Pictures can be deceiving...Honeymoon Pt 3

July +

The Majestic Resort +

The Dominican Republic =

NEVER. AGAIN.

After our smokey, emergency landing, I am never sitting in an exit row again incident, getting off the plane and walking to the airport (a beautiful huge hut), getting our picture taken with native beach girls (like getting a lei and an aloha in Hawaii, but minus the lei and aloha), paying $20 a mandatory do not pass go until you pay situation (never given the picture and still don't even know what we paid for), the life-threatening taxi ride-- the kind with no speed limits, no pavement, no street lights, sharp turns and a driver that doesn't speak english-- we finally made it to our destination. As I mentioned before, I might be a pessimist and I might watch too much TV, so I can't help but wonder... how do we even know this driver is taking us to the right place and not going to steal us and kill us?? Fear not, in this case, he was the right driver and he did get us to our hotel. Although it was very possible he could've unintentionally killed us. I won't say it was the safest, most comfortable drive I have ever been on, I think I was white knuckled and holding my breath the whole time, but he did get us from point A to point B and that's all that really matters. FYI: A taxi ride needed in order to get to my destination creating panic as to whether or not I will even make it to my vacation... is not worth it for me, especially this vacation.

This all-inclusive resort had a lot of potential. Key word: Potential.

A "butler" aka a guy that shows you your room on the first night and is never to be seen again

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The ability to choose the type of pillow and aroma of your room (Does this really matter? No. But when given the opportunity and excitement of a tempur-pedic pillow and vanilla lavender aroma and it never happens, is indeed a let down.)

An option to pick a day and time to have your bubble bath with roses ready when you return to your room. Apparently Tuesday night at 9 PM means never.

We are thankful for the pictures that give us the illusion that this was in fact the honeymoon of our dreams. Maybe one day we will forget how it really was.

It was SO. incredibly. hot. Felt like you were walking behind 193,785,785 car exhausts. A giant bubble of heat that literally takes your breath away. Sweating as soon as you step outside your door. No use in straightening your hair, the second you go outside curls and waves you didn't even know you had appear out of nowhere.

We discovered that a cheap all-inclusive resort does not use their money on good and/or American food. Typically, when in doubt, you can rely on room service as your last resort for a relatively decent meal. Not at The Majestic, unless you are craving an uncooked burger--which we still don't think was hamburg, but I'd rather not think about that.

Dinner # 1. FAIL.

Dinner # 2. FAIL.

Dinner # 3. $7 bag of Cheetos...success?

The cabanas were wonderful for approximately two whole seconds. Perfectly placed next to the pool to cool down...oh wait the pool felt like a bath. Never mind.

We thought maybe it would be cooler down by the beach. Finding a nice spot under the palm trees, Mr. B went and got us some drinks while I relaxed and people watched (one of my favorite things to do). It didn't take long for me to realize how perfect- we are on a topless beach! For some reason, other women's ta-tas splashing around in the waves and soaking in the sun while taking a stroll on the beach wasn't exactly what I had dreamed for our honeymoon. So I packed up our stuff and headed back to the bathwater pool. We ended up spending a lot of time in our room with the AC blasting (until it broke and we thought we might die) because it was so unbearable to be outside in the heat.

We made the decision that a float was needed in order to make our stay a little more enjoyable. Apparently it was a great idea because turns out every shop was sold out of floats. Why? Because it seemed to be the only source of survival.

That night we were walking back to our room from dinner and there, right before our very eyes, was a float with no owner! There was not a single soul in sight so we were certain God placed it perfectly in our path. We couldn't believe it. We may not have been 100 percent certain it was from God or we probably wouldn't have been so stealth: taking a different route back to our room, doing the fast walk, but trying to look as casual as possible while wearing dress clothes and carrying a huge pink float.

I was so excited, hence the over cheesing face. Not gonna lie, I was also a bit thrilled that the float was pink therefore a limited amount of sharing with Mr. B was necessary. If that's not God taking care of his daughter, I don't know what is.

