Some food pics from our vacation..........

One night we went to the Mediterranean restaurant in the resort.  The presentation was perfect, the taste not so!

The beet salad was actually tasty, but nothing exciting.

I ordered the the vegetarian roll.  It looked great but I wasn't too keen on the taste.

Hubby and daughter-in-law had the beef stew.  We were confused how beef stew was a Mediterranean dish?  They both said it was good.

Son had this shrimp and rice dish.

I had the strawberry pavlova for dessert and I can actually say it was the worst meringue I have ever had!  It looked lovely but the taste didn't match.

We ate lunch at a buffet place called the Goldfish a couple of times and I did enjoy the variety there.  Plus the view was gorgeous.

I did try a pina colada and a margarita while on vacation, never had either.  Loved the pina colada, hated the margarita.  

The beach...............

 The one thing I did not enjoy while away was the beach.  I felt it wasn't looked after.  The water was full of little bits of seaweed........I know it's a little thing but not my cup of tea.

Places we have been before they rake the sand on a night, don't think that happened here.

The sea was a stunning colour though.

However as you can see by the bouys bobbing in the water, you weren't allowed to go very far out in the sea.  I think there are coral reefs quite close to shore.

I only walked on the beach once, as I found it very uneven and it killed my feet.  So I was hobbling after half an hour.  The sand though was lovely to feel in my toes, even for such a short time.

The gift that keeps on giving..........

 {{{SIGH}}}

As I mentioned before our 7 year old got food poisoning in the Dominican, which resulted in a trip to the doctors and meds prescribed.

Hubby got on the plane and his tummy started rumbling..........fast forward until we got home (thank goodness) and he started with the diarrhea, which lasted a few days.

Next younger grandson started vomiting and had diarrhea.  He wasn't well but made a nearly full recovery.......get back to him later......

Then son came down with it, just diarrhea, but bad enough that he had to go to hospital.  Got the results back and he has salmonella (food poisoning)  The doctor prescribed antibiotics, as in adults, they don't bounce back as fast.

Younger grandson is still vomiting once on a night (??) otherwise he is full of beans and bouncing.  Doctor told son to just let it run it's course, as other than the vomiting he's fine.

As I mentioned earlier this is the third time son and family have been to the Dominican, and twice son has had food poisoning.

Neither myself or daughter-in-law fell ill.  We only drank bottled water.  With oldest grandson we blamed all the burgers he ate.  With the rest of them, no idea.

According to the hospital and other people we have talked too, the Dominican is renowned for stomach bugs.........which is a shame as we had a super time while we were there.

Back from vacation

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I needed a full day to decompress from the trip home.  It was more eventful than anticipated!  I will do a separate post on our adventures in Punta Cana airport at a later date.

We have just spent a week at the Lopesan Costa Bavaro Resort, Spa and Casino in the Dominican Republic.  As I said before we have never been to an all inclusive resort before; nor have we ever been to the Caribbean.  So I am no expert but these are my opinions/observations.  We went with our son, daughter-in-law and their two small boys ages, 7 and 4.  We booked a king garden view room and were upgraded to a pool view room.  Son and family were upgraded to an ocean view room, and their view was lovely.

This resort is around 30 minutes from the airport, however if you have a kamikaze driver it probably only takes 20 minutes......just saying 🤨

Here are some photos of the front of the resort and the lobby:

This was our room.  Pretty standard room and very comfortable.

It was an open plan bathroom.  Never had one before.  The frosted door to the right of the photo, that is where the shower is.

The frosted door to the left is where the toilet is.........yep not overly private.  With the sink in the middle, open to the rest of the room.

Below is a view from our balcony.  We were on the third floor. 

I put a link to the hotel in the second paragraph of this post, where you'll see more information about the resort.  We booked through Expedia, no idea if we got a good deal or not?

Pros of this resort:

Reasonably compact, everything easy to walk too.

Pools were great.  Multiple of them, you could be in the large pool with many people or go to one of the smaller lap pools.  Plus there were two water parks.  A smaller one for younger children and a larger one for all age groups.

Many restaurant options to choose from.  Also numerous bar options to choose from.

Well maintained and very clean.

Staff very friendly and polite.

The buffet options were good, with something for everyone.  Bottled water was served at every meal.

Plenty of bottled water supplied in the hotel rooms.  You cannot, nor should you drink the tap water!!

Great coffee shop, went nearly everyday.

Cons of this resort:

None of the shows started until at least 10pm at night.  

There was very little entertainment between 6pm and 10pm if you had children, just a guy playing the saxophone or another guy playing music.

The casino was very basic, only went the once.

We couldn't get reservations to any of the good restaurants for the first two days.  When we did eat at the nicer restaurants, the presentation was spot on for the food, but the taste didn't match.

The beach wasn't that well taken care of, lots of seaweed, and not a lot of swimming in the ocean, as it was cordoned off with buoy's.

This was as much our fault, as it was theirs but the language barrier was frustrating at times.  As I don't speak Spanish and some of the staff's English skills was lacking.  We had a couple of issues with our room, and we ended up just giving up with it, as we were not getting anywhere........again as much our fault as theirs.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I loved the all inclusive idea, as I neither had to cook or clean for a week, my idea of a holiday.  I managed to read 3 1/2 books (I was half way through one that I also took on vacation) while away, and could have done with taking another couple with me.  Enjoyed having the family with us to show us the ropes, and enjoyed having extra time with the boys.

We spent very little all week, and what we did spend was mainly tipping the staff.  Even then it was only a couple of dollars (American) here and there.  We did give the lady who cleaned our room $20, as the poor woman spent all week trying to teach me Spanish!!!  Hola! 

The older of the two grandsons did come down food poisoning on the Monday night, which was unfortunate.  So took him to the doctors and get some meds, as there was a doctor on site.  He was well enough to travel on the Wednesday.  I had an iffy tummy one day, but other than a bit of sunburn we all faired well during the trip.

So all in all a success with a lot of great memories made.  I think we will be doing this sort of trip every year from now on.  We were booked to go to Jamaica but due the the weather damage they had last year we had to cancel, so maybe Jamaica will be our next place to visit?

Vacation

Depending on when you are reading this post, we will be heading home from a week away in the Dominican Republic.  In fact we will be home later in the day today.

I prepped posts for the week away, as I knew I wouldn't be posting while we were away.

This is the first time we have been on an all inclusive vacation since we went on our honeymoon to Tunisia back in June of 1983. 

Going on an all inclusive vacation is on my bucket list.  We are going/went with our son, daughter-in-law and the two boys.  We were going to go with them in 2025, but plans changed.

So I am giving you a heads up you're going to be truly sick of vacation posts before I am finished!!!!