Casey and I left Colorado Springs around 5 last Wednesday after dropping the dogs off with my parents. It had been snowing earlier in the day so we wanted to allow for enough time if the roads got too awful or we had to wait for dinner. The roads were fine and we ended up getting seated at Maggiano’s right away. After a fabulous dinner and bottle of Cab we headed towards the airport.
Earlier in the day I had assessed the parking situation and found out that the main, cheap, long-term parking
lot was closed because it was filled to capacity being the day before Thanksgiving and all. Not wanting to leave anything to chance I made three backup plans in case the other cheap, long-term parking option operated by the airport didn’t work out. Fortunately, it did. We didn’t want to worry about hauling our coats around the entire time we were gone so those stayed in the car, as we braved the wind and numbing cold. We lucked out also being able to park near a shuttle stop and getting there right as a shuttle was approaching.
Once inside the airport, we were able to check in without waiting in line. We arrived at 8:30 – four hours before boarding even began – for our 12:55 am flight. My first complaint is that the TSA joker threw my shampoo away (which I have traveled with multiple times before, including our most recent flight to Phoenix) because she insisted it was too large for the new 3-1-1 rules. We scoped out our gate and in the C terminal and proceeded to try and find a bar to kill some time. The first bar in our concourse as soon as we tried to order the bartender said she had already announced last call. Now remember its only 8:30. I grabbed a map and and we saw there was a Rock Bottom Brewery at the other end. Casey commented that it was probably too good to be true that there’d be a Rock Bottom there and it was probably under construction. How right he was – not opening until 2008. So we found another bar and they were closed too, but people were still inside cleaning up so Casey asked where there was an open bar, if there was one. We had to travel to the B concourse to find open bars, meaning another trip on the train. Now from the title of this post – this means the entire time we’re walking around with two suitcases, Casey’s backpack, and my purse.
We arrive at the Wolfgang Puck’s in concourse B and the guy was like its last call. So we order and are about half way through our drinks and the guy says last call again and gives us 2 a piece for the price of one. The bartender was so distracted talking to someone he didn’t end up closing until much later. Apparently, if we wanted to continue drinking we would have to go to the other end of that concourse and stay on the move to follow the bars. At this point, we would rather just sit and wait for our plane (it was between 10 and 10:30 at this time).
The plane ride from Denver to Atlanta was pretty uneventful. The agent in Denver was able to give us exit row seats for that leg of the flight so we were able to sleep about as comfortably as we could sitting in coach. Our layover in Atlanta is a whole other story. We had left our coats in our car in Denver but I was still dressed in sweats and was freezing in the airport the entire time. Like so chilled I was shaking and couldn’t sleep. And our layover was for six hours. After getting a scaldingly hot tea from Starbucks and nursing it for close to an hour I was finally able to rest up till Justin & Robin and the rest of our crew arrived.
There were 12 of us in the group attending the wedding on the same flight from Atlanta to Punta Cana (the total number of guests was 25). The flight was pretty uneventful, if not a little long as we ended up traveling for about 24 hours before we checked into our hotel. When we arrived the flight attendant asked everyone to give Justin & Robin a round of applause for their upcoming wedding. It was so great! Customs and entry into the country ended up being a breeze and after our $10 visitor visa we were on our way.
Now we assumed since we were all staying at the same resort that we would all take the same shuttle. How wrong we were! After following everyone out to the shuttle, we were told since we booked through Expedia and not Cheap Caribbean as everyone else had that we would need to go back into the airport and located the Expedia rep to find our shuttle. After waiting in line for 10 minutes we finally were brought to our shuttle.
I don’t know what the deal is with Dominican drivers. I questioned whether or not they are even required to have licenses because it sure doesn’t seem like it. If there’s a red light and you want to turn left and there already two people turning left you can just create a third left hand turn lane. If you want to pass someone you just pass them at any time and just move them off to the side. If someone isn’t going fast enough, you first motion for them to move and if that doesn’t work, you bump them with your shuttle bus. If there’s a traffic jam you get out and yell and toss your arms around to get things moving and if that doesn’t work you start directing traffic and people still try to sneak past anyway. Its alright to almost clip a motorcycle with the passenger carrying a huge bottle of propane and then laugh about it. Machine gun wielding citizens is apparently no big thing, nor is guys standing next to their cars with sawed off shotguns. Needless to say we stayed within the confines of the resort for our stay.
Ah, the resort. The resort was absolutely beautiful. There was an enormous pool that wound through the center of the complex with lots of palm trees and a gorgeous stretch of beach. We had such a great time with everyone there! The only people we knew before arriving were Justin & Robin but it didn’t take long to make friends with everyone attending. It was so much fun and although we arrived as strangers it felt like we left with new friends!
