TRAVEL THERE: CLUB MED PUNTA CANA IS WAITING
Here’s a few things I didn’t have a place for in other posts about Club Med Punta Cana. I hope they’ll help you decide you need to go there and visit. If so, call my friends at CTC Travel.
Dinner A La Carte
You never have to face down a buffet at Punta Cana unless you want to or unless you didn’t get your Indigo reservations in soon enough. Indigo reservations can only be made in person at the restaurant on the day you want to eat there. They start taking reservations at 9 AM and if you wait too long, you either won’t get the time you want or you won’t get in at all.
We celebrated our anniversary by having dinner at Indigo. It was a lovely meal, but Bill made better choices than I did. He had some kind of whole fish and he says it was one of the most amazing meals he’s ever had. I had some Dominican shrimp in a plantain bowl. Good, but not one of the most amazing meals I’ve ever had. Here’s a few pics from Indigo and that meal.
Another Dinner Choice
With so much free food and drink available, we didn’t see much reason to spend money that way, but there was one opportunity to do just that. It was called La Cava. On the patios of Samana and Hispanolo (for dinner only) there was a section set aside for La Cava guests. You become a La Cava guest when you purchase wine, whiskey or cigars from La Cava and enjoy them with a meal. If we’d been there longer, we might have considered it, but we did just fine with the included comestibles.
Shopping
There were a few shops at the resort and they had lovely things – but there were no bargains. Not a single one. Especially not on larimar, a semi-precious gemstone found only in the Dominican Republic. The cheapest larimar I found at the resort was a pair of earrings with a tiny piece of larimar hanging from each stud. The price was $80 and if someone had brought it to me, I would have thought it was some cheap trinket they got for about 5. So none of my friends got larimar.
At the resort, everything is priced in Dominican pesos and while everyone can tell you how much that is in euros, they are not so good with dollars. That made shopping quite challenging. It also almost caused Bill a heart attack when he saw a receipt with a bottom line of 4210.
45
Several years back, Club Med celebrated its 45th anniversary by printing up lots of T-shirts and other items with the number 45. The items sold like hot cakes So, when their 50th came, encouraged by the sales of the 45 items, they printed up lots of 50 merchandise. However, the 50 merchandise was a bust. They almost had to give it away to get rid of it. but while everyone was rejecting the 50th anniversary merchandise, they were still requesting items with 45 on it. You’ll see the 45 logo all over the resort on everything from t-shirts and bikinis to flip flops and beach bags. Vintage 45 items are a status symbol. We spent a lot of time speculating on the ubiquitous logo and as we asked around, trying to solve the mystery, we discovered there were almost as many answers as their were t-shirts. Some Americans thought it was for Trump – NOT! Some French people claimed it was the number of a popular soccer player. I asked the Chief of the Village and he gave me this skinny. So, in case you ever go to a Club Med resort and wonder, well here’s the answer.
Farewell to Punta Cana
I think that about covers it. You should have everything you need to enjoy a resort vacation with Club Med – and I heartily suggest you give it a try. I’m probably the only person on the face of the earth that wouldn’t think it was the best vacation ever, but my best vacations are devoted to satisfying my inner Museum Girl.
Would we ever return to Club Med Punta Cana? If we were the sort to repeat destinations, then there is no reason we would not. It is a beautiful resort with great food and a lot of fun things to do. We just rarely return to someplace we’ve already been.
So will we ever do Club Med again? It is certainly a possibility, but we’d probably only go for three nights, not five. We had a great time, but while Bill is more active at sports than I am, neither of us prefer sports for days on end. I can see us doing it before or after a vacation devoted to all my museums, palaces and historic sites or just getting away for a few day.
Winning the fabulous door prize from CTC Travel certainly gave us a new favorite possibility on our wish list, but we’ve already got the next trip planned. I’m just not ready to tell you about it yet. Right now, as I finish up this post it is June, shortly after our Club Med vacation, I have no idea what I’ll be offering up next week on Travel Talk, but please come back. I promise it will be fun!
jane sadek 