K
Karen
Guest
Riu Palace Macao
April 24th-May1st
Our trip started from Pittsburgh on UPS Air. The flight went without a hitch and we landed early at Punta Cana. The first bit of advice is to make sure you have a pen to fill out forms at the airport. After we got our luggage, we proceded to our transfer bus. It was hot and crowded and we were getting fidgity waiting for every one to get on. After about a half hour, we wondered what was taking so long, then an hour went by and we natives were getting restless. We asked what the hold up was and were told "a problem with the road" My first thoughts were maybe potholes? Well, it turned out that due to an upcoming election, some of the locals decided to stage a protest by hurling rocks at the first tour busses that left. They were reported to be armed, so we had to wait til the police had cleared the road of danger.
2 1/2 hours later we were on our merry way to the resort. We had to drive thru burning cars and large amounts of broken glass and boulders on the road. Every one hunched over when we drove thru this area, afraid a stray rock would hit our window. We were a bit stressed by the time we got to the resort, but strangely enough, we had made friends with the people sitting on all sides of us sort of like we had a commen bond.
The resort is pretty much how I pictured it. The beach is one of the nicest I have ever seen, incredibly wide, white and soft as can be. Get to the beach very early, around nine, if you want a spot with good shade under a palm tree. The Pool was taken over by the kids, but since it was surrounded by dark gray tile, it was too hot for us, any way. The beach had wonderful cool breezes that made you unaware of how much sun you were really getting, so make sure you use your sun screen. Mosquitos are not too bad, I got bit 4 times in the first two days, and then nothing for the rest of the week. I was surprized that we saw no birds, either. Maybe 2 during the whole week.
Check in was a breeze, English speaking desk clerks were a plus. Be warned, this is the ONLY place you will find english spoken that you can understand. A couple of examples...I asked for soap and got an ashtray, asked for a banana daiquiri and got a rose wine. Don't think that this is a negative, we had more fun trying to communicate with our spanish phrase book. The easiest way to order a drink is to point to it on the drink menu. if you like it frozen, just add the word frozen, this in one they seem to understand. We asked our waiter if it was safe to walk the beach at night, we tried to communicate danger by using a stabbing motion, I am pretty sure that he thought we wanted to have sex with him on the beach.
He just giggled and stared at us.
Now on to the food. Well, it's plentiful. It seemed like the same food over and over again. You sit in the same seat every night, with the same waiter. He did a wonderful job even thoug he spoke no english. Dress is pretty dressy for dinner. On the gala night there were quite a few long gowns, and men in ties.
The salad bar has a large selection, but we could find no lettuce the first couple of nights, until we realized that it was white and shredded like cabbage, which we thought it was. Every night, (and every lunch) there are pan fried pieces of beef, pork and chicken. No lobster to be found and the shrimp still has it's head attached with foot long antenna draping off it. There was a lot of cold seafood on the salad bar, like squid and mussels, but I was not brave enough to try these items. You can order off the menu, which we did once, but it just seemed like things you could already find on the buffet. The meat all had a wild taste to it, sort of like deer meat. Nothing tasted as we expected it to, one night there was stuffed chicken breast, when I took a bite, I realized it was stuffed with unpitted prunes, I almost chipped a tooth. We experienced a little intestinal distress, we think due to the spicy food, and not the water, which we never drank. They supply you with gallon jugs for brushing your teeth and drinking in your room. Just make sure you bring Immodium with you.
The rooms are pretty spacious,tho they appear to be in the need of a few updates. Our first room had poor air conditioning, so when my friend, Pam, that I met on the internet while researching my trip vacated her room, we switched to it. Make sure you get an ocean view, some people had views of roofs of the stores on Caribbean st. The tv has quite a lot of selections, several cable stations, headline news, and to my surprize, a porn channel at night that made my eyes bug out. My husband kept asking what was on channel 25, but I was pretty quick with the remote. We lost our water one night, the satelite once and the a/c once. When something broke, a call to the front desk usually fixed the problem, complete with a nice follow up call from the desk to make sure the problem was tended to.
