Back in February, my good friend, Ashley, reached out to me and Danny asking if we'd like to join her and her husband in Punta Cana to celebrate my (and her husband, Charles') 40th birthday. Charles turned 40 on the same exact day as me! At first, I thought it was a long-shot that we would go, but Danny said we couldn't turn it down. Ashley and I have kept in touch (Danny calls us pen-pals) religiously for the past 13 years! We found out we were both pregnant in 2009 and have been writing each other since! We lost touch after I moved away and we both went to college. I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen Ashley in person since I had moved to Ohio back in 2000. We're alike in so many ways - I'm so glad we got to spend some time together - even if it was during a hurricane!
I snoozed during most of our first flight there - I woke up to find Danny already drinking!
We kept a close eye on the storm - at first we just wanted to be able to make it safely to Punta Cana - we figured we'd have fun in paradise no matter the weather...
Gray skies when we first arrived
Hurricane warning flag on the beach
Ashley and her cousin, Shannon (husband is Jeremy "aka Fargo") had arrived just before we did - we met up at the sports bar for some drinks and a bite to eat. Shannon and Jeremy were a lot of fun as well and I'm happy they were able to join us!
Before our first dinner together - a hat was so necessary with the humidity!
View from our room at night
Weather during our first full day was not ideal for swimming, but we made the best of it - Danny didn't waste any time!
The main pools and beach were closed so the gang came to our pool to hang.
Here's "Champagne Shannon"
The next day (Sunday), it rained all day. We hung out and played some games (and drank, of course)
That night, we had to rush to eat dinner at Agave before the restaurants closed early (in order to keep everyone safe). Before it got too late, a staff member brought a, technically speaking, sack lunch to our room. It contained some sandwiches, basic desserts, and yogurts to tide us over until it was safe enough to open the restaurants again. We went to bed not knowing how bad things would get overnight. Surprisingly, even with all of the wind, our room was pretty quiet. We couldn't really hear the storm literally feet from our room. I woke up around 2:00 in the morning and decided to try to peek outside through the window. I couldn't see much, but I stepped in some water near the front of our room. I panicked thinking it would get worse. I could not fall back to sleep - I envisioned our room flooding and us having to grab our belongings and moving rooms during a hurricane! Danny fell back to sleep like a baby. Luckily he was right, and fortunately, we were able to clean up the water with some extra towels we had in our room.
While I watched the Queen's funeral on TV, read my book, and napped, Danny cleaned off our patio that was covered in sand.
We took a walk around the resort to check out the damage and also visited the family resort nearby, also owned by the Excellence brand.
They didn't seem to be impacted nearly as bad as our resort. They even had some bars open so we could grab a drink!
You can see the trucks and tractors on the beach on the left trying to clean up the leaves/branches
We also walked to a souvenir shop on the beach after our complimentary hydrospa treatment
We stopped by the bar for some drinks...
...and some enjoyed some "happy shots" before heading back to our room for the 40th b'day celebration
Ashley swiped some pretty desserts and pizzas from the buffet to bring to our room!
That night we had fun at dinner and then stopped by the Dominican Republican themed dinner to see what it was all about.
Chez Isabelle
Ashley spoiled me with this fun tumbler!
It was so hot in this restaurant - it didn't stop Danny from trying even more food! I was not as interested.
"Prom" picture on the stairs!
All-in-all, we had a good trip. The weather was horrible, but the company was great! It was a shame that we didn't get to enjoy all that the resort had to offer. You better believe we're never vacationing in that area of the world during that time of year ever again!