Most of our days were spent rolling out of bed at our leisure – we were on vacation – getting something to eat, and then moving onto the pool or beach. Robin mentioned in her post how strange it was to not be able to use your cell to locate people but we always managed to find each other and hang out together. Casey and I both got a pretty decent tan for the short amount of time we were there. Our nights were spent rearranging seating at one of the poolside bars so that our group could all sit together and just drink and hang out.
Justin and Robin got married on Saturday. Unfortunately, it had rained about two hours before the ceremony and there was a bit of stress with the coordinator getting nervous and trying to make unnecessary changes, but supposedly rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck and in the end everything turned out perfectly.
For our return trip, we had to locate the Expedia rep that was at the hotel to schedule our shuttle ride to the airport. When we went to schedule it, he wasn’t there though. Apparently the guy is only at our resort for about an hour and a half a day. When we went back there again to schedule the trip the guy was irked that he hadn’t seen us before that day. When we were at the airport the guy from Expedia there had taken the liberty of scheduling an appointment for us with this guy from the hotel at 9 the next morning which we didn’t attend. (We found out from people that had arrived prior to us before skipping our appointment that all it was is a sales pitch trying to get us to book excursions and make Expedia more money. No thanks! We were perfectly content to just sit at the pool or hotel.) After several calls the guy scheduled our pick up for the following day at 1:20 for our 3:38 flight.
On Tuesday we got up early had breakfast with Justin & Robin before getting our last bit of beach time in. Check out was at noon so we had to go back to our room, shower, change, pack, and book it to the front desk before they charged us. The four of us spent the rest of our time there in front of the lobby just drinking and talking before the start of our journey back to everyday life. We missed our dogs so much while we were gone but had such a great time with everyone in Punta Cana that it was pretty bittersweet to leave. The major downsides for the trip were the humidity that wreaked havoc on my hair and mosquito bites.
See information above about return shuttle trip. It mimicked our arrival but with fewer guns. Everyone and their mother was leaving on the same flight we were on. The couple we had sat next to and stayed at the resort with us (we didn’t know them except from the plane) was on our flight, as were the two German couples that gawked at all of the topless sunbathing women. Its so funny because we had commented on the Germans inappropriateness on the beach at our resort and here they were on our same flight. Even stranger is that they were with us all the way to Denver! Before we got to the check-in counter we had to fill out another customs form and have our bags “searched”. Searched in the Dominican Republic and searched in the United States are two entirely different processes. The inspection process there was a guy asking us if we had any fruits, vegetables, or plants. We didn’t and all he did was open three of the four bags and look on top to see if he saw anything. After that we had to go through customs to exit the country which involved just stamping our passports before going through security. Again, not like the U.S. We didn’t take off our shoes, remove our liquids, in fact I had a bottle of water in my purse and it was not even mentioned. Before we left the terminal to walk outside to the plane, there was another table set up for inspections but the person checking waved both of us through. After this last inspection, Casey told me he had read a statistic that 10% of Columbian “exports” are funneled through the Dominican Republic airports.
Once back in Atlanta, the beauty of carry-on Jones on came in handy yet again. We had to wait in line for the passport check to get back into the country and get another stamp (we got 3 total stamps in each of our passports) before we were directed to another guy to give him another customs form. People that had checked luggage were required to wait and retrieve their baggage before going through security again. We were able to bypass a lot of these people from carrying on but Casey’s assessment of the number of people that were waiting in the ridiculous line to go through security was a minimum of 1,000! Aside from waiting in line for a long while, reentry was uneventful.
After changing terminals for our flight to Denver, we changed clothes. It was so hot and humid when we left Punta Cana that there was no possible way we could have worn our clothes for Denver. It was only 48 in Atlanta when we arrived and in the 20s and windy when we got to Denver. Our flight to Denver was only between 1/2-3/4 full so we had the seats to our self to spread out and sleep.
When we got into Denver we were able to walk straight outside to the shuttle that was waiting. We forgot to make note of where we parked when we left so we were on the lookout once we were on the shuttle for the car. Fortunately, the driver makes the rounds to all of the little bus shelter/station things and we were able to find the car easily from there as we were only two rows over. The nicest thing is that our parking for 6 days was only $34! Definitely worth the trip up there considering we saved several hundred dollars flying out of Denver versus Colorado Springs!
We had such a great time with everyone, especially Justin and Robin obviously. Although we’ve been gone quite a bit this year, we’re already planning a trip down to see them next year in Austin!