Tropical Orquidea Club All-Inclusive Punta Cana

... much that I will definately return in my next trip in January 2010.<br>How I can describe Saona??White beach, blue and warm water, a lot of music and drinks.<br>It is like the paradise island of your dreams.<br>I woke up little bit early...7.00am on vacation it IS early, but I was expecting a great day and so it was.<br>The bus till Bayahibe, then the Catamaran and a lot of Dolphin swimming around...then Saona ...

... is so thick and the water so blue and clear, that we can't help but say "this is so awesome/cool/beautiful/neat/incredible" over and over and over again. After swimming in about 4 of the 11 lagoons we head back to find the group.<br><br>The evening passes as so: pool and dinner at La Tortuguita (cafeteria food for employees...pretty good, but apparently Sundays are not their best). Afterward, we head to the beach to lounge in the hammocks by the ocean ...

The flight into Punta Cana lands at 5:20pm local time (same as EST) in a thatch-roofed airport where a group of 90% gringos/Europeans are bustled through a series of strange touristy obstacles. First I am very abruptly photographed between two beautiful Dominican women wearing tons of makeup, cerulean blue 'traditional' (?) costume-like dresses and chiquita-banana fruit hats. Mind you, they looked like they hated every minute of ...

Fui en el autobus a el Parque Nacional del Este. Fui a acampar en el parque y fui a pescar en el agua. Fui a subir en las arboles. Fue a estar fenomenal. Fui a ver los animales. Muchos iguanas en la Republica de Dominicana. La Republica de Dominicana tiene muchos animales. En el Parque Nacional del Este, fui a comer bocadillos.

... or really any of the staff. I feel you don't get that closeness that I have enjoyed at other smaller resorts (where some of the staff remember your name, what you want to drink with dinner, how many people are in your group, things like that!) This hotel was very beautiful, lots of amazing gardening and well kept grounds, the rooms were standard hotel rooms, nothing spectacular. I found that this ...

... tried to learn how to windsurf. We also went swimming with sea lions, a highlight for me. It was a great trip, although the last day and the few days after were unfortunately ruined by both of us getting pretty sick...Montezuma's Revenge claimed its latest victims!<br>

... our way over to an enclosed area that contained a large amount of nurse sharks and stingrays. For those that aren't familiar with nurse sharks, these sharks, although pretty large, do not attack humans and are said to not even have teeth. The sharks stayed toward the bottom of the enclosure and the stingrays did for the most part although we did see some swimming up the sides of the enclosure. We brought along a water-camera ...

... the sun went away and the rain clouds came out. It started raining - and for the rest of the trip it only stopped sporadically. <br><br>We hadn't really budgeted for the overpriced excursions as we were fresh out of college and making no money at this point - we really just intended to veg by the pool and now that wasn't an option. Luckily, I had some books and I was able ...

... range - early 20s - so the staff kept hovering around us. Male employees mostly, which made us extremely uncomfortable. Constantly making inappropriate comments, always trying to talk to us, eying us up and down - really did not make for an enjoyable time.<br><br>The food also started to become monotonous and was not very good...and then the trip really started to go down hill. <br>

... so I was ill prepared.<br><br>My roommate suggested that we try a club med - she had heard about them before and people seemed really happy going to them - she also liked the all-inclusive idea, which lets face it, I did too.<br><br>I flew out of Newark International and my roommate flew out of Charlotte...we were going to meet at another airport and then take the same flight to Dominican Republic. Her flight got delayed and the airline ...