Tuesday, 2020 March 17 (St. Patrick's Day)
I had a better night than the night before; I slept more-or-less soundly from around 2130 until around 0530. Unfortunately Krista was restless all night and didn't get enough good sleep. She slept later than I did, of course, so I continued reading.
We'd pretty well settled into our routine now, so we cleaned up and went for breakfast. The buffet this morning was a bit different from the previous days - ham instead of pork tenderloin at the carving station, no fried ham, no sausages. The highlight for me were sweet peppers stuffed with cheese, egg, and ham; the combination was delicious.
Today was the first day we started noticing cats roaming the grounds. I'm not sure if they're officially part of the pest control process or have just moved in, but once we became aware of them we started seeing them everywhere.
We chilled at the room for a while. Krista had a massage appointment at 1200 which, for some reason, she needed to check in for at 1100. While waiting for this, I spent some time on this blog and caught up on Goodreads, as I've been reading at a ferocious pace so far this trip.
At about 1045 we walked up to the spa (I went too because Krista wasn't sure where it was; neither was I, but in general I have a better sense of direction than she does). It turns out that she was supposed to be early because or some sort of preliminary hydrotherapy treatment, so we got her signed in and then immediately walked back to the room so she could grab a swimsuit. She then headed back on her own, since she now knew where to go, and I went back to trying to catch up this blog. I did that until I got bored, then I went back to reading out on our patio.
After Krista got back we decided to head out to the pool (one of many, actually, but this one was the closest to our room and in general seemed to be the "adult" pool, where people mostly just swam, read, and relaxed).
We settled in and got some reading done. Krista took a couple dips in the pool. The main pool was being set up for a St. Patrick's Day party, so we watching the young and/or dumb people making fools of themselves there for a while. After a couple hours we decided we were going to go to the steakhouse for supper; seating is first-come, first-served, so we decided to clean up early, then hang out in the adjacent Love Bar until the steakhouse opened.
When we came into our room we found an envelope had been slipped under the door. It asked us to contact the front desk; I didn't think much of it, honestly believing they were going to try to sell us a timeshare or something, so I figured we'd just swing by when we got to the bar (the Love Bar is right off of the main lobby).
By about 1715 we were dressed and ready to go (due to the dress code at the steakhouse I had to put on khakis, which seemed criminal to me - but I am firmly opposed to dress codes in any way, shape, or form). We got to the bar, I ordered a beer, and finally wandered over to the lobby to see what was up with the envelope.
It turned out that they were going to turn off power to the entire building that our room was located in at some time tomorrow, and we needed to move to a different room either tonight or tomorrow morning. This was unexpected, and I was not a happy camper - I liked our room. Why were they doing this? The resort is noticeably not busy, so they decided to do some maintenance work on that section of it. The people at the desk were very nice and assured me that I'd be happy once I saw our new room. I gathered up Krista, we met with our old friend Moises, and he took us over to room 1027 in a golf cart.
Once Krista and I realized where we were going, we just looked at one another and grinned - we had actually walked by this section when we first explored the grounds, and wondered just how much these villas would cost. Moises let us in, we took a few seconds to explore, and told him we'd take the room.
We walked back to our old room to change clothes (we were still dressed up for the steakhouse), then started packing. It went quickly since we didn't care about neatness or luggage weight. Once we were done we called the front desk, and Moises quickly showed up again to move us (he came to a screeching halt in the golf cart - he drives like a bat out of hell and enjoys every second of it, much to my amusement).
He dropped us off at 1027 and helped us move our bags in. I tipped him well, then Krista and I started unpacking. About the only negative thing we could find was that the walk-in closet was slightly smaller than at our old room (1020). We decided we could deal with that though.
By this point we were tired and it was getting late, so we just called room service and then relaxed until it arrived. The phone rang a couple times; the first time it was the front desk, checking in to make sure everything was okay. The second time I didn't answer and there was no message.
We ate supper, then decided to call it an early night. The phone rang one more time, just as I was falling asleep. That was getting very annoying.
Finally the phone rang about midnight, waking us up. I answered it - it was Claudio, our local Costco rep, telling us that the reef expedition that we were supposed to go on tomorrow had been cancelled due to rough seas. He asked if we'd rather do the Santo Domingo tour instead; we said sure. Unfortunately this meant we had to be in the lobby by 0715; this early wake up, combined with our fractured sleep from the phone calls, meant that it was a very short night.
Monday, 2020 March 16 Wednesday, 2020 March 18