Dominican Republic

2nd vacation of the year: Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

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This time, I went with my sister, my brother, my girlfriend, and my parents.......
We stayed at Allegro....another all-inclusive resort part of the family's timeshares. Basically, the difference between this resort and the one we stayed at in our first vacation of the year, which is Occidental, is that the entertainers are part of the daily shows so their daily routine involves more than just daily activities. The resort is bigger because it has more rooms. It has a really nice pool because of the way it is shaped and design. It includes a swim up bar and a restaurant located right in the middle of the pool.

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The resort wasn't as clean as occidental but it was definitely more of a teenage vacation spot. The excursion that we did was a catamaran ride. It was pretty cool because a catamaran is a fast boat with a net right in the front of it and there you can lay out and see while the boat is moving. The whole trip involved a stop over on a private island just inclusive for visitors and there we stayed for a couple of hours and had an exotic lunch.
The most exciting part of the resort is that the resort houses one of the best clubs in Dominican Republic called Mangu. It's like a 5 minute walk from our rooms and ofcourse being part of the resort, the cover charge is free and so were the drinks. No matter what day we went, people from other resorts and locals visited the club because of the variety of music it plays to attract the crowd.

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The food was good also. There were many restaurants in the resort which includes a steak house, mexican, a grand buffet, buffet by the beach, oriental and pizzeria( definitely much more better than occidental's choices). They also have other amenities such as spa, gym and a hair salon.

The beach wasn't bad either. Besides its blue water and white sands, they provided hammocks for better relaxing.

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The daily shows here were better because it was more organized and it was more entertaining and the entertainers interacted more with the guests. This resort is definitely a cool place to go to with anybody because you will have a good time. I can really say that when I got back home that I was all partied out.

cozumel mexico

Hello.....I love to go on vacations. I usually go on vacations about 5-6 times a year and sometimes more. Well to start, my family owns a lot of timeshares which we can use almost any time of the year so for our first vacation of the year, we decided to go to Cozumel, Mexico. We stayed at Occidental Grand all-inclusive which basically means ALL YOU CAN EAT and ALL YOU CAN DRINK!(includes alcohol). Owning timeshares is a really good investment because you won't be spending much when you're on a trip. Basically, all you will be spending is your airfare and your way of transportation (taxi from the airport to the place and taxi to get around). We stayed in Cozumel for a week and we had a nice time over there. Now my story.......when we got off the plane, there was a little confusion because there were no cabs around but vans set up by the airport to drop off vacationers to their designated resorts. We then found out that Cozumel banned cabs in the airport so the airport can make a little money which turned out to be a rip off because normally it only cost $25-$30 but they charged us $11 per person which totaled $55(me,my girlfriend, my brother and my parents). When we arrived in our resort, we were greeted by the staff and were offered champagne as a welcome gift. After checking in, my girlfriend and I and my brother proceeded to check out the resort. The first thing we noticed was that the resort was very clean - not a spec of trash on the floor. The rooms were big, better than other resorts I've been to and the bathroom were nice and huge too.

The resort have two pools - one called a relaxing pool because it's really quiet and they play soothing music and a general pool where almost everybody kinda hangout and where all the activities are held. The beach was nice also. It has soft white sand and cyrstal blue water but I stayed in the general pool mostly because I had more fun there. There were lots of activities there which include aqua gym, archery, darts, bocci ball, pool volleyball, beach volleyball, horseshoe, water polo and etc. The resort has a lot of bars. There's one in the lobby, in the discoteca or dance hall, relaxing pool, main buffet, restaurants, beach buffet area and numerous mini bars set up all over the resort. Regarding eatery, there's a few places you can eat. They have two restaurants which includes a steak house and mediterranean dining. They also have the main buffet restaurant, the beach buffet restaurant, la piazza or pizzeria and the lobby bar. You can also order room service if you prefer that instead.


The resort has a show every night right after dinner and it's all different ranging from audience participation to cultural dances. Besides the activities, you can also do excursions. They have a staff in charge of booking excursions in the lobby if you want to do something different like visit the mayan ruins or go scuba diving. We decided to do a dinner show and it's in a pirate ship. It was very entertaining and dinner was so good. They served steak and lobster and for the price, it was well worth it. The dancehall or discoteca wasn't so bad either. AFter the show, everybody is directed to go to the dancehall so if you want to do a little dancing or have drinks or just simply chill, this is the place to be. Other than that, if you want to go out of the resort and visit downtown Cozumel, its just a short cab ride for about 16$-20$ depending on the amount of people going or time of the day.


While in town, we went shopping during the day time and partied during the night time at senor frogs(one of the hot spots in downtown Cozumel). There's no cover charge to get in and the price of the drinks were average. Regarding shopping, don't be afraid to shop around because we found out in a hard way that there are more stores who sells the same items for a bargain price. We met a lot of people from different states but it was kind of odd to see a lot of New Yorkers vacationing in the same resort.

The entertainers that work there were a lot of fun. They were very friendly and they got almost everybody involved in all of the activities. They were also very accomodating as they came with us to check out the night life in downtown Cozumel. They showed us the do's and dont's and the ifs and buts. It was the perfect time because during that week, it was like their carnival week so they had a parade during the night. It was festive and funny because we saw little kids dancing and grown men dressed like women and they were just having fun. Now back to the resort, the staff there were also friendly and the service was fast. Overall, the place was great all around. It's good for people of different ages and it's a place where I would recommend someone to go to if they want to have fun or simply relax and enjoy their vacation.