Who’s This Lucky!?

We all know we love this time of the year! Yes, you know what I'm talking about…RRRRROLL Up The Rim To Win time! However, as the excitment builds while sipping my afternoon coffee from Tim's 9 times out of 10 it ends in disappointment. BUT, there is that one time where I win the odd coffee or donut and those are the days when the disappointment of the previous 9 attempts melt away leaving me in pure bliss doing my "I won a coffee dance" in my office!

However, ever since getting the following picture in my inbox I don't know how satisfied I'll be in winning a coffee or donut now that I know prizes like this exist!?

Cheers!
Andrew

The Breakdown (Day Eight)

Saturday March 11th:

Well it was time to leave and that's what we did. Our plane was delayed an hour in the D.R. due to the shitty small airport and it being over capacity (just a guess). We got on the plane, flirted with the flight attendant (she liked me better Craig) and flew our asses back to Canada where the ground is frozen and the water is safe! The drive home was fun with only my day time running lights working and aside from nearly passing out and being pulled over by the OPP it was a fairly uneventful ride back.

Well there you have it, the trip to the D.R. in a nutshell. I'm sure I missed some stuff so add what ever I missed Mike and Craig.

BTW, more pics can be found here.

Cheers!
Andrew

The Breakdown (Day Seven)

Friday March 10th:

We knew this was our last day to relax before our shitty journey home so we did just that.  Played football on the beach and in the ocean for about 2 hours and had a few games of beach volleyball with all the people we met while down there.  Mike and I hit the casino one last time to lose some money and made it to the Markets earlier in the day to buy some junk for the family.  Aside from that and packing it was a fun and relaxing last day to our crazy vacation.

Cheers!
Andrew 

The Breakdown (Day Six)

Thursday March 9th (a.k.a. F*CK ME IN THE @SS DAY):

Deep sea fishing my ass. We were 10 miles from shore in 8 – 10 foot swells! There were 7 tourists on board. 4 Frenchmen, Mike, Craig and I. French man number one was the first to puke. Then Craig took a trip to the hull to use the washroom! Then Mike yacked over the side of the boat. All this time I was praying to every God in the book to let me make it. I did not want to puke and I held on pretty well. To quote Mike "I looked over after throwing up and thought 'Damn, Andrew the rock over there doesn't even seem phased'"…yeah Mike, that's because I was using every ounce of my strength to keep the bacon an eggs I just ate for breakfast from projecting all over you and the rest of the boat!

That was a waste of time, because sure enough it happened…I stood up, launched myself through the french guys and nearly went over the back of the boat as we hit a wave and I puked all over my hand while defacing the name of the boat which was painted on the stern. Then another Frenchman let her rip, I know this not because I saw him do it, but because I know he was on the verge and after sitting at the back of the boat and power heaving the second time, I looked over at the Frenchies and he was laid out cold on the floor of the boat! Oh, and since we all puked more then once I need to tell you about how furious Mike was that Craig was hogging the washroom. I'm not sure why, but Mike didn't want to puke overboard again and insisted on going into the hull of the boat. One of the deck-hands, knowing Craig was in the washroom, and seeing that Mike was about to heave again followed him to the hull. Moments later I hear a commotion of "NO NO NO" and then about 5 minutes later Mike stumbles back outside and I found out later that he puked in the sink as the deck-hand yelled at him for doing so! Craig informed both Mike and I later that his episode was so violent that he actually ripped the toilet seat clean off the toilet. HAHA, needless to say nobody caught a thing but oh what a story!

The rest of the day was a write-off. At night Craig was out of commission, but Mike and I dragged our asses out of bed and hit the bar at Riu Taino and met up with Aron and Ilia for some drinks before taking a cab to a neighboring resort to hit a bar there called "Mangu". This place was busy but MESSED UP. Why!? Well, there were at least 4 cross-dressers there and 1 very LARGE dominican man dancing on stage wearing a moo-moo with his side-kick "The Midget" (he was actually a midget) wearing a small moo-moo and a "Cat In The Hat" type top-hat that was as tall as he was and covered in sequence. WIERD shit, but a fun night there nonetheless.

Cheers!
Andrew

The Breakdown (Day Five)

Wednesday March 8th:

By this time we had the casino staff (dirty dominican women) hitting on us and asking us if we were single…haha the sad thing is…we had fun with it as that was as good as it was going to get on that resort!  We also met some funny American kids (Iliaand Aron) while also hanging out with a few college women.  We hit the hay early this night so that we would be good to go for our early morning DEEP SEA ADVENTURE!  Man that is going to kick ass, I can’t wait!!!

