The Dominican Republic

 
 
 

 

My parents were nice enough to come and stay with our kids for a week so that we could get away.  We decided to try an all-inclusive resort.  Our destination was limited by the places that Southwest flew since Joe had a free companion pass this year, and I was his companion.  We chose the Dominican Republic because Joe knew someone that served his mission there and said it was really pretty.  We stayed at this really nice resort.  The weather was about as perfect as it gets the whole time we were there.  It never rained, there was a nice breeze and the temperature fluctuated between 72 and 85 degrees.

We spent a lot of time sitting next to the pool, reading.  As we sat there, this was the view that we had.  We also spent some time on the beach, but it was more sunny there and we didn't want to get burned, so we spent more time under this shade.  They were right next to each other. 

 

The second day that we were there, we took a horse back riding tour.  They started by taking us to a "cigar factory" where they let us roll a cigar.

 Notice he is concentrating so hard that his tongue pops out.  If he concentrates on it, he can stick it in, but otherwise, it is an involuntary reaction.

Then we rode horses through this beautiful, hilly countryside.  The horses were pretty old, so we went pretty slow. 

 In the middle of the horseback tour, we stopped and had lunch and rode a super long zipline over a river and back.  We saw how cocoa was made and some other plants that are grown in the DR.  It was fun.

Another day we took a buggy tour, but I will post separately about that.  The last full day we were there, we took a Segway tour.  We thought it would be fun to see what riding a Segway is like.

It was fun, and surprisingly easy to ride.  We just went on a small road through the forest next to a golf course.  There was a photographer on the trip who took about 100 photos of us doing the exact same thing and then tried to charge us $70 for the CD.  I wanted to support the locals, but I couldn't stomach that price.  The guide was a young guy (and it was just us and him and the photographer).  He spent most of the ride taking selfies of himself. It was very funny.

We had a very nice and relaxing time in the DR.  The all-inclusive resort was nice, but we felt like the food we had on our Carnival cruises in the past was better than the food at the resort.  (Maybe it is more Americanized than our resort was).  I think we may stick to cruises in the future!