A brief escape from Winter

 While Winter in Ontario is almost at an end, the day time temperatures are still averaging 4 degrees or less, so it doesn’t take much to convince me that a trip South is worth the effort.

And so I find myself sitting on a second floor balcony outside my room, overlooking the North Atlantic Ocean from the relatively sheltered town of Puerto Plata on the North Coast of the Dominican Republic.

As expected, our 8:15 am Sunwing Charter left promptly at 9:30am for the 4 hour flight. They did provide tea, coffee and seats at no extra charge ($20-50 for preferred seating if booked in advance) but everything else was extra. So far they have yet to put a coin slot on the toilet door but …..(Shhh, don’t give them ideas)

During the flight, they were promoting excursion prices that they promised would be cheaper than those offered at the resort. Not only weren’t they NOT cheaper but some of the offerings weren’t even available! They did, however, at a later orientation session,  offer to provide a credit towards alternate excursions- but no refunds!

As a quick aside, I stopped using Sunwing some 15 years ago when my return flight from Cuba was delayed 7 hours with No Announcement whatsoever, or any apology or any other explanation either before, during or after the flight. The only reason I took a chance with them this time was that they were the only charter flying to the DR on that day.

Our hotel, the Be Live Meriden, is a typical All Inclusive of around 1000 rooms, featuring a main buffet restaurant, 3 a La carte options,

 ( Mediterranean, Mexican and Brazilian) plus multiple bars and snack bars.

For any older Brits reading this, picture a high end Butlins, without the Redcoats. 

Nightly entertainment features a variety of shows that reached their Best Before date in 2010, the highlight of which, like every other resort south of Key West is a Michael Jacks On Chow (their pronunciation) featuring a local impersonator lip syncing to 45 minutes or so of MJ’s most forgettable hits.

How they plan to torture us on future evenings remains to be seen.

This is actually our fourth trip to the DR, our first being an unforgettable family vacation in the mid 80’s at a resort just outside the main city of Santo Domingo. During that “vacation from hell” at least 60% of the vacationers were stricken with food poisoning, including all of my family. Suffice to say, it took close to 20 years before we returned.