I stored a Canon 30D with vert grip, 70-200 2.8L lens, 17-55 2.8 Lens and 580 EX flash along with papers, jewelry wallets etc. So there is a lot of space.) The TV has a lot of English channels including ESPN as I kept up with the US Open during the week. Also, it has channel 21 which is full on adult. Avoid it if that sort of viewing offends you. The staff makes a lot of jokes about it during the week as they refer to it as watching the “chicky chickies”. Past that there are the standard Hispanic channels. The room also has a desk and a small love seat, a coffee table, and a small dining table with a chair that matched to one at the desk. The canopy bed was King size and although firm was nothing like the beds at the Iberostar. We actually felt it was pretty comfortable. The A/C was COLD. We had to turn it down twice before it became bearable. Absolutely no complaints there. The maid was very good and kept the room cleaned daily. They must rotate their starting rooms as one day the room would be cleaned by 9 and then the next day they were there around 5. Not a big deal. The do have turn down service nightly. The were very nice and always straightened the room including any stray shoes or clothes we may have left out. They don’t do a lot of the towel art daily like you find at the Iberostar but that isn’t a big deal for us anyway. One evening we returned to the room with towels shaped into hearts a swan and a lot of hibiscus blooms laid out. Also they had run the tub full of water and had a bubble bath with flowers floating in it for us. Pretty romantic. Unfortunately it didn’t actually happen on our anniversary night.
The resort has a number of restaurants, a casino, disco, sports bar area, bars and theater. We had read a lot about the casino and were actually warned when we arrived at our orientation meeting that parts of the casino were to be avoided. The areas of concern were the progressive Roulette, and the Keno. We were told of stories of some guests losing 20 and 30 thousand dollars on these games and they should be avoided at all costs. The do have Blackjack, Craps and slots. Primarily the action was on the Blackjack tables and the Slots and I never saw anyone play Craps. Saw a few playing roulette but no one played Keno. I did see an $800.00 winner on a slot machine one night. We did ok the first and last night, won a total of about $300 but put it all back in the machine so we walked away with nothing. It was entertaining.
We went to the Disco once and really only for me to take a couple of pictures of the place. It is about the same size as the Iberostars and looked like it had a lot more potential than the Iberostars. No kids as well which was a plus. They do have different themed nights at the Disco such as western night, 70’s night and the pajama party. What we did end up doing almost nightly was sitting on the plaza area listening to Domingo, a sax player. He always played until midnight and was very enjoyable. That is where we danced the most. He is very enjoyable and very friendly as he will try to remember everyone’s name that he meets during the time you are there.
2 nights they have Michael, a Jamaican, come in and he does a Piano Bar gig next to the Martini Bar. This guy is funny and you will be asked to come up and sing with him. He does get a little dirty with the songs and he will warn you up front. We actually missed the Monday show and regret it. I definitely recommend it. Be aware it only runs 1-1.5 hours after the show in the main theater. I would say it is a don’t miss show unless you are easily offended by the language in some of the songs. If you have been to a dueling piano bar in the States (good example is Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans) then you will know what type of songs get sung.
Every night there is a show on the main stage. Most of them are performed by the entertainment staff at the resort and are entertaining. These are not polished productions that you might see in Vegas but they are pleasant none the less. We made sure to see the Michael Jackson show as has been recommended by so many. It was ok but in our opinion didn’t live up to the hype. We heard others saying the same thing. Perhaps it was an off night. It was the most heavily attended show during the week so make sure to arrive early as the seating fills up quickly. The 70’s show was fun. We didn’t like the evolution show at all. The circus show was good. One night they had a guy named Chris Blizzard who was very good. We only saw about half of his show as we didn’t think it would be very good. Wish we would have seen all of it. He is a singer that sings a lot of older songs and does it very well. (no lip syncing here with Blizzard) The Folk Dance show was good, not as flashy as the traditional Mexican shows but it was worth watching. Overall the shows are fun and a good diversion. Seating is a bit limited so arrive early to get a prime seat. We generally arrived 45m minutes to an hour early to sit in the front rows. Most of the nights they would have some games or skits to pass the time until the show started at 10.
