Happy Cinco de Mayo! I have never been to Mexico, but seeing the Mayan ruins is definitely on my bucket list. Until that trip gets planned, the closest I've been is the Dominican Republic, I guess...
After my sister and her husband honeymooned in the Dominican and my parents, step bro, and his wife went on a cruise to the Dominican... I couldn't be the only one in my family that had not been! So I started looking into it (after we had already booked our Saint Lucia trip) and one of my friends from work wanted to go, so we made it a girls trip!
After reading some reviews and asking around, we picked Excellence Punta Cana. It was ranked in the top three in several categories and had free beach horseback riding!
Now I have been to a couple resorts in the Caribbean and this one was okay. You have to pay for your own transportation to and from the airport (a $70 40-minute taxi ride!). The resort itself is a little older, but the people are nice. Everyone speaks Spanish, but will speak English (which was good considering my foreign language skills are severally lacking). There were several third party excursion companies set up on the resort, we ended up doing the dolphin excursion which was on my bucket list of things to experience.
I'm more of a beach girl than a pool girl, and the beach was pretty nice. Apparently Excellence is the only resort in Punta Cana that actually gets pretty sizable waves, which means no water sports. :( I was totally pumped to get out in a kayak or paddle board, but no such luck, the flag is always red. After checking out some instagram posts for the resort on our last full day I noticed some fun palm trees must be just around the bend in the beach. After a short walk, the ocean was so calm and clear. I wish I would have tried to convince the resort's water sports guy to let me take a kayak about 50 yards off the resort. I did see someone snorkeling, but I assumed it was their own gear.
I love getting the window seat on the airplane! The big puffy clouds are always so calming to me. And look what I found in the seat back pocket! Columbus is #3 fashion city in the country behind NYC and LA!
Of course I can't leave out a food review! Excellence has nine restaurants and ten bars. The restaurants range from grab-n-go, buffet-style, casual, to semi-fancy. They have asian, italian, french, mexican tapas, pizza, and the lobster house. The night we went to the lobster house for dinner, the electricity went out to the whole resort for about ten minutes. It was pitch black out besides a few candles. We ate our appetizers by the light of our phones! The power outage may have impacted our lobster, because it definitely was not excellente. :( Our favorite was the italian restaurant which also is the breakfast and lunch buffet, which were also good.
If you're looking for juice, make sure to get your fix from the breakfast buffet (lots of fresh squeezed options). Everything at the bar is some kind of sugary Tang-like drink, so your screwdrivers taste like syrup. Also, room service is included! So definitely take advantage of that when you have had a long excursion day. And there are several full-sized liquor bottles in your room... also included. If you finish the bottle of wine, you probably won't get another one.
The last picture is Garcia making these shots that as soon as he made one, about a dozen other people started ordering them. They tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream! Since that is one of my favorites, I paid special attention to how he made it. The green is Midori (of course), the white is Baileys blended with a few ice cubes to make it extra cold and frothy, then a drop of chocolate sauce. Pretty simple and so so good!
All in all, it was a decent resort with friendly staff and fun night entertainment. Since it is adults only, but not couples only, it would be a good place to come with a group of friends. Just don't set your expectations too high...
