Club Med Punta Cana, Domincan Republic
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Club Med at Punta Cana, Dominican Republic"What happens here, goes on the Internet :-)"You have heard the motto for Las Vegas: "What happens here, stays here." I would like to change the motto for our trip to Club Med at Punta Cana: "What happens here, goes on the Internet :-)" Indeed, I would like to share our trip via some pictures and words. Don't worry. In order to protect the not-so innocents, I would not reveal anything embarrassing or personal on the web! So Della, you can breath a sigh of relief :-) In the past we have gone to the San Francisco Airport via personal car, BART, taxi, or even a beaten-down limo, so this time we decided to try the "Friendly Airport Limo and Taxi (510) 834-1234. We were very delighted with the promptness of the driver and the cleanliness of the Lincoln Continental that picked us up. We will definitely use them again. One great thing about going to Club Med is that it's a good bargain considering that this is an all-inclusive trip. The added bonus is that I was able to use the mileage accumulated on my BankOne Rewards Platinum Visa card to pay for most of the air fare. We only needed to chip in $300 additional per person to go from Oakland to Dominican Republic. The best part was that on the way to Dominican Republic we got a free upgrade to ride in the first class cabin on US Airways. One can get very spoiled and used to all that leg room! Believe me, we needed all that room to stretch out because we literally left SFO at 11pm on Friday and got to Club Med at 2pm on Saturday, including 3 hours of time change. The brutal part was the 5 hours of stopover at Charlotte, North Carolina. Fortunately we were able to spent part of the time relaxing on these nice, comfortable rocking chairs at the Charlotte airport. Highly recommended. When we arrived at Punta Cana, we breathed a sigh of relief. Two days before the trip I checked the weather forecast. Basically it was 7 straight days of thunderstorms and rain! To add injury to insult, the 85 degrees F. weather was projected to have the "discomfort" level of feeling like 115F due to the high humidity. I was so depressed. Theresa and I both packed umbrellas. I even called up Club Med to find out if they have any board games, like dominoes, in case of foul weather. The lady at reception kind of feigned surprise and said what rain! Well, anyway I was pleasantly surprised by the sunshine when we arrived. Indeed. For the rest of the trip we were blessed with sunny weather for practically the whole trip. In fact, just two weeks before we arrived the weather had continuous rain. Believe me, the difference of having rain vs. sunshine for all the outdoor activities at Punta Cana is extreme. We stayed at room 563, which is located in a building named Caravelle. The ocean-front room was relatively roomy and clean. During the course of the next 7 days I only killed two cockroaches! On future Club Med trip I am not planning to upgrade our room to ocean-front or ocean-view vs. a regular garden-view room since we hardly spent time in our room. Most of the time we were either participating in all the outdoor sports activities or eating. The pattern is very predictable: eat, play, eat, play, eat, play, sleep and then repeat :-) We did not have any time to read any of the books and magazines that we brought.The great thing about Club Med is that all the activities are included as part of the tour package. You don't need to drive to get to an activity. You don't need to make advanced reservation. You should show up and play. We certainly took full advantage of this. One of the highlights was sailing on Laser, which is basically a single-person 13'10” sailboat. We were fortunate to have Jack as an experienced sailor. He was able to take each of us out on the water for a fun and exciting spin on the water. I did have the opportunity to take the boat out once. I did manage to capsize the boat but got the opportunity to learn how to right the boat by pulling on the center board. Theresa thought it was part of the training! However, I did manage to put a nice gash on my leg. I guess one cannot fully get into a sport unless one draws blood! We were all impressed that Jack was able to earn a medal in the sailing competition. Actually the most memorable activity for me was wind surfing. It was pretty challenging to try to balance on the board. Though I was never able to navigate to the starting point, but on the third day I was really getting a hang of it. I just love the feeling of the sailing pulling me and the board. It was intoxicating to feel the sail, the board, and me being one traveling perpendicular to the wind at a fast clip. I'm hooked. I'm glad that at the medal award ceremony, the GO had mercy on me and also Jack and John and awarded each of us a silver medal for our valiant effort. I am so fascinated with wind surfing I'm already looking into taking classes with Cal Adventures in San Francisco Bay ( http://www.oski.org/html/ca_adult_windsurf2.htm ). The wind may be stronger, but the water will just be darn frigid! I just was reading the newspapers when I got home and read that there is a great windsurfing at the San Francisco Delta. ( http://www.deltawindsurf.com/events.html ) The weather was on the warm side due to the humidity. However, the warm temperature combined with warm water made it possible for participate in water sports indefinitely. We never felt chilled. We participated in swimming, snorkeling, water aerobics (or aqua gym in French), sailing, and windsurfing without feeling cold. It was great. Though I put on SPF50 sun-block twice a day, wore a hat, and stayed in the shade when not doing any sports activities, I got such a dark tan that one co-worker said that I look Jamaican when I returned to work! In order to avoid growing gills since we were in the water all the times, we decided to get into archery. It was not the most popular activity. We hardly see anyone there. However, it's nice to have the place all to ourselves. We were also fortunate to have Johnny as the GO who was kind, friendly, and patient. We were able to quickly learn how to shoot some arrows without seriously injuring each other or ourselves. The French word of the day is "flèche," which means arrows in English. When all the arrows were shot, we will say this word to signify that it was safe to go forward to retrieve our arrows. Fortunately for Theresa and myself there is actually an archery range near our house at the Redwood Regional Park. ( http://www.ebparks.org/dropdown/marksman.htm ). It's never too early to start training for Ixtapa for next spring in order for me to wrest an archery medal from Jack! He was able to earn a second-place medal. I probably could have a good chance, but Theresa was nice enough to get me a glass a champagne PRIOR to the archery competition. Now I know. One cannot mix archery and champagne. In fact the next day I went to the range and proceeded to shoot two bull-eye ( 10 points) out of the 9 arrows! Revenge is on my mind next year :-) You would have thought by now that we were tired on our first day. No way, Jack and I decided to get in the circus. Both of us took our turn on the trapeze. It was fun! As the girls from Atlanta said that the most difficult part was climbing up the narrow and wobbly ladder. Everything else was a piece of cake. I was able to hang my legs on the trapeze ball, but I was unable to do a back flip. Well, I have to leave something for me to look forward to at Ixtapa!
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