Continued…
The only activities we did during the week was to take the complimentary 30 minute horseback ride and we did the 4 wheeler tour. For the horseback ride you will need to make a reservation with the concierge for the day and time you want to go. I believe the times are at 10 and 3 each day. In reality, this is about a 45 minutes ride and the time it takes to meet the guide and get to the horses so plan accordingly. We met at the Club House on the right side of the resort. It is a small building that houses a restroom and a small shop to buy beach items. (sunscreen, rafts, swim suits etc.) Then you will walk to the other end of the resort for the actual ride. I highly recommend bringing a pair of jeans for this as the saddles tend to rub your bare legs and isn’t very comfortable. The horses are pretty tame and will walk for the majority of the trip. However, the Cabelleros will get them to gallop a couple of times so be aware. They will take your picture at the starting point and afterwards will try to sell you the photo encased in a CD with some Dominican music. The photo is very poor in quality and I wouldn’t recommend buying it. I did and regret it as the picture is on plain paper and of minimal resolution. Also, they will adhere a copy to a bottle of rum to try to sell you as well. $15.00 for each one. I do advise to take your camera with you on the ride as the cowboys will take your photo with your own camera on the beach on the horses. Definitely a better deal. After your ride be prepared for the hard sell of the local vendors at the shopping areas. You will have to tell them no several times if you aren’t interested in shopping. (more on shopping later)
The 4 wheeler tour was a blast. We had heard it was really fun from some other couples and were not disappointed. The cost is $80.00 per 4 wheeler and you can ride 2 to each one. Becca wasn’t interested in driving on her own so we rode tandem. Not a big problem as we both had plenty of room. The trip is a 2 hour trip outside of the resort. We went down the road, turned off onto a small trail and saw some rice fields. We actually picked up a young boy who rode with the guide and ended up going into the fields to pick some rice to show us how it grows. We got a little history lesson on the growing of rice and the area along the way. We rode up into the foothills into a small town, saw the local schools, baseball fields etc. Our tour had the obligatory stop at a gift shop and we grabbed a beer and bought a necklace. It continues on to a small cave where we were told the Indians used to live and hide in when the Spanish settled in the island. Saw the main river running through the area that feeds the rice fields. This was a fun trip and the riding the 4 wheelers were a blast. We passed a couple of tour groups that had taken the Jungle tour (I think) and they looked at us like we made a fun choice. We rode back to the resort and then headed down the beach some. My only gripe is that I would have like to gone on the beach more than we actually did. No big deal. For this trip bring your sunglasses. Also, they will try to sell you a bandana for 5 bucks to cover your face for the dust. I didn’t use mine and wouldn’t recommend buying it even if they insist. If you feel the need bring your own and save 4 dollars each. I stayed back a little ways from the guide as we were traveling and never had any issue with dust.
As for shopping, it is somewhat unusual. Everywhere we went there were no prices listed including Nancys Hut number 6 that everyone recommends. Nancy is very nice and speaks English very well. She is a native Dominican that was raised for most of her life in Canada prior to returning to the island. She is really nice and runs a very low pressure store. Take a few minutes to talk with her and you wont regret it. However, the trend everywhere is that nothing is priced. When you ask the price, the answer at every place we went was, “just pick out everything you want and we will give you one good price for all of it.” It became pretty annoying. Anyway, we ended up buying most of our gifts from Nancy and probably paid a fair price but I still don’t like the method. The shopping in the area is pretty limited to the huts at the end of the beach and the hotel gift shops. There is nothing like Playa Del Carmen’s 5th street that we saw. The other issue was the shops really only take cash. You can use a credit card, however they said there is a 24% up charge when using it. They said it is better to get money form the hotel as the up charge is only 10% there. Now I didn’t go into details with them but I am assuming that the use of the CC is like an ATM. I did use the ATM at the resort and it dispenses Dominican Pesos and the only fee I was charged was .50 cents by my credit union at home. So I am not sure what the 24%, 10% baloney is all about. The exchange rate is around 33 pesos to one dollar and the front desk was very helpful in figuring the exchange rate to determine the amount to enter into the ATM machine nearby that only dispenses Pesos.
The restaurants are all table service for dinner. Breakfast is served buffet style and had a lot of selections to choose from. They have made to order omelets and are willing to cook eggs any way you choose. The number of selections is not as extensive as the Iberostar but lengthy enough to satisfy us each morning. Lunch is served as a buffet in the main dining area and you may have seated service at the Grille for lunch. They have a decent menu at the Grille. We never ate at the buffet for lunch so I cant comment on it. Typically we would have a large breakfast, grab a pizza or nachos from the guys at the beach or eat some of the beach cooking they did daily. It ranged from Paella to fajitas and was part of the cooking lesson given daily. The restaurants at night are all ala carte table service. They include the following:
Agave, a Mexican restaurant
Barcelona, a Mediterranean restaurant
Spice, an Asian restaurant
The Lobster House, a lobster restaurant
Chez Isabelle, a French Continental restaurant
Toscana, an Italian restaurant
The Grill, a steakhouse
All of the restaurants say there is a dress code for men and that slacks are required. Overall this was true but twice we saw men seated in shorts at The Grill and The Lobster House. These are the 2 places that are not air conditioned so perhaps they overlook the code. The gentlemen that wore short to those places were definitely out of place and I recommend sticking to the dress code. Generally I would eat dinner and then return to our room and change into shorts for the remainder of the evening unless we were going to the Casino or the Disco. Normally the heat wasn’t a big issue as there always seemed to be a breeze blowing and all of the resort is located along the ocean. I like this better than the Iberostar as there are days at the Quetzal where the restaurants were a little warm with no breeze blowing.
