7/14/2024 Sunday
Itinerary:
- Arrive at Punta Cana Airport
- Checkin to Hyatt Ziva Cap Cana
- Lunch at El Mercado buffet
- Gym
- Dinner at Tempest Table
We arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina airport and it’s my and the kids first time here while Anthony had a layover here earlier on his business trip to Vermont. We had a 4 hour 37 minutes flight from San Francisco and was tired as we couldn’t sleep well on the flight.
After having breakfast at the airport, we proceed to our next flight to Punta Cana which is about 3 hours and 3 minutes. The flight was full and the airline was offering travel credit to passenger who was willing to change their flight. Of course, we didn’t as we were so excited to go to Punta Cana for our first time.
After a short flight of a little over 3 hours, we arrived and went through the customs. It was super quick even though there were many visitors and they didn’t even checked our electronic form that we filled out beforehand. It’s a requirement to fill out an arrival and departure forms within 90 days of traveling to/from Punta Cana.
I had arranged for a private van to pick us up to the airport and it was called DAT ( Dominican Republican Transportation) and they had my name on a sign when we got out of the airport. It took us a while to find them as there were many people outside holding the signs.
The drive to the hotel was only 15 minutes and soon we arrived at the front gate. The security checked my name before letting our car in. We proceed to the lobby of the hotel and was asked to sit and wait for someone. The hotel receptionist came and welcomed us as well as checked us in while they served us some welcome drinks.
As our 2 rooms are not quite ready yet, so he bought us to the El Mercado buffer restaurant for some lunch and told us to return after lunch as the rooms would be ready. We had a nice buffet lunch before heading back to the lobby and got our room keys. I was quite surprised that they didn’t give us any wristbands as the last few all inclusive resorts gave us wristbands to identify us as guests. I guess since we are in a gated hotel, so they assumed that we must be guests, hence no need for wristbands.
We had 2 ocean view rooms next to each other. The kids are grown now, so we now book 2 rooms. The hotel also left us a bottle of wine in each room as we were here to celebrate Anthony’s birthday. We took a nap as we didn’t sleep well on the flights, and then went to the gym to work out. The gym was super nice and I have never seen such a big and nice gym even though I have stayed at many hotels before.
After work out, we went to take a shower before heading to the Tempest Table restaurant for dinner. We had to wait a bit for the Teppan table and then we were seated after 30 minutes wait. There were 4 Tappan tables that can site probably 15 or so guests but since the hotel was full and there was no reservation allowed, we had to wait. The dinner was okay and food was a bit salty to our taste but we still have a good time watching the chef perform during dinner.
After dinner, we worked around the hotel before heading back to our room to call it a day.
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