A dreadful start to the holiday. Both of my lifts not working so at 6.30am I had to get my taxi driver to come up to the 6thfloor and help me down with my luggage. Got to o Gatwick in very good time, but there it was a nightmare. Queues for check-in [in Business] were awful and then I discover there is a BA glitch and all flights coming in across the Pond are delayed, and hence the outward ones similarly delayed. Instead of taking off at 11.50. we took off at 4.30pm. The flight itself was quite good although I had a lousy seat. The seat I had booked was given to the three pilots who apparently needed to rest during the flight!!! Arrived in my hotel, Secrets Cap Cana, around 11.30pm. Once in my room ordered some wine to help me unpack and sort. The wine took forever to arrive. This is an all-inclusive hotel [& adult-only], so you would think they would put some wine in the fridge, but no, just beer and coke! I eventually turned out my light at 1.30am. A journey from Hell - 25 hours from bed to bed!
Hotel very average. Very large so not easy to find your way around. Room itself in need of an upgrade. Electric plugs a nightmare! Numerous things in my room didn’t work. The bath I had requested is on the balcony – can’t see me using it out there!!! The sad thing is that this hotel is adult only and all-inclusive so there are quite a few rather drunken men who start drinking at breakfast and continue through the day. One guy in particular was particularly loud-mouthed. For me it was awful having this guy talking very loudly around the pool.
Most days were spent doing nothing very much except soak up the sunshine, even if Mr loud-mouth spoilt some days. I also managed the occasional wander all the beautiful beach so that I could put a foot into the warm Caribbean! For my dinners I alternated between Italian, French, Mexican and seafood.
On week two I moved to Zoetry Agua, just an hour’s run along the coast. A very different place and it took a bit of getting used to. Very sadly I did not manage to swim there. There is sort of ‘river’ of a pool running through the property - `I am sure you can slip into the water but I have no idea how I would get out. No steps/handrails. So all a bit sad. At least the sun continued to shine. Had a quiet dinner on New Year’s Eve, but met the GM who was in the same restaurant and told her of my problems as a Senior in her Resort. The shower in my room was very odd. It is apparently a combined shower/bath, but the bath is the floor of the shower. Getting on to the floor and not least up again was not an easy operation!! It was a very noisy hotel with trolleys being wheeled very noisily around all day and half the night – doesn’t make for a peaceful holiday. The curtains in my room didn’t work and it took four complaints before they mended them.
Extraordinarily I sat next to a lady on my flight home who had also been in Zoetry and hadn’t got a good word to say about the place!
Fortunately in both resorts I had a very good butler – Alexis in Cap Cana and Ramon in Zoetry who both helped to keep me calm.
Thankfully the sun shone all week so I was able to relax in the gardens of the hotel, but I was glad to get away and return home.
