Headed to Bayahibe

We woke at 4am on Sunday, July 29th to head to the airport.  Our flight was scheduled for 5:50 am, and we were supposed to land in Santo Domingo, DR at 1:20pm.  From my research, I anticipated that we would arrive at our resort by 4pm.  I looked forward to hitting the beach or pool right away and relaxing before our first night's dinner, but this was not how things would turn out.

At 5:25am, the Delta employee announced boarding had begun for first class.  I was quite excited as we were soon to be on our way!  At 5:40 she announced that there was going to be a delay.  It wasn't long before the passengers that were already on board were allowed to deplane and wait in the terminal.  The plane had a hydraulic fluid leak, and there was no telling how long we were going to be delayed.  This created a big problem for me as there was only one flight from Atlanta to Santo Domingo, and the delay meant we weren't going to make it.

The lady at the counter assured me that she would get us out of LR, but after a half hour I gave up and called Delta.  They confirmed that we would not make our connecting flight and that there were no other flights.  I was able to get us redirected through Punta Cana instead, but this led to questions as to whether our pre-arranged shuttle company would honor our arrangement in a different airport.  I was a bit worried, but thrilled that we would be landing in the Dominican by 4:30.

For our trouble, we were given vouchers for lunch while we were in Atlanta.  We grabbed McDonalds as we were already short on time to make our connection.  Another nice perk (not that McDonald's is really a perk, but FREE food is always nice) was that we were seated in the exit row on both flights.  I thought that the 3.5 hours on the plane would never end!  I kept looking out at the beautiful, clear water below and wishing we could speed the flight up!

Once we arrived in Punta Cana, we were herded through the immigration area, and we were nearly run over by a little Asian woman who was intent on getting her family of 5 through the line before those of us ahead of her.  I was a bit cranky at this point, and entertained myself by assuring that she did not get past me.  It's the little things sometimes.

We lucked out with the shuttle service, and were placed in a van with another couple.  They were staying in Punta Cana, so we got to drive past most of the resorts in that area before making the trip to the Dreams La Romana resort.  We got in the van around 5pm, and arrived at the resort at  7pm.  It was a long 2 hours with some of the craziest traffic I've seen.  Narrow two lane roads with cars passing without enough room and scooters everywhere.  Our driver talked with his hands and picked his nose too much for my liking, and I was pleased to get out of that van.

We were greeted with a glass of champagne as we walked into the lobby.  The entrance was beautiful, and the stress of the day quickly began to leave me.  The champagne was terrible, so we grabbed a beer to take in the view of the pool before heading to our room.

A welcome Presidente Light as we review the resort map

 Our room was beautiful.  Very modern and spacious.  We dropped our stuff, and headed to the buffet for dinner.  It was decent, but I am so thankful that we didn't have to eat there for dinner any other evenings.  

The evening's entertainment was the Michael Jackson show.  I'm a sucker for seeing MJ shows, so we headed over to check it out.  The team did a great job, and he was probably the best dancer I've seen as MJ but his lip synching sucked.  haha!  We bailed fairly early and headed to watch karaoke in the lobby bar instead.

Man capris in the lobby bar

More man capris...

We finally crashed around 12.  It was a long, but wonderful first day of vacation.

Honeymoon: Day 7

We were up bright and early on Day 7.  It was time to go home.

We arrived at the airport two hours before our departure time.  Our itinerary listed our flight as through Air Italia, but every ticketing agent we tried to work with told us that they couldn't help us.  Finally we found a lady that told us that Delta had cancelled our reservation, and that she was going to have to put us on as standby.  We checked our bags with her, and went to the area for standby check in.  I'm now a bit panicked.  What if we don't make this flight?  Then we won't make our connection which we are confirmed and checked into!  What if our bags don't make the flight?  So much that can go wrong......and I'm a big worrier anyway.

After checking in with the standby desk, we went to grab breakfast.  We each got a Coke Light and split a ham and Swiss on foccacia bread.   We also had these little cream puff pastries that I couldn't resist.  They were wonderful.  Finally 30 minutes passed, and the man working the desk informed us that we were confirmed on our flight, and we could go to the gate.  Hooray!  We were on our way home, but we weren't seated together.

View from window on flight from Rome to Milan

We had two stops before we made it to Little Rock.  Our first stop was in Milan.  I wish we could have had a bit of time to venture out of the airport, but we had less than two hours to make our connection.  We went straight to the gate for our next flight, but found out that we should have claimed our bags after landing in Milan and then re-checked them.  Great......another huge ordeal to stress me out.  The women working the Delta desk were quite helpful though, and were able to get our bags to the plane after a good 20-30 minutes of phone calls.

Once on the plane, we could finally relax.  We had our extra 6" of leg room, and were ready to relax.  There were four movies shown on our flight from Milan to Atlanta.  First was "Rise of the Planet of the Apes".  We both were asleep before we made it to the end, and I woke to catch the last hour of "Mr. Popper's Penguins".  If you haven't seen this movie, I wouldn't suggest investing any time into it.  Next up was "Jumping the Broom".  I had never heard of this movie, but it kept my attention better than the previous two options.  Last we saw "Larry Crowne".  All in all, the four movies didn't really do much to make the time pass quickly.  Ten and a half hours on a plane is a bit much.

After a quick stop in Atlanta, we were on our way again.  We were home (with luggage) by 8:30pm.  We finished the evening with dinner from Chipotle, and were asleep by 10pm.  It was good to be home.