Issues with the Resort
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2008
1
3
8
Trip End
Sep 20, 2008
Bayahibe, Dominican Republic
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sara also complained (she was bad cop) about the service and state of the room. I originally had a long list of complaints here, but I'll save them for Trip Advisor! The guest relations woman continued to insist the rate is normally $55 a day, but said they could knock it down some since there'd been some confusion. Then she produced a paper that showed the $35/day rate. Sara thinks she tried to pass it off as the one I'd given her yesterday (which I had a copy of in the room). That thought didn't even cross my mind, perhaps because I'd spent enough time pouring over the fine print to have no doubt that she wasn't showing us the original. Sara had her credit card out, ready to suck it up and pay, but maybe that was the straw that broke her back. She refused to pay until she'd talked to a manager. The manager wasn't available, so Sara said to have the manager call us in our room when she was ready to meet with us.
After we got to the room, Sara was disgusted and called and asked to speak to the ranking person at the resort. Part of the reason she was mad was that she'd traded her timeshare in St. John (valued at $5000/week) for this. They said the manager wasn't available but would meet with us at 9:30 the next morning.
At this point, we tried to put it out of our minds and have a good time. We both spent some very enjoyable time at the pool with book/iPod. We got dressed up pretty, took a few self-portraits, then went to meet Carolyn for dinner. If I didn't mention her before, she asked me to take her photo at the pool, using her camera. I said hi to her when I saw her at dinner, and Sara and I invited her to come to the Italian restaurant with us Monday night.
The dinner was great fun. Carolyn was interesting and traveling alone, and I was pretty proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone to approach her at dinner the previous night. She's recently worked for the Obama campaign, but she'd also been a teacher for many years and was currently working as a caregiver for an elderly woman. Shockingly, she was 61 years old. She looked like she was in her late 30s, early 40s to me! Would that I'll be so well-preserved!
I finished Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Several of the short stories were very moving. Started listening to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.
