Well, it happened. I hung out in the pool most of the day today – I warned you I might!
Luckily, we woke up in the morning to see the sunrise. It was just before 7am and it was everything you’d imagine it was. We’re facing East off the island, almost directly, and the pictures tell the story. It rose quickly, only a few minutes from crest to full sunrise, and we savored every minute on the balcony of our villa.
What seemed just like minutes later… it was time for Carli and Sofia to head off to a prearranged massage appointment. I don’t have pictures of that of course, but Chris and I hung out in the room, broke open a newly-delivered bottle of “Mamajuana” – which is not what you think but a local sweet rum/liquor – and got to know one another better until the girls were back from their massages. We hadn’t chanced the sun yet, Chris takes sun easily and I can sunburn here too even with sunblock, so we took it easy before venturing out once we were all back together… and sinking into the pool.
The pool isn’t heated, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s a bit windy (and can be a bit rainy) here this week, but overall it was the perfect temperature, and after deciding there’s no way any of the restaurants could beat the view off our balcony… we decided to eat room service for lunch with… eh… maybe a large number of beers. We had a great afternoon and got ready for our dinner.
Dinner is where things got a little interesting. They’re in the middle of some changes here at Sanctuary at Cap Cana – many of the restaurants within the resort are dropping the “all-inclusive” label – meaning that from the time I booked the trip mid last-year to now a lot of things that were included were no longer included. Or… they aren’t for other guests but since my reservation pre-dated it… we’re still getting all the benefits – including ‘free’ dinner at the Steakhouse.
So, I’d like to think that our experience there was unique. We were, essentially, the only guests who weren’t paying for their meal. Had we been paying… I think we would have had a few complaints and the way dinner unfolded ended up being nothing short of comical.
We all ordered ribeye steaks, mine rare, two medium rare, and one medium-well. Each of these should have some pink in them. Mine was… fine. It wasn’t seasoned at all but came with a small side of sauce. I also ordered mac and cheese as a side along with a sausage appetizer that was quite appealing. And that is about all I have to say that was good.
Carli’s steak looked like shoe leather – and it was exactly that. It was cooked so far beyond ‘done’ that the sides of the steak were curling upwards. In addition to that… her ‘loaded baked potato’ about the size of a kiwi. It was nicely flavored and well coated in sauce… and tasty for about two bites before you ran out of potato.
And we were going to let it all go – it wouldn’t have been such a big deal – Carli shared some of Sofia’s steak and we all shared sides… and then Chris ordered desert. “Chocolate lava cake!” he said expectantly – little did he know… the cake was going to make the potato look not only normal-sized, but gigantic.
You know those little sauce containers you get at Chilis full of ranch dressing? Yep – that’s what the desert came in. It was about half ice-cream, so a spoonful of that, and then the cake itself. Two bites later… his dessert (which we had talked about splitting) disappeared.
The entire thing had us laughing – we talked about the fact that we couldn’t even eat another bite – and then Chris said “well I might have room for a baked potato” – and just like that we were all laughing again. The dinner was, for all intents and purposes, unbelievable – but not for the reasons that Sanctuary Cap Cana hopes. Be very careful what you pick if you come to The Steakhouse here – it might literally make the difference between a decent meal and the butt-end of a joke showing up on your dinner plate.
We walked back to the villa, and by the time we got back we were all exhausted and happy – an amazing day in the sun, good fun with friends, and some ridiculous stories to go back and tell our families and friends.
