We arrived on time on Sunday 8/27 and it was raining. We got on a short line to buy our tourist cards for $10 each, then another short line through immigrations. Thought it strange that they collected our tourist cards before we left the area. A porter saluted us and took our bags out side where we saw the driver right there holding up the Eden Bay logo. I tipped the porter $6, the driver loaded our bags and off we went. In the cab there was a sign with our names on it welcoming us to Eden Bay along with a letter inviting us to help ourselves to drinks in the cooler. We thought that was a nice touch even though we didn’t drink anything. The ride was a little scary and as suggested in the letter, we used our seat belts. Took about an hour and twenty minutes to reach Eden Bay where we met Susan who welcomed us and a waiter brought out two rum punches. We were exhausted and since it was raining, Susan kind of knew we just wanted to go to our room. So the driver and Susan took us straight there. I tipped the driver $20 which I found out was too generous later speaking to someone else. The resort itself is very beautiful. Everything is manicured: massive lawns, plenty of palm trees, plants and flowers arranged beautifully. We were very impressed with the villa even though you could tell it still needed minor completing renovations. We were in the third row, which was elevated above the first two rows. We had originally booked the first row and downgraded because those villas weren’t finished yet. There was a fourth row a lot higher up. We thought the third row was the best of them all and suggest you book one of those if you go. Oddly enough we found out that had we booked the cheapest accommodation we would had been upgraded to where we were as the sea cliff buildings were under renovations. One couple lucked out that way. However, we got what we paid for and thought the price was OK. There was a small fridge in the kitchen with two beers in it along with bottled water and soda. I left a few dollars on the fridge with a note to put many beers there because we like to spend late afternoons on the terrace having a few. There after, we always found at least 6 beers restocked. There is a safe in the room that is key locked. I always bring a wrist wallet for things like keys and money. We left $5 a day on the pillow for the housekeepers.

One thing I did suggest to Susan BTW is that they have glass glasses in the room and plastic glasses at the bar. Why not plastic glasses in the room. The floors are stone tiled over concrete. If a glass is dropped, it will shatter all over the place. LOL, or maybe not, nude people with a few drinks with glass glasses and concrete tiled floors is an accident waiting to happen.

The rain let up just in time for before dinner cocktails at the main pool bar across from the restaurant. That was the last of the rain for the week we were there. We had a couple of beers and then walked over to the restaurant where we met two couples, the outgoing activity directors Pat and Lucy, Peter the new activity director, and a single man from Germany. During dinner, Peter talked about the following day’s activities with the first being a walk around the grounds. After dinner (don’t remember what we ate on what nights, but overall, the food was good), everyone went back to the pool bar lounge and danced to music provided by two musicians.

We brought our own coffee maker, coffee and creamer because we’re very early risers and like our coffee and tea as soon as we get up. Susan would had provided us with one had we needed it and asked, but we always bring it along with us as we do our pillows. That I suggest you do because the pillows on the bed seemed very used. Oddly enough the mattress looked brand new. We always get up and get ready to watch the sun rise so our first morning, it was right down to the beach bar. We met up with the other two couples and found that a third arrived over night, so there were 8 of us plus the single German man who mostly kept to himself. We all became good friends very quickly and that made for a good vacation.

Security is very good there and always felt safe. A golf cart always patrols at night. One day there was three swimmers out on the reefs about a hundred yards from shore. They were out there for a long time, over an hour. It looked kind of like they might had thought about coming ashore and down came security rifle and all. Three guards stood there and eventually the swimmers took off. The bartender said they were probably fishing.

I forget which day it was when another couple showed up during a cocktail making contest where six of us made a cocktail and two were judges. We all welcomed them and they joined in as judges. Later that afternoon, I went down to the beach bar and he was there alone. He bummed a cigarette from me and said his wife locked him out of their room. I said, maybe she’s sleeping. He said no, she’s not sleeping and if you see that little slut, tell her to open the door. He was drunk and I knew he was going to be trouble. Dinner was shortly after that and he came alone. Glad he was at the other end of the table because from what I heard he said to two of the women there, I would have gone nuts on him if it were my wife. He also abused the staff. One of the women happened to be the marketing manager, Van. Sinclair, the general manager was away from the table at the time but Van went to tell him. He came over to the table and told this guy that they will not tolerate speech like that here. We thought he was going to kick him off the property. The next morning that couple came to breakfast and sat alone at a table. Sinclair came over to him and asked to speak to him alone. I don’t know what Sinclair said to him but he went around to everyone apologizing for his behavior the night before. We didn’t bother with them but he never caused another scene during our stay.

The renovating construction was annoying at times. They had to use hammers to break tile off of the walls so we always heard pounding. Guess we had to expect that knowing there was work going on but one afternoon when we retreated to our terrace to play music and drink a few beers, the pounding continued till about 6 PM. At one point I yelled, “IT’S TIME TO GO HOME ALREADY”. That was however, the only late afternoon wall banging day though. I guess Roger, who is the renovations manager had them do other things after that. He seems to really be hustling to get all the work finished. He looked exhausted most of the time. He was the most visible part of management there though. He sat and ate with us at least one meal a day and talked about the progress. I told him about a few unfinished items in our villa and before you know it we had repair crews there. I didn’t really want anything fixed but he was grateful I told him about it and wanted to address the issues right away. I had also mentioned the bunch of coconuts hanging over where we walk into our villa and he had someone go up and trim right away. That in turn displaced some wasps that started to swarm on our terrace so they exterminated that right away also. The bees are aggressive down there but the wasps are chickens. When one came around on the terrace, I’d smack it with a wet towel and it would take off.

