Last images from DR

We left Punta Cana and returned to Virginia on Wednesday.

A few last pictures...

From Tuesday -- our housekeeper decorated our bed covers with tropical hibiscus almost every day.

We knew that checkout time was 11am, and that our airport transportation was not going to pick us up until 1pm. We were pretty sure that we weren't going to be fed on the flights and we weren't sure what options there would be for airport food... so we had checked earlier in the week on getting late checkout. The hotel allowed that, at the cost of $10/person/hour. We got to thinking that we really did not need to have the room (we could leave our bags with the doorman), we just wanted to keep our wrist bands that allowed us access to the restaurant. So Tuesday evening, we went back to the front desk and asked again -- no problem, we could keep our wrist bands and have full access to the property with no additional cost. As we walked away, Carl said, "Why didn't we book just one night, get the wrist bands, and then camp out on a boat or on the beach for the rest of the stay?" Always the economy minded one, Carl!

Being in the lobby area in the evening gave us a different perspective:

We had not seen the stained glass ceiling with the lights on behind it -- it was really pretty...

And then the chandelier and piano bar area were lit up so pretty!

On Wednesday, a beautiful morning at the beach.

Back in the room, I took a picture of the "art" canvasses displayed on the walls -- this is the one we saw the most (over the dresser, opposite the couch and the bed) -- we could never figure out what it was and thought it was rather ugly...

I decided to try using Google Lens on the camera of my phone, and it identified the piece and even took me to a link if I would like to purchase it: https://www.allposters.com/-sp/Abstract-Art-Background-Oil-Painting-on-Canvas-Green-and-Yellow-Texture-Fragment-of-Artwork-Spo-Posters_i15342069_.htm?upi=Q19Z1A5O1ZLN

The size of the item in our room was at least 48"x32"... larger than any listed on that website.  I suspect that they didn't pay those prices...

This was the other canvas print on the wall in our room -- over the couch.

We also found it through Google Lens: https://pixers.hk/canvas-prints/beautiful-woman-face-watercolor-illustration-60051440 -- somewhat cheaper. I guess abstract art that is non-identifiable as any specific object is worth more?

I had asked Carl earlier in the week if the men's room down by the pool was decorated by the housekeeping staff and he said it was not. I stopped in the ladies room when we went to the buffet for lunch and found it decorated again, and not so crowded that I would feel strange about taking pictures... so I took pictures to show to Carl:

The sinks were decorated...

For some reason, this one sink would be decorated with a branch growing out of the drain - I wondered if it was a decorative way to mark that sink as out-of-order, but on a day when it was not decorated, I used the sink and it was fine.

The housekeeper also made towel creatures - the one on Wednesday was an elephant.

We got lunch at the resort and then met our transportation fellow in the lobby just before 1pm. We got to the Punta Cana airport and through security and Dominican Republic immigration with no issues. There were plenty of places where we could have eaten in the airport, but we were satisfied from our final lunch at the resort.

We had originally been scheduled to fly through Miami to Richmond, but had gotten warnings from American Airlines that flight schedules could be disrupted in Miami (and other places) on Wednesday with indication that there would be no change fees if we wanted to change dates, as long as we didn't change origin or destination. Since we had flown down through Charlotte, we contacted American and they were able to route us through Charlotte, leaving Punta Cana just 15 minutes earlier but getting into Richmond about 1.5 hours earlier as the connection time was shorter. We had a little tighter connection than we had anticipated because the flight from Punta Cana to Charlotte made 2 attempts to land before actually landing (the pilot told us each time that there was a flight that had not yet cleared the runway). That left us with about an hour to get off the Punta Cana flight, walk quite a distance to immigration and wait in lines to be processed through, go through the baggage claim area (even though we did not check bags) and then proceed back through security in Charlotte (which was a *zoo*), and then to our Richmond gate - with just enough time for me to visit the restroom before we were boarding! It was a day of hurry-up and wait, but we finally got back to Gracie and Miss Kitty about 11 hours after we left the hotel in Punta Cana.
 
We had a great time vacationing in Punta Cana! We survived our first international air travel and feel that we are good travel partners! We hope to do more international travel in the future!