After 34 years of life, and nearly 10 years with my husband, we finally left the continent for a tropical vacation. Every place we’ve been to together thus far has been cold, in the mountains, on a lake, or in the woods. I was determined to hate the sun. The mountains were for me – no heat here! Colorado, Maine, Vermont, Niagara Falls (NY), Sierra Nevadas – no excess sunshine to be found cursing my face.

Then, it happened. I decided that maybe – just maybe – I should pick a place hubs may enjoy as well. Off of a coworkers recommendation, we booked the Majestic Mirage in Dominican Republic over New Year’s week.

It. Was. Amazing. No, really, I sat in Punta Cana airport trying to figure out how to just… stay.

It began on December 27th, 2023. After a pretty great Uber ride, then a lovely flight in the spacious exit row (thanks, JetBlue!), we landed in Punta Cana airport where I promptly almost got scammed because a very nice woman complimented my skin tone (which, truly, is nonexistent. I should’ve known). After finding our ride, we arrived at Majestic Mirage and were greeted with, “welcome home.” Oh, man, did that turn out to be so true. Everything was clean, the people were lovely.

We were given the grand tour by our butler Junior who I believe is actually part ninja. Our room was incredible. We opted for a rooftop deck room with a private bed and hot tub which turned out to be very useful on New Year’s Eve.

Every day started here:

The seaside buffet with tons of fresh fruit and ocean views. We would then alternate between the beach and the pool, all while trying to dodge the photographers who were determined to sell us pictures of ourselves. Throughout this daily routine, Junior would quite literally pop out from behind palm trees to see how our days were going and if we needed anything.

New Year’s Eve arrived and we had dinner at the buffet, which was reservation only for this night. The food was *amazing.* We were going to go to the plaza to watch the fireworks show, but all the tables were reserved with a bottle of champagne – we probably had to pay for those. We decided to go back to our room with our complimentary bottle of champagne that we totally forgot about and watch the show from our rooftop. From up there, we saw three or four different hotel’s firework shows which was definitely the correct decision.

Finally, our last day arrived. After a late check out, we drove back to the airport and contemplated how to just stay in paradise forever. After a week of reading books on the beach, swimming, eating fantastic food, and waking up to the sunrise the thought of going from 27C to 27F was not exciting in the slightest. 4 hours later, after being crammed in like sardines (thanks, United…) we were home.

I cannot believe it took me 34 years to explore somewhere other than North America, and I don’t truly believe a resort on an island counts too much there, but I will absolutely be doing more of this.