If you’ve seen my travels, an all-inclusive resort trip isn’t usually the type I’d choose. However, this one was a once in a lifetime trip with some of my girl cousins ranging from 20 years old to 45 years old. We booked an Air Canada Vacations to Ocean Blue & Sand in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for a week long stay end of May for $1729CAD (including 1 checked bag, airport shuttle, flight & our stay at the resort). The flight was about 4 hours from Toronto and the humidity was much needed.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND bringing enough sunscreen and after sun for your entire trip because the sun is no joke in the Dominican Republic and to purchase at the resort or nearby will cost you a lot more than purchasing back home (also everything is in USD). Bug spray is also recommended once the sun goes down.
As we were walking out of the airport and passing through their x-ray scanner area, we were approached by “staff” with plain clothing with no company logos asking if we had booked shuttles and asking us to show them our bookings – RED FLAG. Do not follow them as they will try to direct you to their own shuttles which you pay out of pocket for and not to your already reserved airport transport bookings. If you have already booked an airport transfer, take a sharp left outside the sliding doors past the taxi area to the area where people are holding up signs and also people wearing branded clothing of such companies and also have your reservation with your name and details instead of asking you for your details.
There are money exchange kiosks inside the airport. If you are looking for ATM’s at the airport, they are located outside in a little air-conditioned room right beside the parking payment kiosks room. There are 4 ATM’s (Banco Popular & Banco BHD Leon) inside but the one I wanted to use (Scotiabank – they are the most foreigner credit card friendly) wasn’t in service and another ATM kept bringing up an error.
You can either pay for things in DOP or in USD especially in all the touristy areas we went to including the grocery store. We brought some USD with us to tip (Roughly $1USD/pp to our drivers).
We got onto the airport shuttle van (they offer wifi via QR code when you board). The downside of booking Air Canada Vacations shuttle was that they wanted to fill the entire shuttle van before it left. We waited almost an hour with only 3 different groups in the van and people were getting irritated and complained before they decided to go forward with resort drop offs.
Our resort was about 30 minutes away from the airport but again, you never know how long it will take with traffic. The resorts are in gated areas where there are check points.
Once we arrived, we walked over to reception to get checked-in and given our official bracelet that acts as our room key. Wifi connection is free and no password required. The wifi connection was pretty good throughout the sight but more faint on the beach.
We stayed in block 3 on the main floor and there are golf cart styled transportation that drive through the entire resort every 20 mins to pick up and drop people off at different locations within the resort.
Our room had 2 beds plus a pull-out couch. After we dropped off our bags, we went straight to the main buffet dining hall for dinner. My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach but I wanted to try bits of everything.
Ocean Blue & Sand has 6 restaurants for dinner options (with 2 that require reservations and one with a dress code policy). The restaurants vary from a steakhouse, French cuisine, Mexican, Japanese, Italian and American BBQ/diner. Otherwise, there is a beach buffet and the main buffet building (breakfast, lunch & dinner). It also features a nice Coffee shop and sports bar.
It was great that there was a website app that keeps you updated with daily activities that are happening around the resort to keep you occupied if you don’t want to just stay in the sun all day and do nothing. We spent plenty of time in the Family Lounge playing billiards and bowled once. We also watched the nightly shows and played bingo. I played in one of the beach volleyball tournaments but my team wasn’t the strongest. I do have to say their fitness centre was pretty big and had a good variety of workout equipment.
The resort features 2 large pools and a beach area with many activities happening throughout the resort space. Each area had a decent sized bar. I found myself drawn to the healthy smoothie drinks more so than the alcoholic ones (although of course I did partake in the alcoholic ones too – it’s called balance).
The beach area is also nice but does have a lot of seaweed. They did a good job getting rid of the seaweed on shore as much as they could but there were days when there was just so many little seaweed particles in the waters.