Peter worked hard to try to get us doing the activities. We all broke his chops and he took it all in fun. Later in the week, they offered one of the female bartenders a position to assist Peter. Her name was Nancy and although a very nice girl, she didn’t speak much English. There was talk of a third activity person being hired but don’t know if that happed yet.

We enjoyed the upper pool more than the lower one. The hot tub wasn’t working most of the week but was fixed. We don’t use those anyway. Could never figure out why someone would go to the tropics to sit in hot water. The volley ball pool sprung a leak during the week so they were digging that up. Should be fixed by now I would guess. We only got to play once in it, which was fun. The beach isn’t really a beach, as we know it. It’s a sloping walled area where they apparently put an awful lot of sand but at waters edge it turns to rocks. It’s small and ok if you just want to get your feet wet. They have kayaks there that were used a couple of times by couples. They also had snorkeling gear there. These were the real reasons for the beach I believe. We waded in the water once using water shoes. There are other areas with sand and most times couples would find a spot for themselves for awhile.

Gift shop was nice. Bought about $125 worth of stuff for gifts and souvenirs. Cashed a traveler’s check there. And BTW if you ask the front desk to cash a traveler’s check, make sure your countersigned signature matches. I had a one-hour disturbing experience there. I was always handing out money to the workers and figured I better get more cash. They said they could only give me Pesos, which was OK cause I was just giving it away anyhow. Well after I signed the check ($100), their accounting guy didn’t want to take it because the signatures didn’t look enough alike. I scribble my signature and it never looks exactly the same but after 35 years of traveling, this was the first time anyone did this. They asked my to sign a different one but I figured they probably wouldn’t like that one either. Then they were talking about taking me to the bank. Finally after getting the receipt that comes in the packet of checks and letting them copy my passport along with Van and Sinclair getting involved, they cashed it. Took me awhile to get over that shock.

The entertainment was very good after dinner each night. They had a great band one evening, dancers on two evenings (we only attended one), karioki one evening and it was our first time we ever got up to sing in our lives. It was fun.

The food is good. Excellent soups. Dinners had three or four choices usually fish, beef, fowl and local. Deserts were nice. Breakfast was a favorite with us with plenty of variety. We usually had bacon and fried eggs. Tried the pancakes, good. Recommend the Dominican omelet, had that twice. Plenty of other items on the breakfast menu so if you have a long stay, you can try them all. Lunch was ok. Didn’t like the hamburgers; don’t know if it was just a bad batch of meat or what but three of us including Peter put it down after a bite or two. Club sandwich was my favorite. Great French-fries. Good hot dogs. If you order the BLT, it doesn’t come with Mayo already on it, there are packets on the table, and LOL we realized that after we ate it and said it was a little dry. There’s plenty on that menu also so you won’t go hungry.

In closing, I would recommend Eden Bay for a vacation after they complete renovations and fine-tune a few procedures.

I saved the best and worst for last

The Best:

The local people who work there.

They are such beautiful friendly people who believe it or not really like Americans. They couldn’t do enough for you. They were always smiling and I got the idea that they really enjoyed working there. I hope Eden Bay appreciates each and every one of them. They make the resort special and they should continue to keep them happy working there. You can’t help but give them tips every day. Some were even afraid to accept money, and I had to insist. If you have any problem, tell any worker, like when we had the wasps on out terrace. He got right on the radio and summoned help with insecticide and together they went right out the terrace doors and did battle with many wasps. All the employees are unbelievably friendly and helpful.


The Worst:

Extortion at the airport.

I remember Peter talking one day about how when locals leave the country, at the airport their luggage is searched and they keep searching it until they give someone twenty dollars. He said that they don’t bother the tourists though, only the locals. Well, that’s not true. When we pulled up to the airport, as soon as the driver unloaded our luggage, two porters came over. They said that they would get us right through inspection fast. Another man not in any uniform came over to me and said that if I give each porter twenty, they won’t really search our bags. He insinuated that if I didn’t, the inspector would search and search and maybe we could miss our flight. I felt like telling him to go kiss my [censored]. I looked around and did see a couple of passengers with everything out of their luggage and figured just pay it and get the hell out of here, so I agreed remembering that Peter said that people should just pay it right away because they eventually will. The inspector only opened one carry on and made like he was looking inside but didn’t disturb anything. He didn’t open the other carry on or the suitcase. He put the red stickers on all three and the purse and off we went to the ticket counter. After we checked our suitcase, I gave the one porter $20 and he walked away. The other porter wanted to take us inside but we want to stay outside so he gave us our carryons and I gave him $20. While standing around, we watched some people having their bags search thoroughly. Porters were standing around behind and I saw one woman finally hand some money to a one of the porters. We saw inspectors open everything that was wrapped even using a box cutter to cut open tape wrapped packages. If a porter brought the bags over, they were barely searched at all like ours were. What a racket they have going there and everyone I’m sure is in on it. A porter even approached us again and asked us if we had to be inspected. I pointed to the red stickers and said, no, I paid you guys already. He walked away. We finally went inside and there was the regular security area. I wondered if had we let the porter bring us in, would we not have had our bags search there also? They were thoroughly searched. I sent an email to the US State Dept asking them to include this on their alerts.