Exploring the resort

Monday, March 16, 2009

Mindful of our meeting with the Air Canada representative at 9 am, we got up at 8 am and, after futzing around a bit, headed to the reception building. The reception building contains the main theatre, tour desks, some shops, the Internet Café, and a few restaurants, including the World Café, a large buffet restaurant. We listened to the French Canadian rep tell us about the procedures for checking out in time to meet our flights and explain some of the dos and don’ts for the resort and the Dominican Republic. She told us to be wary of booking tours through anyone but her (and presumably other resort-sanctioned reps), since people had a tendency to show up on the beach offering tours, rides, etc. and then leaving with the money, without providing anything, since they were not official resort people. One woman apparently called the Air Canada rep, frantically demanding the return of her daughters, who had gone on an ATV tour and hadn’t returned by 7:30 at night. The rep asked her who she’d booked with. The answer was, “some black man on the beach”. The rep then asked her if she’d noticed the company that the man was with. The woman didn’t know. The rep then cautioned us that in situations like that, there was very little that she could do (my internal answer was, “Duh!!”) and that luckily, the girls had eventually returned.

After the briefing, and the provision of a sheet detailing extra excursions that we could book, we went to breakfast at the buffet. It was an extensive buffet, featuring a smoothie bar, an omelette station, a crepe station, cold meats, a fruit bar, a vaguely Caribbean/Mexican/ethnic station, an oatmeal bar, and the usual American breakfast buffet foods. I was somewhat turned off by the tiny ants crawling around the open bread baskets (although I doubt there’s anything they can do – those ants are everywhere, including the room – and they really are incredibly tiny), but everything else seemed fine. The coffee is very good, which I would expect, since they grow it on the island.

Having eaten our fill, we set out to explore the resort (Glenn, despite protestations of being tired, had apparently done a lot of exploring the evening before). We dropped by the spa so that I could make an appointment to have my hair cut as well as a manicure and pedicure – the prices were quite reasonable. Then we meandered along the path by the pool, down to the beach. We passed flamingoes, fish and parrots – it was very tropical. Every so often, there is a bar near the pool, and people definitely take advantage of them. We were amused to see that the so-called Manatees Bar (a swim-up bar) appeared to be peopled mostly by men and women who looked quite like manatees. The Kids’ Club is located by the beach, and on the beach itself were people doing aerobics.

Realizing that the sun was steadily getting higher in the sky and that we had neglected to put sunscreen on, we headed back to the room to remedy that error and to put on bathing suits. We then spent several hours happily splashing in the pool and towing Torsten around on a pool mat. He particularly liked going under the various bridges that cross the swimming pool. My favourite part was the non-alcoholic pina colada that Ingo brought me. It really felt like vacation then.

After Glenn rejoined us from wherever he’d gone after breakfast, we decided on a change of scene, and headed down to the Kids’ Club (Glenn sat on the beach while Torsten played). The Kids’ Club has a small play structure with a slide, situated on a sand box. It also has a shallow wading pool with fountains, and some ride-on animals on springs. An adjacent building houses a large play area with a TV showing the Cartoon Network, a change room with change table and 2 cribs, a small plastic play house, and a washroom for boys and girls with the cutest little toilets and low sinks. It’s actually quite nice; it just pales a bit in comparison with the facilities that the Explorers’ Club boasts.

It was hard to tear Torsten away from the Kids’ Club, but by that time it was 2 pm, and we hadn’t had lunch. We meandered along the incredibly soft sand to find Glenn, and then went to the Oceana restaurant, right next to the beach. The food came out commendably fast (Ingo and I had chicken burritos, Glenn had a salad of some sort, and we ordered Torsten a hot frank (ie. hot dog)). Even so, Torsten was very droopy and getting cranky – the food revived him a bit, but we headed straight back to the room after lunch so that he could take a nap. It took him a while to get settled (he tried to keep himself awake by singing little songs and rolling around the bed), but he finally dropped off, well past 3 pm. Ingo and I also napped a bit. I woke up before Ingo, and watched a few episodes of Ben 10: Alien Force on my BlackBerry. I can’t describe how lazy I felt – but after all, it IS vacation! After a while, Ingo woke up, and had to hold Torsten, who had awakened upset and still tired (he fell asleep again in Ingo’s arms). We managed to play a game of Scrabble Scramble while Torsten slept on.

By the time Torsten finally woke up, it was more or less dinner time, so we dressed and made our way to El Patio, the Mexican restaurant. Glenn was just coming up the path, and we sent him back to get changed, as the restaurant was supposed to be a bit more formal (as it turned out, judging by some of the people who showed up, that doesn’t seem to be very true). That worked out well, as Torsten wanted to go shopping – actually, he wanted specifically to go shopping in the toy store, and was somewhat disappointed to find that there were basically no toys in the shops at the resort. However, we did pick up more sunscreen (at an exorbitant price) and a pool toy for the next day.

The restaurant was quite good. Our waitress’ English was a bit limited, so I got to try out some of my non-existent Spanish. Nachos with guacamole and salsa came out to tide us over – very Mexican. When the main courses came out, I really admired the plating – everyone got the same side dishes of a mound of rice, some refried beans with a nacho stuck in it, and a few fried plantain slices. They took up half the dish. The main course took up the other half of the dish. Efficient, yet pleasing to the eye and sufficiently different so as not to look production line-ish. Also quite tasty! I had the beef enchilada, Torsten had chicken tacos, Ingo had beef fajitas, and Glenn had chicken mole. We ended the dinner with a three milk cake – very moist and quite tasty. There was another child in the restaurant (less than a year old) who made the most appalling noise, prompting Torsten to turn to me and say “I’m a good boy!” – to which the only response could be, “Yes, you are!!”.

It had been such a busy day that we were all pretty tired after dinner (with the exception of Glenn, who went on to see the night’s offered entertainment, which he later described as lame), so we went back to our room, finished unpacking and tidying, relaxed, and eventually went to bed.