HELPFUL HINTS
bring all your own supplys from home, bandaids, sunscreen, film, every thing is very expensive in the hotel store.
Claim a spot on the beach in the morning under a plam tree in front of the grill restaurant. Then you have access to a bathroom, juice bar, alcohol bar and the best lunch spot, the least crowded of the 3 restaurants, also with the best view.
Bring an electrical adapter, not a converter. The electric is 110, like ours, but you need to bring an adapter that accomadates our one large prong. We didn't have an adapter to fit, so the front desk pried the front cover off of the ones that they had, stuffed my curling iron plug into it and taped it up. It looked a little scary, but worked fine.
Bring a coffee pot and coffee with you. I really liked having my own coffee early in the morning on our balcony. The hotel coffee tastes more like expresso to me, which is more than I can handle in the am.
Bring sunscreen and USE it, or you will be sorry. I tan really easy, and got sun burned. We parked our chairs under a palm, used sunsreen, and only were in the sun while in the water. We both got fried, tingly, peeling burns. the kind that even the sheets on the bed irritate.
Bring lots of $5 and $10's for tips. The wait staff really appreciates it and they do a fine job. We had the same waiter every evening, and we tipped him each night.
When the food gets to be too much, try inventing your own creations at lunch. Grab a bun and make a BLT or chicken sandwhich. There were burgers, but they tasted unlike what we are used to.
TRIP SUMMARY
This trip was just what we wanted, a relaxing beach trip. The only things that were a little disappointing were the food and the evening entertainment, which we skipped after the initial show that was a comic, in spanish. The service was great and the lounges had great drinks.
It was a delight to meet our friend Pam and her husband, Durelle who we had met on the internet. When we first arrived at the hotel, some one came up to me and asked me if I was Karen Stanek, I thought who the heck could this be. It turned out to be Pam . I was amazed that she picked me out of the crowd. She and her husband were a delight and provided us with many helpful tips.
I would be happy to answer any questions, just email me at
stanek@infonline.net
rgds,
Karen
April 24th-May1st
Our trip started from Pittsburgh on UPS Air. The flight went without a hitch and we landed early at Punta Cana. The first bit of advice is to make sure you have a pen to fill out forms at the airport. After we got our luggage, we proceded to our transfer bus. It was hot and crowded and we were getting fidgity waiting for every one to get on. After about a half hour, we wondered what was taking so long, then an hour went by and we natives were getting restless. We asked what the hold up was and were told "a problem with the road" My first thoughts were maybe potholes? Well, it turned out that due to an upcoming election, some of the locals decided to stage a protest by hurling rocks at the first tour busses that left. They were reported to be armed, so we had to wait til the police had cleared the road of danger.
2 1/2 hours later we were on our merry way to the resort. We had to drive thru burning cars and large amounts of broken glass and boulders on the road. Every one hunched over when we drove thru this area, afraid a stray rock would hit our window. We were a bit stressed by the time we got to the resort, but strangely enough, we had made friends with the people sitting on all sides of us sort of like we had a commen bond.
The resort is pretty much how I pictured it. The beach is one of the nicest I have ever seen, incredibly wide, white and soft as can be. Get to the beach very early, around nine, if you want a spot with good shade under a palm tree. The Pool was taken over by the kids, but since it was surrounded by dark gray tile, it was too hot for us, any way. The beach had wonderful cool breezes that made you unaware of how much sun you were really getting, so make sure you use your sun screen. Mosquitos are not too bad, I got bit 4 times in the first two days, and then nothing for the rest of the week. I was surprized that we saw no birds, either. Maybe 2 during the whole week.
Check in was a breeze, English speaking desk clerks were a plus. Be warned, this is the ONLY place you will find english spoken that you can understand. A couple of examples...I asked for soap and got an ashtray, asked for a banana daiquiri and got a rose wine. Don't think that this is a negative, we had more fun trying to communicate with our spanish phrase book. The easiest way to order a drink is to point to it on the drink menu. if you like it frozen, just add the word frozen, this in one they seem to understand. We asked our waiter if it was safe to walk the beach at night, we tried to communicate danger by using a stabbing motion, I am pretty sure that he thought we wanted to have sex with him on the beach.
