Babbles of Bliss: A Week in Paradise

I have been inspired by the blog world. When I first started this blog, I felt all sorts of pressure to try to be as cool as the blogs I read. As I've been reading lately though, I realized that blogging is really more for the blogger than for anyone else...and if anyone else wants to read, more power to 'em! Matt and I have such a great life, and I want to document that for us. So, without further ado, a very long, picture-filled post that should have been written months ago:

Matt and I got to go on an amazing dream honeymoon to Hawaii in the summer of 2009. Since then, our travels have consisted of a whole bunch of trips to California and Las Vegas. We have loved these trips, but we really wanted to plan a trip to somewhere exotic and new. Matt had never had a passport or left the country, so we decided an international trip might be in order.

At first, we thought we wanted to go on a cruise, but I was committed to almost a month's worth of classes over the summer to earn my Masters + 20. With set departure dates on cruises, we really had a tough time finding a cruise we wanted to go on. We decided to start researching all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean instead. After lots and lots of research (yay for TripAdvisor), last spring, we booked a weeklong trip to the Majestic Elegance Resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

We began by forking over the requisite cash to get Matt a passport and to change the name on my passport (I hadn't traveled internationally since before we were married). Ouch! And then, the countdown began. We bought new swimsuits and lots of sunscreen, dug out the snorkeling gear we bought at the sketchy Walmart in downtown Oahu, and waited for August to arrive! Luckily we realized that Delta only flies into Punta Cana once a day, so we were going to have a seven-hour overnight layover in Atlanta. We decided to book a hotel near the Atlanta airport so that we could get at least a few hours of sleep before our morning flight to paradise.

Flying into Punta Cana was pretty amazing. We passed over the Bahamas and a whole lot of beautiful blue ocean, and soon landed...in a whole lot of humidity. The Punta Cana airport was fantastic. You deplane out on the tarmac, and walk into what looks like a huge grass hut. The whole airport is open to the outdoors and is housed inside a few of these "huts." Once the luggage came, we found the bus we had booked and started our trip into Punta Cana.

An island in the Bahamas

I didn't get a picture of the airport, so here is one I found online.
Credit where credit is due: http://www.puntacana-vacation.com/punta-cana-airport.html

After stops at a bunch of other resorts (there is a huge string of all-inclusives along the beach in Punta Cana), we finally arrived at the Majestic Elegance, and it did not disappoint! The only slight disappointment to our arrival was finding out that the government had ordered all beaches in the country closed, in anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane Emily. Those of you who know me well know that I have always harbored a secret desire to be in a hurricane, so I was kind of excited. The hurricane ended up bringing nothing more than about one day of rain, but we just had a lazy day inside, jumping in and out of the Jacuzzi tub (which was extra nice because we had brought my laptop and our full series of The West Wing and put it next to the tub, so we watched about a million episodes).

The main desk

The chandelier (?) hanging in the main lobby

The staircase coming down from the main lobby.

When we booked at the Majestic Elegance, we decided to upgrade to their Elegance Club -- this meant we would have a room in a separate part of the hotel with no kids, a special Club-only computer lounge, exclusive swimming pools, and a reserved portion of the beach. The Elegance Club also assigned a butler to each room. Our "butler" took us to a beautiful office to check us in, got us the non-alcoholic version of the amazing signature Majestic drink (basically it tasted like a slushy creamsicle), gave us a tour of the resort property, and got us right to our room, where our luggage arrived shortly thereafter.

The Elegance Club lounge

More of the lounge

The Elegance Club pool bar

One of the Elegance Club-only pools. Check out the awesome Bali beds!

The room was amazing, and I can't believe I don't have pictures! The entire room was stone and tile, with a beautiful shower room (probably six or seven separate shower heads), a king-size bed, a flat-screen tv, a sitting area, a balcony, and the best part...a huge jetted Jacuzzi tub.

We would definitely recommend all-inclusive resorts, because part of the joy of it all was not worrying about paying for anything once we got there. There were several restaurants open every day, and in general, the food was the only less-than-stellar point of the trip. Most of the restaurants were marginal, at best. The resort had a steakhouse (super yummy), an Italian restaurant (super gross), a fancy French restaurant (amazing filet medallions and creme brûlée), a buffet (okay), a Japenese hibachi restaurant (fun, but not amazing), and a Surf-n-Sea restaurant right on the beach (great ambience). There was 24-hour room service, which was a fun luxury.

Matt in front of the Surf-N-Sea Restaurant

The Surf-N-Sea Restaurant

A really poorly-taken picture at the hibachi restaurant

We spent our days in heavenly relaxation! We slept in, threw on our swimming suits when we got up to relax in the pool or at the beach. Hotel workers would bring you drinks in the pool, and the beach had loungers and sun shades and the most soft, beautiful sand. Let me tell you, the water in the Caribbean beats Hawaii, California, and Florida all to heck! It was the absolute perfect temperature; we could have stayed in the water all day.

(Part of) The resort's main pool

The grounds at the resort

The beautiful beach

Our one deviation from the routine came towards the end of our trip when we had booked an excursion. We boarded a bus for a long, long, long, loooooong trip through Punta Cana and surrounding areas. Luckily, we made friends with a few people from our resort before we boarded the bus (one couple was from Provo!), so we had people to hang out with on the excursion. We stopped at several other resorts, a random bodega where another group of people met us, and ended up driving through Cap Cana--an amazingly beautiful Jack Nicklaus golf course dotted with vacation homes that cost THOUSANDS of dollars per night. The road through the golf course ended at a huge, brown river where we all got on a large catamaran and rode to a completely gorgeous little cove where we jumped off the back of the boat to snorkel. Amazing! They then put us on this tiny little boat and took us to a beach to relax and play in the waves. After we got back on the catamaran, we went back to the golf course and boarded a "paddle boat" where they served us lunch. The final stop on the trip was Altos de Chavon, a very odd place. I think the story is that a Hollywood-exec took his daughter to Europe and she fell in love with the little old towns there. So he bought this area in the DR and built Altos de Chavon as a replica of a European town. One of the main features is a huge outdoor theatre where Andrea Bocelli has performed.