Last Twenty Minutes

We are in running shoes and I have on my jeans. We are sitting in the lobby of the testy waiting for the shuttle bus to take us back to the airport. I have a sneaky ziplock bag of muffins and a banana that we grabbed at breakfast for the three hour wait at the airport. I have no idea if we will be fed on the plane (we weren't on the way here).

This was a very nice week with the weather being generally sunny and hot. Although it is a nice resort, it is not spectacular so we will not be returning. In fact, there are only two places we would go to again: the Majestic in Punta Cana DR and Playa Pesquero in Cuba. We priced them out for this trip but both had gone up in price.

We don't relish returning to blowing snow, but that's life as a Canadian. It will be good to see our son, although with texting and FaceTime these days it is a very different experience than when the kids were little and Nana and Papa stayed with them and we placed one very expensive collect call home during the week.

I shall catch up with blogs in between loads of laundry tomorrow.

By the third day

We arrived Saturday afternoon and it is now 1:30 Dominican time so it is our third day here. We are now getting the hang of things and know that the metal lounge chairs are better for lower backs than the plastic ones, the "quiet pool" is better than the main pool for reading and relaxing, and our new room that we moved to yesterday is infinitely better than the first one they put us in.

So here's what happened. My husband booked this trip a few months ago with a company called Red Tag. We were under the assumption that we were paying for a standard room and nothing more. After reading reviews on Tripadvisor (anyone else do that?) I knew there was a separate upgraded part called the Sun Club. I had even spoken to my husband about it, saying that it doesn't seem to matter about being in the Sun Club, that most amenities were available to anyone and it all sounded very elitist.


Fast forward to our arrival where we were whisked to a separate area to check in and were told what we could expect and what introduction meeting to go to (NEVER go to those, they're just a sales pitchabout time shares)... and then it occurred to me that we actually were part of the Sun Club! I guess the package we paid for just automatically put us in it. I felt a little sheepish. So off we went to our room which was nothing special but nice enough. It would have been fine if it had not been for the slow draining poorly designed shower area that flooded back into the rest of the bathroom area, or the family of fluttering squawking birds that lived under our roof tiles. So, we kindly and politely (Canadian after all) requested a room change. No problem. They asked us to come back to the Sun Club lounge the next day at noon which we did. They gave us room keys for a different building and asked us to check out a room to see if we would prefer that. If we did, we were to call them and confirm and they would send someone to bring our luggage over. I'll let you decide:



Here is our first room.

Now here is/are our current room (s):

I must share  with you that  it has  taken  me  about a day and a half to go back and forth between iPhone and tablet to get pictures to show up and go in the order I want them. I think I will  save  the  rest  of the fake exclusivity story for when we return and any other "adventures " we may have. I'm about to hit publish. Wish me luck!

Beach side

I am currently looking out at the water and listening to a variety of languages in a variety of accents. The one thing we have in common is that we all scraped together the money to come to this resort in the Dominican Republic. We arrived at the resort at about 2:30 in the afternoon. We had been awake since the morning before because we left our home in Ontario at about half past midnight to try to drive in what appeared to be a window of opportunity according to the radar. Following what had been a period of mild and unseasonably "warm" weather, Mother Nature decided to unleash some pent up frustration by providing snow squalls and a ridiculous accumulation of snow in a very short amount of time. We literally crawled out way over roads that barely revealed a hint of car tire tracks to follow. Squinting through what I describe as Star Wars snow, we managed to stay on the road and were glad of the very few cars that were out there at that time providing a little more illumination. Eventually we made it to the Park and Fly close to the Toronto airport. Like every Canadian out there, we shed our winter coats that we travelled in, tossed them in the back of our vehicle, and donned a heavy hoodie so we could stand, shivering in the cold until a shuttle bus could take us to the airport.

Anyway, we eventually got on the plane where I watched three old episodes of Dharma and Greg (so funny to see Hotch from Criminal Minds in a totally different light) and tried unsuccessfully to nap. After a refreshing mint and a glass of water, we landed in Puerto Plata and began our holiday. Now the only decisions we have to make are beach or pool? Beer or banana mama? And before you hate me too much, it rained last night and it's starting to spit again. But at least it's not snow!! Please excuse any typos I'm doing his only phone!

Going Away

As I sit at the computer this morning, the sun streaming in is so warm and so bright that my right shoulder is heating up and I have to shield my eye . This should be something to celebrate. However, the timing of this beautiful weather change comes on the cusp of our first ever five night vacation to Mexico. (We've been on vacation before, but never to Mexico). Most of the snow has melted in the past few days, as we have enjoyed a mild spell. I've seen red-winged blackbirds (the first harbingers of spring), as well as flocks of Canada geese gathering at low lying flooded areas.

Beautiful morning sunshine

When we go on vacation, it is always to escape the cold and the snow. I don't feel like we are escaping anything this year. However, it will be nice to drive to the airport in good conditions. We have had other experiences of driving through nasty snow storms and dangerous roads to get to the airport. This will be much more pleasurable and less stressful.

Not only is this our first time to Mexico, but I am challenging myself to another first. For this vacation, since it is a little shorter than our usual six night, seven day vacation, I am going to travel with just a carry-on piece of luggage (and a big purse!) In the past, we've always had our carry -ons and a larger checked bag. But, by doing this, we will avoid line ups at the luggage carousel, we will be able to get through customs quicker, and we won't have to pay for an extra bag (something we encountered a couple of years ago when we flew with an American airline). Boy, we got tired of paying for that bag!

I am not a light packer. I am a "just-in-caser". I bring a variety of clothing, choices of bathing suits, lots of reading material, and enough medication to cure everything from headaches to gastro issues, to mosquito infestation. I also have hair that goes squirrely in humid weather. It needs a lot of taming. I usually bring at least three types of hair product and two hair appliances. I'm not sure what my game plan is this time. Maybe a handful of hair elastics just to hold back the mess.

As many of you probably know, liquids are severely restricted on board an airplane. I like to bring full sized bottles of sunscreen, in at least two SPFs. I am now forced to transfer sunscreen into silly little 100 mL bottles (or less) and use my handy dandy label maker so we don't mix up our 30 (beginning of the week) with our 15 (end of the week)! I purchased a teeny tiny container of hair spray and husband has a teeny tiny container of shaving cream which will reside in a small see-through bag with a teeny tiny toothpaste, my foundation make-up, and a silly little bottle of hair conditioner.

I also like to take a choice of footwear. Shoes take up a lot of space. At this point, I am pretty sure I am going to infiltrate my husband's carry-on luggage. He brings less. He doesn't need room for a make-up bag. He doesn't even bring a book! (What are you going to do for five days???). And then there's chargers, camera, tablet, beach bag...

In the wee hours of the morning (don't forget the time change!) we are crossing over the border to fly out of Detroit. It is a direct flight there, and we have one stop over on the way home. We did not have a good experience with this sort of thing in the past, missing a flight due to incredibly long line ups and having to spend extra money for a hotel room, and getting home a day late. So I am a bit nervous about that again. That is another reason for keeping it to just one piece of carry-on luggage each. Hopefully this will make it easier for us to move quickly through airport procedures during our stop over.

The resort we are going to in Cancun is not "top drawer". But the beach along there looks amazing. Reviews on TripAdvisor are usually good, but many of them say the resort is getting old and showing its age. They charge for wifi (quite a bit, per device) so I won't be spending time on the internet. I will post when we get back and hopefully be able to say everything went smoothly and I am now an expert packer, ready to take on the world in one bag!