Cheers!
Andrew

The Breakdown (Day Four)

Tuesday March 7th:

By now we had nicknames for the crazy resort workers like; Sideshow Bob, Carlito, Krusty The Clown, Show Time and a slew of others.  But in all honesty, the workers at the resort were all pretty nice from the grounds crew to the serving staff, to the entertainment staff.  But, as with anything, there’s always at least one bad apple…on our first trip to the bar on the resort the very first bartender to serve us our very first drink there withheld one of our drinks insinuating that a tip was mandatory!  Needless to say it made me want to show her my $2000 receipt to remind her that I already paid for it and that a tip was usually given for a job well done and not as mandatory exchange for goods!  B!TCH! lol  Ok, that felt good…This was our first excursion day!  We were pumped and after a crazy Dominican drive where we almost had a few mopeds hop in the back of our open-air truck, we made it to the snorkeling site.  This was an awesome excursion, we took speed boats out to a coral reef and snorkeled while feeding the fish!  Craig had snorkeled in the past so he got used to it pretty quick.  I had bought snorkel gear at Costco and was glad I did, because novice snorkelers had issues using the bottom of the barrel snorkeling gear they supplied us.  The example….MIKE! LOL he struggled the poor guy, swallowed salt water (as did I), but I think he won that chugging contest.  Anyhow, on the way to the reef everyone was abiding by the rules of keeping 90 feet between boats, not weaving, etc…which was fine by me cause my boat was crap.  BUT, on the way back I managed to get in a different boat and was able to open-er-up while weaving through the wakes of other boats all while being caught on camera and appearing forever in copies of the the other tourists DVD’s as the crazy Canadian that whizzed through multiple shots while screaming hysterically!

Cheers!
Andrew

The Breakdown (Day Three)

Monday March 6th:

Started missing Max now which wasn’t good because I still had a few more days to go, but I put it out of my mind and stayed focused on enjoying the trip (the thoughts of Deep Sea Fishing helped as I was REALLY looking forward to it).  This day we explored the Northern side of the beach (an hour walk up the North side) and walked passed a few of the other resorts and saw some better “scenery” and continued to kick ourselves for our decision (at least in that respect – as I said, the food was great and the resort was beautiful).  Mike and I hit the AWESOME (sarcasm) gym and the evening included a trip the Disco Pacha again to see if it was any better but guess what…NOPE!  A few drinks at the bar at our resort and that was about it for the night.  Another action packed day!

Cheers!
Andrew

The Breakdown (Day Two)

Sunday March 5th:

This was discovery day. We had a 1 hour meeting with our SunQuest rep to learn about the D.R. and the excursions offered by the resort. This was good, because we we’re on the verge of going deep sea fishing on a “Pirate Ship” where we most likely would have ended up being fish food…which ironically enough might have been better then the fishing trip we ended up going on (Day Five). Anyhow, we booked two excursions; Speed Boat / Snorkeling trip and the Deep Sea Fishing excursion.

After lunch we went for a good hour and a bit walk down the south side of the beach to the Markets where we were heckled by the locals to buy lots of junk, which of course none of us were interested in doing. After making it back to the resort we hung around the beach, caught some rays and played some football. We were saving our energy for the night life that never happened. Apparently we went either a week too soon and / or to a resort that was to “high-end” for the younger crowds and we discovered this when we walked into the “Disco Pacha” and realised we were F*CKED (or not F*CKED, depending on the context). So back to the casino where I won $75 on blackjack and Mike broke even and Craig lost a couple bucks.

Tune in tomorrow for details of our first excursion…

Cheers!
Andrew

The Breakdown (Day One)

Well we made it there and back again.

We had a great trip there with no real hiccups (except Craig almost yacking all over my back-seat). We made it to our hotel and met up with Paul and his girlfriend Karrell for some dinner at the Keg. I was pretty disappointed in the steak I had as they served it good and bloody the first time (I asked for well-done) and then they brought it back charred and rubbery. I ate it, but no discount or anything…for a steak house, I’d say that’s piss poor.

Anyhow, it’s probably easiest if I break it down on a day-by-day and night-by-night basis (Amy’s idea! )…so here we go (each day and night will be a daily post):

Saturday March 4th:

Our flight was good as we had a super hot flight attendant but we’re all chicken so non of us said a word really (SURPRISE). The highlight of the flight was playing poker at 30 000 feet!

We arrived at our resort just in time for the 8:30 seating of dinner at the buffet restaurant (which was awesome compared to the theme restaurants). Had a good dinner and of course had some fruit for dessert. I mention the fruit because as expected it was amazing…well at least the cantaloupe was, the watermelon was hit and miss. Once we unpacked and settled in we figured we should go check out the casino! Mike and I decided to play poker and cut a deal where we would split the winnings and avoid playing against each other. Sure enough, I got shit cards and was pretty much “blinded out” (sorry non-poker players). Mike on the other hand (pardon the PUN) won BIG…$1200 US big! Which was nice. So we split that and had our excursions paid for for the rest of the vacation (thanks Mike)! Craig played some blackjack but was unlucky there. But I shared some of the wealth Mike brought us so we all left happy.

Not too exciting, but there you have it…our first night there. Tune in tomorrow to see what happens to our Super Heroes as they venture into the Dominican and see what they discover.

Cheers!
Andrew