There's something about putting on a wedding, travelling for 24 hours, and consuming quite a bit of rum that can take a lot out of a person. We've never slept so well. In fact, the only reason we woke up before noon was because Luis called us to set up a dinner reservation. We were both pleasantly surprised at the level of customer service, and a little worried that our phone would be ringing at 10:30am. We had big plans for the week.
But it didn't take us long to realize why Luis was waiting on us hand and foot. After he met us for breakfast, he continued his tour around the property. He kept referring to some kind of a "special meeting". He danced around our questions, but Aimee and I had travelled enough to know what was coming.
After buttering us up with another round of coconut drinks, he took us behind the curtain. Now, mind you, up until this point, we had barely seen as much as a rotary telephone. Once we landed in the DR, we assumed that we had left a certain degree of technical sophistication behind us. But that all changed when Luis took us to a room that we never knew existed. We had been all over that resort in the last 24 hours, but there was apparently a hidden room tucked away behind the palm fronds. It was the Dominican platform 9 and 3/4.
So what was in this secret, buzzing room with the ten staffed computer desks? Time share brochures. Looking back, it was kind of genius. We had barely been on the property for a whole day, and the grins were plastered on our faces. It wouldn't have been hard to pry me from my $10,000, plus $500 monthly maintenance fees. I mean, who wouldn't want to spent a week down here every year?
Since Aimee's mom booked us the hotel using her own timeshare points, the hotel staff thought that we were already at a place in our financial lives where that proposition wasn't laughably ridiculous. We had to spend the next 30 minutes convincing them that "medical student" was a far cry from "doctor", and this week--while a wonderful treat--was not our usual method of travel.
Aimee, who had spent two weeks a year attending these timeshare sales pitches throughout her childhood (and is watching me type this right now) insists that she never would have allowed me to say "medical student", but I guess that this will have to be the first disagreement of our marriage. Not a bad one.
But we made it out of there with our wallets intact, and were off to spend our first full day on the beach. That was enough work for one day.
