Okay, here goes. Never have I graced the cyber pages of DR1 with a trip report. Probably because I never remember precise details like the name of the tasty paella restaurant I adore, I just know it as the place that has the seafood 3 doors down from the Irish restaurant. That usually doesn't make for good articulate information gathering, but I will try.
I went to Cabarete a few weeks ago. Alone. I'm a woman if it matters. Stayed at the Villa Taina, consistently cool, nice balconies, but the garden view rooms are nice too, they are much quieter. Sometimes the kids in the pool can get annoying if you aren't into screaming. Excellent breakfast, great lunch, nice place to have an evening drink on the beach, always helpful DSL connection in room, yippee! This gives me an excuse to take lots of "business" trips to the DR, so I do it in shifts, swim in the a.m. 1 hour walk, 2 hours internet business, break for tasty lunch either at Villa Taina or La Casita (spelled right?) They have some mighty fine langostine paella, and for lunch if you want something less overwhelming in size and grandeur, choose the vegetable crepes, they are melt in your mouth wonderful. I would eat there every single day if I didn't feel guilty about not trying all the other restaurants 'round town. But I digress as always.....back to work for 2 hours, 1 hour run along the beach, 45 minutes gathering things from the main street (newspaper, currency exchange, water, more suntan oil) UH OH it's happy hour! Villa Taina has the best drinks, so I splurge and have 2 Cuba Libre's. Now I'm sufficiently jolly and ready to call the US and do some business/screaming/begging/manipulating/torturing at my office. Let them know my attitude towards my job has definitely not improved in the warm Dominican Sun (although my attitude about everything else has!). Okay, I stay 3 days, then decide to hit the other end of the beach and stay at El Magnifico. Beautiful grounds, an incredibly tranquil scene, HUGE room, unfortunately for me, it was exactly 3 times larger than my pitiful dirty-white box in NYC. No internet though, so I felt a little disoriented, and a little anxious about what horrifying things could be happening while I'm away from work. (of course, nothing happened) Pool is great, and did I mention serene? Give me a week I might actually finish Ulysis there. Walked into town every night and ate at the Pollo restaurant in the Mall across the street. Sorry I can't remember the name. It's nothing fancy, but the French Owner and the Dominican waitperson really make you feel like part of the family so to speak. The food is excellent. Try the pate salad. He makes a mean Coq au Vin as well. I have to mention this one annoying meal. One day I decide to abandon the Taina breakfast and I go to Jose O'Shays for breakfast. 2 words... over priced. They actually charge you 1 USD for a second cup of regular coffee. It was the most expensive mediocre breakfast I've ever eaten, and I live in NYC. $17 for one person, no alcoholic bevereges. Someone should tell the owner he is not in Boston anymore. And, get this, everything is in english, except this one part of the meal. La Quinta. Tax 12% I think, and Ley? which I assume is tip, they add another 10%. But they put on the menu that tip is not included. Double Dipping. Insult to injury, baby.
On to the next. Decided to move down the beach the other direction, and wound up at Laurel Eastman's kite resort. The hotel has a different name, but I don't know what it is. $40 a day for a big room with 20 foot ceilings, clean, little kitchen area with bar area and stools, quiet airconditioning and a HUGE balcony overlooking nicely maintained and planted courtyard area. Big, Huge, Gigantic pool, great for lap swimming! Went grocery shopping at the mercado across the street. Was mystified by the very high prices on a lot of things. Buying groceries must be a very expensive proposition for many people who live here and that is unfortunate. This hotel was very basic stuff, but a great deal, I would stay there again in a second. The more formal restaurant in front of the hotel (help me out here) was great. The chef was Italian, but they had Dominican specialties as well, they had live music which was absolutely beautiful. The lead singer was practically operatic. Time to move on.....next stop AI.
Occidental Flamenco Playa Dorada inside gated and secured fence, guys with guns. Okay, I need to explain myself here. Never been to one (this is my fourth trip to the DR), always lectured everyone about their holiday-inn meets-feeding-time-at-the-troff mentality. However, one thing about reading these forums is that you get very interested in the elusive AI sankie creature (for purely anropological reasons I assure you) What does he look like? Does he have a scarlet S emblazoned on his perfectly sculpted chest? Will I see one? Answer, Yes. Within 30 seconds of check in. My check in person Jose looked deeply into my eyes and softly proclaimed "Emily you will need a bodyguard while you are here, yes?) I was needless very proud of my hunting skills, so nimbly finding such a rich virile specimin in under a minute flat. I intently replied "I wouldn't want to take you away from your loving wife and children" Ouch. Jose doesn't like me anymore. So I proceeded to tip him $10 to give me the room farthest away from the rest of the compound, far from the disco or mass human feeding area, and preferably a view out to an unspoiled non-fumigated nature preserve. He happily picked up his wounded ego and trotted off to get my key.
Actually, I confess. I kind of like the AI's. Kind of. With Qualifiers.
