I am finally here :glasses:
My intent in this post it to give a day by day account of my vacation in Las Terrenas in order to help others that may be planning a similar venture.
I must forewarn anyone that is looking for an exhilarting trip report that you will likely be disapointed.
My goal of this vacation is to relax and rejuvinate. Thus, I will not be reporting on the club scene etc. .
I will report on my boring vaction which will likely be comprised of chilling on the beach, going to dinner, a few day tours etc.
I would like to thank those DR1ers that pointed me toward the location that I am currently writing this from(El Colibri).
Please excuse my obvious typos and grammatical errors as I am dead *** tired.
Day One
I awoke from my house one hour north of Ottawa at 4 AM. One hour later than planned.
I thank GOD that the road conditions were good and it was not snowing etc. We awoke to a balmy minus 10 which was sadly a treat.
Although we had a little sleep in, we still made our 7 AM flight to Montreal.
Through some good fortune we had access to the Air Cananda Lounge which was nice as we had 4 hours to kill.
I had my first vacation beer at 11:01. The lounge starts serving at 11 :squareeye
Let me say the recession must be over in Canada as the AC lounge was packed for the 4 hours we were there.
It was not business travellers. Primarilly famillies.
We boarded at 12:15 EST and landed at El Catey at 17:40. 3 hours and 47 minutes with day light savings time removed. We went from -14 C (in Montreal)to 27 C in 3 + hours. SWEET.
The El Catey airport is small.
Our flight was the only one there.
Most passengers seemed to be getting on the A/I buses which left my wife and I as prime picking for the Taxi's.
I was expecting a rate of about $50 US based on DR1 intelligence but I could not find a rate better than $70 US at the airport.
One guy seemed to control all the taxi's and I was not able to negotiate with anyone. I did try though:ermm:
Anyhow, we hopped in our $70 cab with a super nice driver that spoke decent English.
Better than our Spanglish.
We spent the next hour travelling to Las Terrenas.
What an AWESOME drive that was. Holy cow, was it beautiful!!! I loved EVERY minute of that drive!!!
We arrived at our hotel on schedule and checked in.
Everything is great at the El Colibri. Of course we have all the usual Dominican obsticalces to overcome.
We went to the beach bar with $20 US to buy a beer and Cuba Libre.
After I had taken a few sips of my beer I was informed they don't take American Dollars at this bar. They have no change.......(shocker)
I then laugh and say "do you want the beer back" ?
Of course they found a way to make my American dollars work for them.
We then went back to our room and could not get the key to work. It turns out we had one key for the door and one for the balcony but they did not tell us that.
We thought they gave us duplicates for the door so we left one in the room, LOL . Back to reception , we went.
Anyhow, we gained access to our room and soon attempted to gain access to the free WIFI that is advertised.
Well, it is free BUT back down to reception to get the WIFI key.
We had zero supplies in our room. The Colibri front office kindlly offered to hire a motto concho to town to stock us up. He grabbed all the supplies we ordered for $150 RD. SWEET.
All in all a FANTASTIC day and happy to be back in the DR. We LOVE all these quirky little roadblocks that the DR has to offer :glasses:
I will add to this daily for the next 14 days (boring as it may be) and upload pictures if the internet speed permits.
My intent in this post it to give a day by day account of my vacation in Las Terrenas in order to help others that may be planning a similar venture.
I must forewarn anyone that is looking for an exhilarting trip report that you will likely be disapointed.
My goal of this vacation is to relax and rejuvinate. Thus, I will not be reporting on the club scene etc. .
I will report on my boring vaction which will likely be comprised of chilling on the beach, going to dinner, a few day tours etc.
I would like to thank those DR1ers that pointed me toward the location that I am currently writing this from(El Colibri).
Please excuse my obvious typos and grammatical errors as I am dead *** tired.
Day One
I awoke from my house one hour north of Ottawa at 4 AM. One hour later than planned.
I thank GOD that the road conditions were good and it was not snowing etc. We awoke to a balmy minus 10 which was sadly a treat.
Although we had a little sleep in, we still made our 7 AM flight to Montreal.
Through some good fortune we had access to the Air Cananda Lounge which was nice as we had 4 hours to kill.
I had my first vacation beer at 11:01. The lounge starts serving at 11 :squareeye
Let me say the recession must be over in Canada as the AC lounge was packed for the 4 hours we were there.
It was not business travellers. Primarilly famillies.
We boarded at 12:15 EST and landed at El Catey at 17:40. 3 hours and 47 minutes with day light savings time removed. We went from -14 C (in Montreal)to 27 C in 3 + hours. SWEET.
The El Catey airport is small.
Our flight was the only one there.
Most passengers seemed to be getting on the A/I buses which left my wife and I as prime picking for the Taxi's.
I was expecting a rate of about $50 US based on DR1 intelligence but I could not find a rate better than $70 US at the airport.
One guy seemed to control all the taxi's and I was not able to negotiate with anyone. I did try though:ermm:
Anyhow, we hopped in our $70 cab with a super nice driver that spoke decent English.
Better than our Spanglish.
We spent the next hour travelling to Las Terrenas.
What an AWESOME drive that was. Holy cow, was it beautiful!!! I loved EVERY minute of that drive!!!
We arrived at our hotel on schedule and checked in.
Everything is great at the El Colibri. Of course we have all the usual Dominican obsticalces to overcome.
We went to the beach bar with $20 US to buy a beer and Cuba Libre.
After I had taken a few sips of my beer I was informed they don't take American Dollars at this bar. They have no change.......(shocker)
I then laugh and say "do you want the beer back" ?
Of course they found a way to make my American dollars work for them.
We then went back to our room and could not get the key to work. It turns out we had one key for the door and one for the balcony but they did not tell us that.
We thought they gave us duplicates for the door so we left one in the room, LOL . Back to reception , we went.
Anyhow, we gained access to our room and soon attempted to gain access to the free WIFI that is advertised.
Well, it is free BUT back down to reception to get the WIFI key.
We had zero supplies in our room. The Colibri front office kindlly offered to hire a motto concho to town to stock us up. He grabbed all the supplies we ordered for $150 RD. SWEET.
All in all a FANTASTIC day and happy to be back in the DR. We LOVE all these quirky little roadblocks that the DR has to offer :glasses:
I will add to this daily for the next 14 days (boring as it may be) and upload pictures if the internet speed permits.