Thurs. Dec. 26, 2013

Today, Holly and I travelled to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic! The entire trip to get there was smooth, starting off with her dad who drove us to Pearson International Airport at 2:30 am in the morning.  I love how Pearson’s boarding gates now have these really swanky tables and chairs for people to lounge in and outlets to charge their devices.  We boarded the AC1770 flight to PUJ.  The flight was 4 hours and 22 minutes which sounds short, but it felt much longer than that for some reason.  I had a hard time trying to stay asleep on the flight so that I could catch up on my zzz’s.

We arrived in Punta Cana around 11 am. Yay!  We could feel the heat in the airplane cabin already.  It was a beautiful 24 degrees with the sun shining brightly and heat felt on our bare skin.  It was summer here! (unlike the icy cold winter currently in Toronto.)  After getting on the comfy connecting shuttle from Air Canada which had a friendly and enthusiastic tour guide, we arrived at Iberostar Dominicana the resort.

We checked in, got into our room, browsed around quickly, and had a lunch buffet in the Hispaniola Restaurant.  Wow, we were both impressed by the variety of food that was served!  There were dishes and dishes full of yummy Mexican and Spanish foods, cheese, salads, breads, pastas, pizzas, and a hugeee dessert table.  The food itself was very good too. 🙂  I loved the seafood pasta dish!

After lunch, we checked out the swimming pool and beach before diving into the Atlantic Ocean for some relaxation among the waves.  I don’t remember the last time I was in the ocean just frolicking and being a ‘crab’, but it was just heaven to be in the water and do nothing at all. 🙂

For dinner, we ate a dinner buffet at the Higuey Restaurant.  It was a Mexican-themed dinner night so there were shrimp tortillas, beef tortillas, a make-your-own-nacho station (with yummy gauc, pico de mayo, and cheese), chimichanga, chicken mole (really good), burritos (yum), “old clothes”, refried beans (yum), cactus soup (pretty plain but still good).  The dessert selection at dinner time was more varied than the lunch spread.  I was so full from all that we had that I could barely finish what I had on my plate.

After that, we stayed to watch the nightly entertainment on the main stage at 9:15.  It ended up to be really boring..so we walked around to the shops and browsed.  The beach party started at 10:30 and we managed to check that out before stargazing by reclining on one of the sunbeds by the pool and enjoying the nighttime view.  We saw a shooting star too!! 🙂 (I quickly made a wish.)

Finally made it back to the room by midnight.  What an enjoyable first day of sun, fun, and food.  Tomorrow marks another beach dayyyy! 🙂 *excited*