New Year's Eve marked a year since Chris and I had settlement on our first home/rental property. This was a huge relief and answer to prayer for us to be able to move on from the landlord stage of our lives. We both agree that we are not completely against owning a rental property or two in the future at some point down the road but we needed a break for now. :) Anyways, I say all that to say that we made a deal that if we sold our rental property and everything went as we hoped that we would reward ourselves with a big flat screen tv for our newly remodeled basement space and hopefully look at going somewhere new and exciting for our then upcoming 10th wedding anniversary which we just celebrated October 30th, 2014.
We found and purchased our tv last New Year's Day which seemed like a dream come true. Suddenly the long hours of running back and forth and working to clean up after disgusting people seemed to be validated. :) In the first few months of 2014, our thoughts quickly turned to researching options for our anniversary trip. We've made several trips to the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area and love each time we go but we wanted to do something wild, crazy, and different for us. Neither of us had been outside of the country before (except to Canada which doesn't count in my mind) so this was all very new and somewhat daunting. Thankfully a good friend of ours has had a lot of experience traveling to tropical places and offered her assistance in helping us pick a location that would be a good "first trip" for us. Thank you, Kayla. :) After driving ourselves crazy with Expedia searches and Tripadvisor reviews, we finally settled on the Meliã Caribe Tropical in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. After going back and forth about many things including whether to pick something different from our usual vacation spots, how long to go, and whether to spend the money, we finally bit the bullet and booked our trip on July 16, 2014! It was exactly four months from the day we would fly out of Dulles! We shared the trip with our families and a few close friends but other than that we kept it pretty quiet. It all seemed like a dream to me so I wasn't sure it was actually going to happen! Haha! It was so exciting to be able to look forward to spending a week in paradise with my best friend. :)
Those four months of waiting came and went pretty quickly and the morning of Sunday, November 16th dawned bright (not so much brightness on initial wake up time) and early with some nerves and lots of anticipation! We had smooth and easy travels to the Dulles airport. Going through security was mostly uneventful which we thought may be a pain since neither of us had flown since 2008. Things have definitely changed as people continue to do stupid things and security tightens. The most memorable thing about our airport experience when flying out was a random piece of luggage that was sitting on the floor that seemed to be unattended right before putting our bags on the security belt. They are constantly playing announcements about not leaving your bags unattended for security purposes, etc so Chris and I as well as the people around us quickly starting questioning this random bag sitting there. I then realized that the guy in front of me was holding a full grown CAT. He looked a bit frantic (as did the cat he was clutching) and stated that he forgot to put his bag up on the belt. I would probably have forgotten too if I was trying to get my cat through the airport! We then realized that the lady who was with him and in front of him ALSO was clutching a cat. There is no way you could pay me enough to take Zeus and Hera through an airport. Upon exiting security, they quickly stuffed the cats into bags and away they went!
Our flight down was great and when we arrived it was hot. :) The airport was a circus trying to figure everything out with customs but once we finally made it through and picked up our luggage, we were off to find a taxi! Everyone wanted to "help" us and it was quite an adventure trying to figure out who was safe to trust and who wasn't! Haha...an easy thing for seasoned travelers I'm sure. We got a friendly, talkative taxi driver and about 20 minutes later we arrived at our resort where we spent 7 days and 6 nights in a beautiful place that felt like a dream world to us. This was an all inclusive resort which was perfect for us as we just wanted to lay around, sleep, or swim for a week of rest and relaxation. Once we got checked in and had a quick tour of the adults only side of the resort (which we are so thankful we upgraded to when booking our reservation), we collapsed in our room. Hungry, overwhelmed, and tired from the day of traveling we were a bit frazzled. While the room was beautiful we had some initial glitches with the patio door not locking and the safe deposit box not working. After some maintenance calls/visits we were fixed up! The first day or two was spent figuring out how the "all inclusive" resort thing worked and since the resort was MASSIVE, it took some time to understand how to get to everything, etc. Once we had more of a feel for all of those things, it definitely made the rest of the week much more enjoyable. We had perfect weather for the entire trip. There was minimal rain (mostly when we were sleeping) and the beach and pool areas were just breathtaking.
I could go on and on about so many things but there are a few things I'd like to highlight. The staff were all so friendly. Every single person you walked by would say "Hola!" with a smile. Most of them didn't speak english but they worked hard and you never saw anyone sitting around waiting for someone to give them something to do. Americans could learn a thing or two from the Dominican folk. :) The language barrier was a bit frustrating at times but it could have been worse.
It truly was a beautiful and amazing vacation. Saturday, November 22nd, the morning of our departure was bittersweet and yes, I cried, but what's new? I cry at everything. :) I was thankful to be leaving with a bit of sadness instead of wishing the week away by wanting to get home. Our taxi drive back to the airport was quiet as the driver didn't seem to speak much English. We navigated the other half of the Punta Cana airport and were very relieved to make it through customs. That was a bit of a circus compared to exiting the USA. We had to take our shoes off, take all the electronics out of our carry on bags, and after going through the security area, everyone got a pat down no matter what. Not awful, just not what we were expecting! Our flight home included Chris sitting beside an 8 year old boy. You can imagine the things we were told in the span of our 4 hour flight. ;) Going from 80 degree temperatures to low 30's was an adjustment but our Explorer was still in the parking garage so that's all that mattered to me at that point! Home sweet home was just a 2 hour drive away!
The animals seemed pretty stoked that we had finally returned! While we feel like this was a trip of a lifetime for us, we are already dreaming up a return trip someday or another fun getaway to a completely different tropical location. We feel very blessed to have had this first experience and also very thankful for the reasons we were able to get away and celebrate! Memories to last a lifetime for sure.
If you would like to see the full photo album recap of our week, feel free to take a look here! Beware: We took a lot of pictures, ;)