He just giggled and stared at us.Now on to the food. Well, it's plentiful. It seemed like the same food over and over again. You sit in the same seat every night, with the same waiter. He did a wonderful job even thoug he spoke no english. Dress is pretty dressy for dinner. On the gala night there were quite a few long gowns, and men in ties.
The salad bar has a large selection, but we could find no lettuce the first couple of nights, until we realized that it was white and shredded like cabbage, which we thought it was. Every night, (and every lunch) there are pan fried pieces of beef, pork and chicken. No lobster to be found and the shrimp still has it's head attached with foot long antenna draping off it. There was a lot of cold seafood on the salad bar, like squid and mussels, but I was not brave enough to try these items. You can order off the menu, which we did once, but it just seemed like things you could already find on the buffet. The meat all had a wild taste to it, sort of like deer meat. Nothing tasted as we expected it to, one night there was stuffed chicken breast, when I took a bite, I realized it was stuffed with unpitted prunes, I almost chipped a tooth. We experienced a little intestinal distress, we think due to the spicy food, and not the water, which we never drank. They supply you with gallon jugs for brushing your teeth and drinking in your room. Just make sure you bring Immodium with you.
The rooms are pretty spacious,tho they appear to be in the need of a few updates. Our first room had poor air conditioning, so when my friend, Pam, that I met on the internet while researching my trip vacated her room, we switched to it. Make sure you get an ocean view, some people had views of roofs of the stores on Caribbean st. The tv has quite a lot of selections, several cable stations, headline news, and to my surprize, a porn channel at night that made my eyes bug out.
My husband kept asking what was on channel 25, but I was pretty quick with the remote. We lost our water one night, the satelite once and the a/c once. When something broke, a call to the front desk usually fixed the problem, complete with a nice follow up call from the desk to make sure the problem was tended to.HELPFUL HINTS
bring all your own supplys from home, bandaids, sunscreen, film, every thing is very expensive in the hotel store.
Claim a spot on the beach in the morning under a plam tree in front of the grill restaurant. Then you have access to a bathroom, juice bar, alcohol bar and the best lunch spot, the least crowded of the 3 restaurants, also with the best view.
Bring an electrical adapter, not a converter. The electric is 110, like ours, but you need to bring an adapter that accomadates our one large prong. We didn't have an adapter to fit, so the front desk pried the front cover off of the ones that they had, stuffed my curling iron plug into it and taped it up. It looked a little scary, but worked fine.
Bring a coffee pot and coffee with you. I really liked having my own coffee early in the morning on our balcony. The hotel coffee tastes more like expresso to me, which is more than I can handle in the am.
Bring sunscreen and USE it, or you will be sorry. I tan really easy, and got sun burned. We parked our chairs under a palm, used sunsreen, and only were in the sun while in the water. We both got fried, tingly, peeling burns. the kind that even the sheets on the bed irritate.
Bring lots of $5 and $10's for tips. The wait staff really appreciates it and they do a fine job. We had the same waiter every evening, and we tipped him each night.
When the food gets to be too much, try inventing your own creations at lunch. Grab a bun and make a BLT or chicken sandwhich. There were burgers, but they tasted unlike what we are used to.
TRIP SUMMARY
This trip was just what we wanted, a relaxing beach trip. The only things that were a little disappointing were the food and the evening entertainment, which we skipped after the initial show that was a comic, in spanish. The service was great and the lounges had great drinks.
It was a delight to meet our friend Pam and her husband, Durelle who we had met on the internet. When we first arrived at the hotel, some one came up to me and asked me if I was Karen Stanek, I thought who the heck could this be. It turned out to be Pam . I was amazed that she picked me out of the crowd. She and her husband were a delight and provided us with many helpful tips.
I would be happy to answer any questions, just email me at
stanek@infonline.net
rgds,
Karen