Month: June 2026

The Anniversary Adventure 2026 Part One Sponsored by Amoxicillin – Day Eight May 1st

by mkingdon, posted in The Anniversary Adventure 2026

Day Eight already? This is flying by…..right?

We slept in till 8 before I ventured out to the pool and secured a cabana at the quiet pool and when Louise arrived shortly after that we went for coffee, cake and melon at coffee shop.

I had by this time acquired a new friend. There was a chap on pool cleaning duty pretty much all day and for a couple of days now as I was typically the first to arrive at the pool he would insist on helping me with the arduous task of laying out the towels on the beds. He would also bring us a couple of lilo things to use in the pool. As I am too polite for my own good I had tipped him each time, just a couple of dollars but now we were on hand shake and fist bumping terms and we were having awkward conversations using hand signals and Spanglish as neither of us spoke the same language.

All this would end in us being Facebook friends which wasn’t weird at all.

My oral situation continued to improve I am glad to say and normality was within touching distance which was a relief I cannot describe the scale of.

After breakfast we went to the shops for yet more sun cream. We still had some left but as often happens Louise decided the same sun cream we’ve used for a few decades was now causing her some issue, this time prickly heat, and she needed a different brand. We secured some at some eye watering profit margin for the shop.

We then did very little else other than read and rest. 

Lunch at the Seaside Grill again. We both had the soup and burgers. 

As boring as it looks that burger was delicious.

The afternoon was blissfully uneventful. I can’t tell you how much I was enjoying doing nothing.

With no rain today, we stayed out till 6 enjoying that lovely end of day golden hour that is always a highlight of these kind of trips.

We were ready, hungry and out to 1844 for dinner, which was one of the two Dominican restaurants. Sadly this would be our worst meal yet.

Empanadas, salad and steak for Louise. Empanadas soup and steak for me. We went crazy and ordered a dessert and it was without doubt the worst bread and butter pudding of all time. 

To the lobby bar afterwards for a drink.

At the risk of reinforcing offensive stereotypes there was a large red neck wedding party there celebrating the upcoming nuptials of Mary Sue and Bobby Lee (probably not their real names) and we watched with sadness how badly there were treating the bar staff. No manners, no tips and there was no need for it.

We wandered to the piano bar for the 11pm set and did our usual people watching. 

We made it to midnight before heading home to bed.

Till the next time…..

The Anniversary Adventure 2026 Part One Sponsored by Amoxicillin – Day Seven April 30th

by mkingdon, posted in The Anniversary Adventure 2026

Louise slept in this morning mainly due to too much piriton for too much prickly heat. I went to breakfast alone at the market street buffet. Cereal and fruit were an attempt to be healthier and for the laxative nature. Things needed to change. I can confirm prunes live up to their reputation.

To the beach and I secured a cabana there. I read and scrolled until Louise came down about ten. 

We lazed for some time and had a naughty morning Margarita. I went to order nachos and pizza for lunch which was becoming a habit. There was a buffet on by the pool but we stuck with our usual.

Rain had been threatening all day and as we awaited its inevitable arrival we watched a game of volleyball which resulted in one chap suffering an injury. 

It looked like he rolled his ankle and he limped off in search of medical attention.

I went for another walk up the beach around 2pm and despite not going very far I felt knackered afterwards.

Rain was imminent so we went back to the room around 3.30 and sat on our balcony for an hour. 

The rain started as we got ready and it was torrential all night. When we were ready we ordered a golf cart to take us to Bordeaux, the restaurant not the region in France. It would be our best meal yet despite it being as cold as hell in there.

Quiche, onion soup and steak for us both. Very nice. 

We even managed to share a dessert.

Over at the piano bar we found an excellent sax player but he finished at 8.30. It was very busy tonight and we did lots of people watching and drinking.

The piano player came on at 11. 8 and 11 felt like odd timings for the live entertainment.

We walked back to the room as thankfully the rain had stopped. Bed at 11.30. 

Till the next time…..

The Anniversary Adventure 2026 Part One Sponsored by Amoxicillin – Day Six April 29th

by mkingdon, posted in The Anniversary Adventure 2026, Uncategorized

For those worried about my oral situation, things were starting to improve and my gum was starting to look a little less space hopper and the pain was only like routine child birth. An improvement on just a couple of days ago.

Forty years of getting up for work once again forced my body into waking up at an hour I did not appreciate but I used it to wander out to secure some breakfast from the coffee shop and then a cabana by the quiet pool.

