So next week my fiancée and I are going to Punta Cana. As is often the case when I go somewhere that is supposed to be sunny, unusually horrible weather is forecast, so my first ever all inclusive vacation is basically going to be entirely inside.
Note that I am not talking about the kind of brief little showers that are common to such places. The forecast is that clouds and thunderstorms will start when we arrive and continue, without any interruption, until we leave. The forecast for the middle of the week is 0 hours of sun.
So as a guy who’s never been to an all inclusive resort before, should I start thinking about contingency plans to fly out early? Is there anything to do if you can’t use the beach and the pools? Should we bail on this?
Drink
Eat
In Jamaica get some ganga from your hotel maid and smoke up a storm.
Have sex with you traveling partner (if that indeed was on the menu anyway)
Watch TV
Go online
I like the beach in rainy weather. I have vitiligo, so sunscreen/hat/cover-up is de rigueur. On days when there is clouds/rain, I’m free to swim in the sea without much care.
Our honeymoon got largely rained out and, yeah, mostly what people have already said. We did have a really nice soaking tub in the room, which we didn’t have at home at the time, so that was something. It did feel largely anticlimactic though, after getting through the (late-March, snow still on the ground) wedding with all the anticipation of a week on the nice warm beach.
Since both the maid and one of the bellhops in Ocho Rios offered to sell me weed when I was down there in 2010, I’d have to say not too seriously. I do think that Sandals might have had a minor issue with me firing it up in the room….but hey…
I’ve been to a all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana. There are some offsite excursions you can go on. but it is an outdoor-activity place. Not many options if you’re forced to stay inside I’m afraid. Might be a good time to start writing a book…
I don’t think you said which resort, so I just googled “all inclusive resort in Jamaica” and clicked on the first one that came up. There were an awful lot of water/outdoor things to do. But here’s the list of things to do that could happen inside:
They offered yoga, pilates, and aerobics classes, as well as a fully equipped gym.
One or more of the swimming pools may be indoors.
There was a spa – so massages, facials, mani-pedis, etc.
They also offered classes in dance (soca), hat-making (wtf?), massage and wood carving, mixology (bartending), which seems like a bizarre combination of interests, but there you have it.
There were a number of tournaments, including: bocce, bingo, scavenger hunts, sing-alongs (karaoke), shell painting (zzzz), croquet, fishing, trivia…
And it’s Jamaica, so you can always wander down to the straw market and haggle for cheap trinkets, or just go shopping in general.
Also, it just seems like a really weird weather pattern for Jamaica, to have 4-5 days of solid rain, all day long. That sounds like a tropical storm or a hurricane. In the Caribbean, storms blow up and back out quickly; very rarely does a front just stall out and hover there. What I suspect is there will be rain every day around 4-6 p.m. and then it’ll clear right out (which is what I experienced in the Bahamas and South Florida). It might be cloudy some, but that doesn’t stop you from all the beach/water activities available.
I dunno. I could find plenty to do, even if that means drink a lot, eat a lot, and read a lot.
I had excellent, sticky green. I was offered a half ounce bag for $100. I chuckled and asked if I looked stupid. He countered with $25. I gave him $30 and bought him and his buddies red stripes.
Punta Cana isn’t in Jamaica, it’s in the Dominican Republic.
I know it’s weird that the weather would be like that, but it’s what the forecast says. No hours of sun on Tuesday, none on Wednesday, none on Thursday.
We were in T&C last year when a slow moving tropical storm passed over us and personally I found it to be a welcome deviation from the norm. There were beautiful lightning shows, especially in the evenings, and cool walks on the beach were made more enjoyable with the use of a hat to keep the rain out of your face. We still beach combed, drove around the island exploring, shopped and ate at the must visit restaurants, albeit inside. It’s all what you make it and fortunately you’ll know going in what to expect, much better than if it all came as a surprise.
If good light for diving and snorkling is a requirement for you, if you want to parasail and have calm water for any boating, play 72 holes and come back with a stunning, enviable tan then yeah, you may want to make some changes while you can.