We did not dine at Agave or Barcelona as we are not big fans of Mediterranean cuisine and we just didn’t feel like they would do nearly as well at Mexican as our local favorite here in Houston. Spice was an Asian restaurant and was our favorite overall. They have a good selection and we ate there twice. The Dim Sum was very tasty. I had Chili Duck which was very good. Slightly spicy and cooked perfect. Becca had the Honey Lemon mahi Mahi and fell in love with the dish. She would say it was the best meal at the resort. They have a buffet desert bar that is good. The desserts at the Iberostar tend to be better in my opinion and their coconut ice cream doesn’t even compare to the Iberostars. The Lobster House is different. The appetizers and salads are unusual and were not a favorite. The lobster is cooked either grilled or steamed. These are served split open with a sauce of your choice. They are small lobsters served intact. (Becca never likes the eyes looking at her. It is kind of funny) they will give you a second portion if you ask. The food is good but not what a typical American will think of lobster. Chez Isabelle is the resorts most upscale restaurant. They really work at providing service and atmosphere of an upscale restaurant. It doesn’t always work and there are some glitches but I always try to keep in mind of where I am and the levels are not the same. The first night we ate there we both got the Chateaubriand as most have recommended. Unfortunately it did not live up to the hype and I really question if it was tenderloin. My guess is it was an eye of round and was really stringy. Sauces were good that accompanied it. The Onion soup was very good with plenty of melted cheese. The salad is different but tasty and it is all plated to be very formal. I call it fancy food. Beauty of this is if you didn’t get enough then just order another entrée to fill you up. The Crème Brule was very good but the Apple pie flambéed table side was not that tasty(had a medicinal alcohol flavor to it, probably from what they used for the flambé). The second night I tried the ribeye and it was good. Becca tried the snapper and said it was a little fishy and wasn’t that excited about it. That night was our special anniversary dinner that was arranged by the concierge and we were presented with a small cake that wished us a Happy Anniversary so no Crème Brule that night. Bummer. Toscana is the Italian restaurant and was pretty good. Becca had Canneloni that was very rich with cheeses. I had a filet that was really good. The Minestrone soup is more like a plain vegetable soup but was good. The Grill is an outdoor steak house that was very good. They had some fish and chicken on the menu along with a number of choices of steaks to include a T-bone, Ribeye, Filet and a NY Strip. These are generous cuts of meat and were very good. Each steak was cooked perfect and was tender. We had Caesar salads that were very good. The steaks were served with a vegetable and either rice or a baked potato. There baked potato is not like what we consider a baked potato with a large Idaho potato served with butter, sour cream, bacon and chives, but a small new potato that is baked and sliced open. Not bad but not what I was expecting when the menu read “baked potatoes”.
Overall the restaurants were good and we had plenty to eat. The wine is a Chilean label and isn’t any kind of stand out but it is drinkable. They served a pretty light Cabernet Sauvignon, a Cab Merlot blend, a Chardonnay and a blush. All were drinkable and I never felt the need to order any of their other premium labels. Here is the quirky part of their service. On their menus they generally list several appetizers, several salad choices, possibly a soup choice and a number of entrees. All of the choices are for one so when you order an appetizer it will be for the individual and not the entire table. Here is the quirky part and regardless of which restaurant you were in it happened. If one person at the table ordered an appetizer and the other did not, and you both ordered salads, and one of you ordered a soup and both ordered entrees, the timing would get all whacked out. You would be served your appetizer and your partner would go ahead and get there salad. Then the next salad would arrive and the other partner who already got there salad would get a soup. And if you both ordered soup you might get your soup and your partner gets their entrée. After that you will get your entree. This isn’t a huge deal for us but we thought it was quirky to the point of being funny as we watched others go through the same thing. If you ordered identical things such as an appetizer each and a salad for each it wouldn’t occur. It almost seems like they feel everyone needs to be eating something at the same time regardless of what that something was. I would say that if it happens to you, relax, and roll with the flow as I can see where it might really irritate some people. We just thought it was funny.
