Last night we got back from a lovely week in the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon. Despite all the bad headlines, I wasn't ready for our trip to end. The island was beautiful, we made some new friends and we ate so much delicious food. It was a perfectly relaxing week, which was exactly what I needed after the stress of wedding planning.


View from our balcony

That's not to say I wasn't worried about everything that's been in the news. In fact, about two weeks before we were schedule to leave, I texted my fiance in a bit of a panic and told him we may want to consider going to Jamaica for our honeymoon instead.

It would have been an easy enough switch to make -- our flights were on Southwest, and we would have only lost $50 if we canceled our resort reservation. But when I read the State Department's travel warning for Jamaica it actually scared me more than the one for the DR.

So we decided to still go and take a few extra precautions -- like not drinking out of the mini-bar. (Our resort did not have the kind of mini-bar that has the open liquor bottles in it like some of the other resorts do, so this wouldn't have been an issue for us either way).

I also sent an email to the company that owns the resort we were staying at asking what they were doing to ensure the safety of their guests in light of everything in the news. It's a U.S.-based company, and I got a good response back that laid out all of their safety protocols. A coworker also gave me the name and number of one of her good friends who lives in the Dominican Republic about 20 minutes from where we were staying. I felt better knowing that in the case of an emergency, I had someone we could reach out to.

By the time our departure flight rolled around, I was surprisingly zen about the whole situation and not too worried. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our flight down to Punta Cana was fairly empty, so we had a row to ourselves. I alternated between napping and reading.



When we checked in, we got upgraded to a nicer room with a view of the pool and the ocean in the distance.

We stayed at Secrets Royal Beach, and I couldn't get over how beautiful everything was. The pool was basically a lazy river that looped the entire resort.

There were tons of cabanas set up on the beach with chairs and tables so you could sprawl out either in the sun or in the shade.



We spent our week doing a mix of beach and pool relaxing and a few more active things like snorkeling and exploring the Dominican country-side.

Our tour of the Dominican country-side came highly recommended, and it was a full day adventure that took us up in to the mountains.



We got to see a cigar maker roll cigars by hand. We tasted sugar cane and ate cocoa berries off a tree.

We also got to ride some horses.



And we visited the largest Catholic church on the island.





We also went on a snorkeling trip where we got to explore coral reefs and swim with sting rays and nurse sharks.





I was a little terrified about swimming with the sharks. They were pretty big, but they must have been used to having humans around them because they completely ignored us and just glided along the bottom of the reef, minding their own business.

We also got to hold a sting ray, which was really cool!



We spent the rest of that morning cruising around on our boat, docking on a sandbar and tossing around a football with our new friends.





That day of snorkeling was probably the highlight of the trip.



And while I know my waistline would not want me living the all-inclusive life forever, it was hard to say goodbye to such a beautiful place and come back to the real world.