The rush of stealing God sending us the float remained for the rest of our stay (two extremely long days). Somehow someone was going to know this was their float that they lost. Out of fear it became our new best friend. Our shadow. Never left our side.

We thought about doing an excursion, something to mix up our day. This little ride looked like fun. Turns out it's a 5 minute ride for about $50. Let me remind you that $50 in newlywed money is about $5,000. $5,000 for a shark to think I am bait for 5 minutes. All set, thank you.

A picture lasted longer and it was free. Yes, my middle name is bargain.

The question of the day was why pay for that when there is a free water aerobics class going on at our pool??Pretty much a no brainer and yes I convinced Mr. B to do it with me. Sorry, no pictures.

Notice the shiny faces in every picture. The heat and humidity was no joke here in the Dominican. This was our last night here, those are smiles of relief. I understand it is hard to believe there was so much dissatisfaction when there are palm trees, sun and pina coladas everyday, but you will just have to trust me.

Our last dinner was actually our first decent meal, we ate at a Japanese Steakhouse. On our walk back to our room we passed another couple. The woman and I were wearing the exact same dress. We noticed. We looked away. We kept walking. Her husband stopped walking and decides to blurt out "Hey you two are wearing the same dress!" We act like we had no idea, we exchanged some comments about the dress, it was extremely awkward and the walk continued. Note to guys: There is a sense of awkwardness and embarrassment to be wearing the same exact thing as another woman.

Everyone is probably thinking we are the snobbiest couple in the world. Maybe we just aren't experienced enough in cross-cultural lifestyles and food. Although, we have been to Mexico, Romania and the Ukraine for missions and survived, but maybe that's because we were supposed to be roughing it out so it's a totally different mindset. Who knows... but I'll make it known, I am very simple when it comes to food-- give me chicken fingers and fries and I would have been content in the food department (which would then effect (affect? I will never understand the difference) my self-esteem because fried food everyday + bikini...not the best mix). Having been to some resorts in other countries we expected them to be more Americanized with the all the signs, menus and food, but expectations certainly got the better of us.

Unfortunately, food and weather from hell wasn't our only problem. As you saw in the picture at the beginning of this post...we were Honeymooners. Apparently this sign should have been in Spanish as well since we had Mr. Bug Guy & Ms. Cleaning Lady walked into our rooms 4 times!!! Yeah...4 times!! Yeah...on our honeymoon!! We may or may not have been honeymooning (once again- you're welcome for the visuals). Now Mr. Bug Guy came at about 10 PM, he knocked on our door. door was locked. we were busy. we ignored it. He walked in. "Spray foh bugs??" umm...how about "Pay foh privacy?!?" Horrifying. So good to know that a. employees have access to get into rooms even if they are locked and b. there is a need for them to spray for bugs every night. Comforting . Eventually we learned to get to the door in time, if possible, or to quickly hide under the covers and pretend to sleep.

By day 4 we were beyond hungry and having horrible stomach aches/digestion/bathroom problems from whatever food we did consume while at the resort. We were ready to go home. We honestly did not think we would make it 4 more days. With only 1 day to be with family before our move to FL, we realized the time we were having was not worth missing extra time with our family. We were able to change our flights for a ridiculous fee of $150 per ticket, bought them at 12 am on Wednesday and left about 6 hours later that morning. Yes we paid $300 to leave our honeymoon, yes we used some of our wedding money, yes in newlywed money that is about $30,000 give or take--it was that bad. Even better we paid that much money for a tiny, little propeller plane, in the last row (row 12), right next to the well-ventilated bathrooms. But none-the-less we were ecstatic to be leaving the Dominican Republic.

Ahhh...finally real American food-Chinese!

We definitely had an unforgettable honeymoon, and we will just have to have a second honeymoon one day to make up for this one- fine with me!

I will never live down that I wanted Caribbean and palm trees over an Alaskan Cruise like Mr. B.

Shortly after arriving home we were visiting with some friends. We told them about our trip and our current digestion problems. They informed us of some people whose stomach took six months to recover. July + The Majestic + The Dominican= Never. Again.