Here's the deal. Out of seven restaurants 2 were pretty good! Steak place and Buffet. The buffet guy seemed a little pissed that I wanted seconds on my coffee in the morning. I felt like I might have been violating an unspoken rule regulating caffeine consumption in a foreign land. Pizza place was scary (bread, strange tasting tomato sauce, disguisting amounts of cheese, like pounds of cheese). If you were on the atkins diet, you could just easily lift off the top three inches of cheese and live for months! Cool. I have to admit it's a serious Disneyland suspension of reality kind of environment there. The architecture is all messed up, no the roman columns do not go with the Bavarian mountain house type structure, but hey, who's being an elitist here? It was clean, grounds were well kept in that scary we have to have green grass everywhere, and we can waste millions of gallons of water to cultivate it in a place where Kentucky Blue Grass is not indiginous but it must remind you of your lovely well-maintained yard in florida right? Who can say. But, they did definitely try. Room, while big, scared me with the spray on stucco stuff on all five walls. I personally believe a little spray on stucco can go a very, very long way. But rooms were clean, big TV, excellent large balcony (actually did overlook this jungly river thing, which appeared to not be orchestrated by the AI Gods. Balcony was at the tree tops which was great because there were fabulous wood peckers and other bird watching. It was very serene. I suspect many occupants of the other 14 buildings were not enjoying such tranquility. The disco is LOUD. The "audience participation" shows are LOUD.
I liked the fact that basically you didn't have to think. While thinking is good, I occasionally enjoy it, but here everything is taken care of. You don't worry about money, you don't worry about your security at night, (sometimes if I'm in an area of the DR is isn't well populated I get nervous about travelling at night, etc.) It's very regimented. The pool closes at 7:00 (lame, they claim it takes 13 hours to add chemicals to the pool) you get ready for dinner at 8:00, you go to the show, hop off to the disco till 4. And start all over at the buffet at 10. It's scheduled, its planned and sometimes it's good to be mindless. Overall it was okay. I had my Pina Colada's on the beach, ate a quite good lunch in their restaurant on the beach, read a good book and I was pleased. I also wasn't hassled as much to buy jewlrey, etc. on the playa dorada beach which was nice. And happily they scraped away the plastic cups, trash, etc. off the beach every day, which was nice. I'm getting a little sick of seeing garbage on beautiful beaches. There seems to be a disproportionately high degree of humans over 500 pounds here, and for some strange reason they never manage the use of sun tan lotion which isn't an attractive picture. I guess the all-you-can-eat is a draw for some.
This has become obscenely long, but there are more mundane stories to tell. I must sleep now....
I went to Cabarete a few weeks ago. Alone. I'm a woman if it matters. Stayed at the Villa Taina, consistently cool, nice balconies, but the garden view rooms are nice too, they are much quieter. Sometimes the kids in the pool can get annoying if you aren't into screaming. Excellent breakfast, great lunch, nice place to have an evening drink on the beach, always helpful DSL connection in room, yippee! This gives me an excuse to take lots of "business" trips to the DR, so I do it in shifts, swim in the a.m. 1 hour walk, 2 hours internet business, break for tasty lunch either at Villa Taina or La Casita (spelled right?) They have some mighty fine langostine paella, and for lunch if you want something less overwhelming in size and grandeur, choose the vegetable crepes, they are melt in your mouth wonderful. I would eat there every single day if I didn't feel guilty about not trying all the other restaurants 'round town. But I digress as always.....back to work for 2 hours, 1 hour run along the beach, 45 minutes gathering things from the main street (newspaper, currency exchange, water, more suntan oil) UH OH it's happy hour! Villa Taina has the best drinks, so I splurge and have 2 Cuba Libre's. Now I'm sufficiently jolly and ready to call the US and do some business/screaming/begging/manipulating/torturing at my office. Let them know my attitude towards my job has definitely not improved in the warm Dominican Sun (although my attitude about everything else has!). Okay, I stay 3 days, then decide to hit the other end of the beach and stay at El Magnifico. Beautiful grounds, an incredibly tranquil scene, HUGE room, unfortunately for me, it was exactly 3 times larger than my pitiful dirty-white box in NYC. No internet though, so I felt a little disoriented, and a little anxious about what horrifying things could be happening while I'm away from work. (of course, nothing happened) Pool is great, and did I mention serene? Give me a week I might actually finish Ulysis there. Walked into town every night and ate at the Pollo restaurant in the Mall across the street. Sorry I can't remember the name. It's nothing fancy, but the French Owner and the Dominican waitperson really make you feel like part of the family so to speak. The food is excellent. Try the pate salad. He makes a mean Coq au Vin as well. I have to mention this one annoying meal. One day I decide to abandon the Taina breakfast and I go to Jose O'Shays for breakfast. 2 words... over priced. They actually charge you 1 USD for a second cup of regular coffee. It was the most expensive mediocre breakfast I've ever eaten, and I live in NYC. $17 for one person, no alcoholic bevereges. Someone should tell the owner he is not in Boston anymore. And, get this, everything is in english, except this one part of the meal. La Quinta. Tax 12% I think, and Ley? which I assume is tip, they add another 10%. But they put on the menu that tip is not included. Double Dipping. Insult to injury, baby.
