Republica Dominicana: Playa Dorada
Playa Dorada is a gated area on the north coast of the Dominican Republic that houses 7 or so all-inclusive resorts. It's very popular with Brits and Germans - as an American, I was definitely in the minority. I heard later that the Americans tended to stay on the south side of the island, west of Santo Domingo. We bought into the all-inclusive meal/drink/activity plan and so we ate (and drank) plenty at all times of the day and into the night.
The view from the balcony of our efficiency (we had a kitchen but we never used it).
The view of the beach. The other all-inclusives were distributed along this beach - we had one of the ends, which meant that we could wander a little further away and be on a pretty quiet strech of sand. We spent two days on the beach and the only activity we did was jet-skiing, which was exciting in a terrifying sort of way (I appear to trust my husband to drive one and I'm not sure if I should have...).
This is where we ate breakfast every day. And most lunches and some dinners. The meals are buffet style (food is decent, but nothing to write home about). You can book a sit-down restaurant meal (no extra charge) at the Italian or Brasilian restaurant on-site. We did this several times. We spent our only daytime pool time at the pool in this picture. Nice and quiet.
This was taken our last night there. There are three pools - this one was for the twenty-something crowd, with pool volleyball and loud music. We only spent this one evening there, having a very strong drink and swimming - but not in that order!