Green Paradise, Beach Sunbathing and Dance Shows! / Dominican Republic 2023 Holiday - Part 1

Part 1 of my recent Dominican Republic holiday is now live. I travelled and enjoyed the first 4 days in a truly beautiful Caribbean island, surrounded my luscious greenery and palm trees galore!

Click here to watch the vlog or see below. 

My mum came down to Nottingham the night before our holiday started and stayed with me. The flight wasn't super early which made a nice change so we didn't need to wake up and set off until 7am. It was a smooth drive and although I picked the cheapest car park, which is the further away, the bus transport was great, as was the car drop off. When we got through check in which was very smooth and probably the fastest security eve, we headed to get some breakfast. Mum of course went shopping, whilst I waited at the table, but when she got back, we both enjoyed our brunch. 

Once set off, the plane journey was smooth however it was all very chaotic initially. There was a family who refused to set off before they were seated together, despite being provided with 2 sets of 2 seats together. By the end of the flight, we learnt that they were in a  group of 40 + people, for a wedding, all of which had not paid for seats and they were all arguing they needed to sit together. Crazy! 

The bus was again a crazy smooth 3 minute journey and the second we arrived, it looked like paradise. Everywhere was so pretty, perfectly kept and bright green. The luscious palm trees were everything and I never got over them. That night, we were pretty tired, so I very quickly had a shower and got changes, before we headed out to the buffet to eat and then we both went to bed early. 

The next day, we spent relaxing by the pools in the morning and it was gorgeous. We just read and sunbathed all morning and we didn't really join in on the activities, because we were just so chilled. I also couldn't get over how many pools there were. There were 3 different big pools, all connected through tunnels and walkways. There was also different depths and a swim up bar too. 

In the afternoon, it started to rain a little so we headed back to the room. When I booked it, I knew rain was the highest in September but it was still meant to be less than the UK at the low point, so I didn't think it was bad. It absolutely chucked it down for about 30 minutes and I was beginning to think the worse, but luckily that was pretty much it for the holiday. Breakfast buffet was delicious, lunch buffet was delicious and the snack buffet was delicious! 

For the evening, we headed out to the Italian for a meal, then watched the show. The show was very gimmicky. The first we missed as mum was tired and we were waiting for some maintenance issues to be fixed in the room, but that one did look good as it was a circus show and they even had a trapeze and aerial act set up when we walked past. The second was a “Playback Show” which was advertised more as a singing and ended up being a very low end set up of lip syncing. The dancing wasn’t great, the lip syncing was bad and each song went on for far too long.

Our second full day was boiling hot, so much so that after the morning sunbathing, both mum and I spent the rest of the day in the shade. It was still just as lovely and the permanent dried palm tree leaf parasols were beautiful. 

That evening we headed to the American diner restaurant. The food was relatively basic but enjoyable nevertheless, especially the main courses of the deep fried food that mum and I both loved. 

It didn't take very long at all to eat so we ended up taking a beach walk and walk across the shoreline in a very relaxing peacefulness, lit by lightning in the distance. 

Mum didn't fancy breakfast in the morning so I went alone and it was the best so far to date. I had a full English, with crispy bacon, well-cooked scrambled eggs and a side of muffins and melon! 

The hotel was a part of a water park also, which only added another fun location to explore. Mum and I aren't really huge fans of water slides, but I did go on the children's ones. It was lovely to also sit and enjoy the grass as well. It was surprisingly quiet, which was very peaceful but unusual. There was also a buffet based there as well. 

In the afternoon, we headed back to the main pool, to be greeted by a very short 10 minute drizzle, which I actually loved. We got in the pool to enjoy the rain and then it completely stopped. 

The rest of the pool was beautiful and sunny once again, filled with activities including a blow up slide, aqua bikes and darts. 

The evenings restaurant of choice was the Mexican that was very nice and the food was delicious, but it also was a strange menu and we felt we were missing half the food and ended up having to order the rest of the sides that it was suppose to come with. 

Afterwards, we headed to the theatre, where we played bingo and lost to practically everyone else, then watched what actually ended up being a very good show. I can't remember for the life of me what this one was, but the lack of lip syncing and the shorter sequences were much more enjoyable. 

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!