On to the next. Decided to move down the beach the other direction, and wound up at Laurel Eastman's kite resort. The hotel has a different name, but I don't know what it is. $40 a day for a big room with 20 foot ceilings, clean, little kitchen area with bar area and stools, quiet airconditioning and a HUGE balcony overlooking nicely maintained and planted courtyard area. Big, Huge, Gigantic pool, great for lap swimming! Went grocery shopping at the mercado across the street. Was mystified by the very high prices on a lot of things. Buying groceries must be a very expensive proposition for many people who live here and that is unfortunate. This hotel was very basic stuff, but a great deal, I would stay there again in a second. The more formal restaurant in front of the hotel (help me out here) was great. The chef was Italian, but they had Dominican specialties as well, they had live music which was absolutely beautiful. The lead singer was practically operatic. Time to move on.....next stop AI.
Occidental Flamenco Playa Dorada inside gated and secured fence, guys with guns. Okay, I need to explain myself here. Never been to one (this is my fourth trip to the DR), always lectured everyone about their holiday-inn meets-feeding-time-at-the-troff mentality. However, one thing about reading these forums is that you get very interested in the elusive AI sankie creature (for purely anropological reasons I assure you) What does he look like? Does he have a scarlet S emblazoned on his perfectly sculpted chest? Will I see one? Answer, Yes. Within 30 seconds of check in. My check in person Jose looked deeply into my eyes and softly proclaimed "Emily you will need a bodyguard while you are here, yes?) I was needless very proud of my hunting skills, so nimbly finding such a rich virile specimin in under a minute flat. I intently replied "I wouldn't want to take you away from your loving wife and children" Ouch. Jose doesn't like me anymore. So I proceeded to tip him $10 to give me the room farthest away from the rest of the compound, far from the disco or mass human feeding area, and preferably a view out to an unspoiled non-fumigated nature preserve. He happily picked up his wounded ego and trotted off to get my key.
Actually, I confess. I kind of like the AI's. Kind of. With Qualifiers.
Here's the deal. Out of seven restaurants 2 were pretty good! Steak place and Buffet. The buffet guy seemed a little pissed that I wanted seconds on my coffee in the morning. I felt like I might have been violating an unspoken rule regulating caffeine consumption in a foreign land. Pizza place was scary (bread, strange tasting tomato sauce, disguisting amounts of cheese, like pounds of cheese). If you were on the atkins diet, you could just easily lift off the top three inches of cheese and live for months! Cool. I have to admit it's a serious Disneyland suspension of reality kind of environment there. The architecture is all messed up, no the roman columns do not go with the Bavarian mountain house type structure, but hey, who's being an elitist here? It was clean, grounds were well kept in that scary we have to have green grass everywhere, and we can waste millions of gallons of water to cultivate it in a place where Kentucky Blue Grass is not indiginous but it must remind you of your lovely well-maintained yard in florida right? Who can say. But, they did definitely try. Room, while big, scared me with the spray on stucco stuff on all five walls. I personally believe a little spray on stucco can go a very, very long way. But rooms were clean, big TV, excellent large balcony (actually did overlook this jungly river thing, which appeared to not be orchestrated by the AI Gods. Balcony was at the tree tops which was great because there were fabulous wood peckers and other bird watching. It was very serene. I suspect many occupants of the other 14 buildings were not enjoying such tranquility. The disco is LOUD. The "audience participation" shows are LOUD.
I liked the fact that basically you didn't have to think. While thinking is good, I occasionally enjoy it, but here everything is taken care of. You don't worry about money, you don't worry about your security at night, (sometimes if I'm in an area of the DR is isn't well populated I get nervous about travelling at night, etc.) It's very regimented. The pool closes at 7:00 (lame, they claim it takes 13 hours to add chemicals to the pool) you get ready for dinner at 8:00, you go to the show, hop off to the disco till 4. And start all over at the buffet at 10. It's scheduled, its planned and sometimes it's good to be mindless. Overall it was okay. I had my Pina Colada's on the beach, ate a quite good lunch in their restaurant on the beach, read a good book and I was pleased. I also wasn't hassled as much to buy jewlrey, etc. on the playa dorada beach which was nice. And happily they scraped away the plastic cups, trash, etc. off the beach every day, which was nice. I'm getting a little sick of seeing garbage on beautiful beaches. There seems to be a disproportionately high degree of humans over 500 pounds here, and for some strange reason they never manage the use of sun tan lotion which isn't an attractive picture. I guess the all-you-can-eat is a draw for some.
This has become obscenely long, but there are more mundane stories to tell. I must sleep now....