There are a lot of bars scattered throughout the resort but the best in my opinion is the Cafe Kafé. Benjamin is usually there all day and I felt made the best drinks in the resort. The bars are stocked with premium liquors but they will use the inexpensive local brands unless you specify what you want. In doing so I never felt that there was any animosity from the bartenders. Some of the brands that I recall were Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, Drambui, Smirnoff, Barcardi, etc. I have a photo that shows a lot of the bottles that are stocked so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your favorite drink. Beer is Presidente from the DR and is very good and Bud Light is available for some reason. Some of the favorite drinks that we tried were the Sammy Sosa, Miami Vice, Bahama Mama, Mamajuana (only at Café Kafe), Pina Coladas, Chocolate Martini, and Coco Locos. Make sure to get the Coco Loco from Benjamin as he uses the juice from the coconut to make the drink versus throwing it out. These are served in a coconut shell.
For most of the week we just enjoyed the beach being on a tropical island and relaxed. Played a lot of beach volleyball during the week and we would join in with some of the other activities. Nice place to kick back and relax.
However, our return trip from the resort was a little different. We left in a large bus and made a stop at the Sunscape to pick up another group of people. The problem with the bus was it got a little warm inside as the air conditioner wasn’t good enough to maintain the temperature inside. About ¾ of the way to the airport one of the ladies just didn’t make it and got sick. From that point on it wasn’t the best of rides but the remaining people made it to the airport. Some were about to become ill and if we had to go further probably would have. I believe this was due to the temperature in the bus more than the actual road conditions. So it was a little bit of an adventure.
At the airport we were escorted to a counter to be checked before we were able to go to the check in. They went through the bags and decided that the bottle of Mamajuana mix that we bought had to have alcohol in it or we couldn’t take it. Not what we were told at the resort. So I had to run across the street and buy a small bottle of Brugal and pour into the bottle of herbs and spices and then everything was ok. They didn’t seem to care that the amount of liquid we had packed probably went over the limit by packing this item. After passing by the initial inspection we were led up to the American Airlines check in. Check in was a breeze and we were instructed to go the end of the airport. This is a little confusing but if you are looking at the check in counters you will be heading to the left. It will appear that you are winding your way out of the airport but it just winds around and heads to the security area. At this point you need to have the little blue paper filled out as you will hand it to an official here. Jump in line and pass through the security scan. With any luck (I didn’t have any) you will not be pulled out of line to have your bag inspected. I suppose my camera flash looked suspicious and I got my camera bag inspected. They weren’t to happy with me when they were trying to open the case while it was standing and I kept trying to get them to lay it flat. One of my lenses is not strapped down in the case and I wasn’t going to let a $1000 dollar lens just fall out and break. Fortunately, everything checked out ok and I was sent on my way. Now you will be led to an area that has the photos of yourself when you arrived. (the photos with the Dominican girls in traditional garb) Pictures were $8.00 each. Once you make it past the photo area you will now head into the airport terminal. Part of the terminal is not air-conditioned and you will be in that area. Regardless of where your gate is I would recommend that you head past the food court to the air-conditioned area to wait for your flight. It is at the end of the airport. Again this is not an airport with modern terminals and you will walk to your plane through the Palapa Gates.
At this point we began the crazy journey home and if I were to do it over again I would do anything I can to avoid flying through Miami as that place is a fiasco. (long story better left un-told. Picture having to run through the airport that does not do well with directing you to check in for your connecting flight, your next gate, your baggage claim in customs and have your luggage reaches your house a week later)
Some of the recommendations I would suggest.
1. Take bug spray. I never used it and never had a problem but Becca carried it everywhere.
2. Wear comfortable clothing traveling as the airport in Punta Cana is not air-conditioned.
3. The 4 wheeler tour is worth the money if you share the 4 wheeler.
4. Bring a pair of blue jeans for the horse back riding and the 4 wheeler.
5. Bring plenty of cash unless you want to use the ATM. Understand the ATM will dispense Dominican Pesos. When we paid for items in American cash we were given American dollars in return.
6. We brought plenty of 1’s for tipping and did so when we felt service was exceptional.
7. Catch the Piano Bar show.
8. Look for Domingo the Sax player.
9. Don’t be afraid to ask for an extra entrée if you didn’t care for what you were served.
10. Make sure to try the Mamajuana. It is a drink that is made with Rum and Honey. It is prepared by soaking the mix in a variety of herbs and spices. The Dominicans call it the cure all for anything as well as “Dominican Viagra”. Café Kafe bar had the best flavor.
11. Relax and enjoy the resort. Remember this is not the Waldorf in NY. They try very hard to create an upscale atmosphere and for a Caribbean island they do a decent job.