This is the coffee shop and it was an upsetting 7.29am.

The early hour did mean I had my choice of all the cabanas. There was absolutely no sun bed reserving at this resort. We were glad as that is one of my pet hates that has put us off “non WDW” holidays for years.

By 9.25 the early morning cloud was clearing nicely and the relentless sun would char our bodies for most of the day.

At 10.30 I went for a walk up the beach.

My need to “earn” calories does not take a holiday.

Today I had turned left to see what lay in the other direction and it was a little more populated, with a large mainly French resort not too far away and then lots of very interesting little coves.

At times the terrain got a little too “natural” for my liking and all I could imagine were the headlines of “Fat Northern Bloke Dies Due to Stupidity on Nice Beach”.

So I headed back to safety.

See, lots of nature and danger…..

No idea what was going on here….

I was ready for lunch on my return to so I ordered some stuff from the same café/grill as yesterday, and a kind man brought it to our cabana.

Breaking every rule in the book, we went in the pool immediately after eating, but fear not, there was no swimming, just too much Tequila. By too much, I mean one. We did also have two Margaritas though so that exceeded my alcohol intake in one day for the about the past thirty years.

We saw that there was rain forecast from around 3pm, so we left the pool just before that and went to sit on the balcony until it arrived.

It was 4.30 before it finally did so we went inside then and started to get ready. It was raining when we set off for food, armed with umbrellas, but a nice man in a golf cart drove by and stopped to pick us up. He dropped us off outside our restaurant.

Dominican tonight….

I had some slightly odd crisp bread with Avocado mousse to start….

Louise’s Ricotta Balls persisted….

We were hungry so also had a soup each before my main which was Chicken and Rice…

and Beef Tenderloin for Louise.

This was one of our better meals of the trip.

We got a comfy couch in the piano bar and listened to a piano and violin duo for a bit who were somewhere over there.

We gave up after one drink and went to bed after another tiring day.

Till the next time…….

The Anniversary Adventure 2026 Part One Sponsored by Amoxicillin – Day Five April 28th

by mkingdon, posted in The Anniversary Adventure 2026

Normality was returning to our sleep patterns and we slept till a reasonable hour before heading to the coffee shop for a pastry and latte for breakfast.

We based ourselves at the quiet pool, snagging a very comfortable cabana. These were free, extremely comfy and from this point on we made sure we got ourselves one whenever possible.

It looks a little cloudy there but it was mighty hot and we enjoyed the hotness until lunchtime by not doing very much at all. My tolerance for doing absolutely nothing was unmatched on this trip. A welcome antidote to the chaos of working life I think.

For lunch we ordered Nachos and Pizza from the small café by the pool and it was delivered to our cabana at the exact moment the impending rain that had been threatening for an hour or so also arrived. Demonstrating our commitment to food we sat on our cabana, under two umbrellas, onboarding our lunch. We quickly became waterlogged and realising it wasn’t about to stop I went into the nearby (very) hot tub to avoid the cool rain. The food was very tasty but not captured on film due to the wet nature of our surroundings at this time.

Once I had warmed up, we took our dampness and brollies back to the room. We showered and relaxed in the room watching the King’s visit to the US on CNN.

The rain stopped at around 4pm so we got dressed and went for a wander around the resort. We had a couple of games of pool on the least flat pool table in the world, which made things interesting to say the least before heading up to the lobby bar for a couple of drinks and chat with Emily back home. I lost the first game as the black ball fell into a pocket it should have been nowhere near had the table even been close to being flat. No, I am NOT a bad loser.

Some idiot got us Tequila shots which resulted in about three days in hospital for me. I am not a big drinker and I struggle to understand how folks do shots on purpose and enjoy them.

It was nice to just sit on a comfy couch in a perfect temperature and not have to be anywhere or do anything. We walked back to the toom to get changed for dinner and we were off to Portofino, an Italian, at 7.30.

I had soup….

and pasta…

Louise had Ricotta Balls….which can be painful if left untreated….

and Cannelloni.

The food was decent but not earth shattering. We watched the band in the Town Square thing very briefly before heading to the Piano Bar. The entertainment there had finished for the evening, or at least the early spot had and frankly we were too tired to wait for the 11pm spot, so we went to bed around 10.30 after potentially the most uneventful day anyone has had ever. Luckily, you get to read about it here.

Till the next time….