If you want to skip all the reading, just go see the photos here.
We went to Puerto Plata in the Dominican for our honeymoon. We stayed at the 4* Gran Ventana resort and we can't stop talking about how amazing the resort was. On the flight over, we got to talking to other passengers who were going for their second, third or tenth time. One woman we met goes to this resort four times a year for 2 weeks to 2 month stints! I want her retirement plan!! We got the VIP treatment right from the start, with personal check-in service from the manager of the hotel, to an upgraded room with ocean front view, a bottle of rum and a fruit basket waiting for us. The room was great but the tv turned itself on and off at random times and the a/c broke twice in the first week so we got moved to a different room where the a/c worked but the tv had terrible reception. Oh well, can't win them all.
It took us about 4 days to unwind completely and get into the "groove" of the whole honeymoon. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all buffets and the food was spectacular. We never ran out of options. The coffee was the BEST I've ever tasted, but probably it's because the beans are freshly picked and roasted from the local plantations. All our food and all our drinks were included and after a few days, all the staff knew who we were and always greeted us with a loud "OLA!!" and a big smile. We spent most days lounging by the pool, reading books, playing volleyball, swimming up to the bar for drinks from the best mixed drinks from Sanchez, and just generally, RELAXING. It was awesome.
We took three excursions from the resort. The first was the Outback Safari that showed us around the real Dominican. Parts of it were really sad, from seeing the "house" (more like a shack) without running water or electricity and using straw to cook dinner, to the schools, churches and hospitals that the Outback Safari company pays for, learning about how people make about $2/day but with a few cows and pigs that they can work their way out of dire poverty, the skinny kids running after the tour bus, to driving in the city and seeing the difference between rural and city living. We got to see a working plantation organized by and run by local women that grows sugar cane, tangerines, grapefruits, papayas, coffee, cocoa, pineapples and coconuts to sell at market to put their kids through school. We went on a brief river boat tour and a bumpy ride through the country to learn about the different species of plants and how their used by locals, and see the huge tracts of land bought by foreigners for their own personal resorts. Finally, we went boogie boarding in the surf at Carabrete beach, which was AWESOME!!
The second excursion was into Puerto Plata city. This was a disappointing tour since the tour guide wasn't the least bit interesting and it was more like a shopping tour than a city tour. We saw (and bought) rum from the Brugal factory, amber and larmar jewellery & hand rolled cigars (we got totally ripped off on these because neither of us like haggling). We also saw the Amber Museum (completely boring), the city centre (where we were swarmed with people trying to sell us stuff), and then went to the top of Mount Isabella by cable car. That was scary but cool. At the top was a statue of Jesus the Redeemer, but a smaller version of the one in Rio.
The third trip was to Ocean World and it was amazing, but ruined by the annoying and obnoxious guys from VIP World that kept harrassing us to go see the marina and buy into their time share. I've never in my life wanted to punch someone so hard as the forty-millionth time that Giovanny stood in front of me and kept saying "My Canadian friends...come come with me". Ugh. Aside from my violent tendencies towards the VIP World staff, the rest of Ocean World was really wonderful. We feed the love birds (they particularly liked Brendon's hat), swam in a pool next to tigers and watched the tigers have lunch, snorkelled in an artifical coral reed and Brendon got to touch a fish that was, no kidding, 2' wide! We watched the sea lion, parrot, shark and dolphin shows, watched a dolphin encounter (at $150 per person, we opted to watch rather than participate), and generally just enjoyed ourselves at the park. It was rather empty so there was lots of room to get up close to the animals and talk to the trainers.