Flying South For A Week: The Canadian Dream

by Alexandra MacRae

On the shuttle from the Punta Cana airport to the four-and-a-half star resort we were staying at, our shuttle guide wisely told us that we’d already paid for our trip; now it was time to get our money’s worth. Also, don’t drink the water. I adhered to both pieces of advice.

Flying down south for a week per year to an all-inclusive resort is the Canadian dream in a nutshell. It is commonplace for Canadians to ask each other in June if they are planning on going down south the following spring. “Down south” including, and limited to: Cuba, Mexico, or the Dominican Republic. Luckily, the Canadian dream is fairly easy to achieve if you have a credit card and the minimum two weeks vacation per year.

My home province, Nova Scotia, is one of the have-nottiest in Canada. Pillorying hypocritical spending is a local pastime, from that of government officials to that of a hypothetical person who buys cigarettes while also receiving social assistance. However, the practice of traveling down south, even by a person not exactly in a financial position to do so, is surprisingly exempt from this sort of judgment.

Discussing my upcoming trip in the same breath that I blithely declared I didn’t have an RRSP seemed reasonable, and rated lower than say, ordering a marked-up bottle of wine at a nice restaurant on the scale of frivolous spending. This, combined with the shocking winter we just experienced, made the decision to spend most of my savings on a trip to Punta Cana feel okay. If you asked the entire province of Nova Scotia if they felt personally victimized by the weather this winter, every single person would raise their hand. Plus, I deserved it.

I projected a placid facade of calmness about my upcoming vacation and kept any of my worries about money repressed, to be dealt with privately, and most importantly, later. Previous vacations had proved less financially disastrous than I’d anticipated due to the simple act of booking my ticket a few months in advance. By the time the trip rolls around most of the expenses if paid up front can be paid off, leaving me to a fresh start when I returned home. A much more expensive trip to Europe had worked out this way; I had no reason to think this trip would be different.

My boyfriend and I were on the same page when it came to budget. We selected a reasonable resort close to the high-end of our budget, but well within the boundaries we laid out. We barely even considered blowing the budget on slightly nicer-looking resorts for a few hundred dollars more. Paying to stay at a five-star resort was like ordering a nice bottle of wine at a restaurant: something we simply would not do.

What we did do is fall into the Tripadvisor rabbit hole, albeit only after we had booked the vacation. There we learned that the resort was basically garbage (it was not, it was lovely) unless you upgraded to the “Privileged” section for $175 USD per person for the week. This is a tactic I had not previously witnessed on all-inclusive trips; the segregating of guests within the resort through a multi-tiered privilege system — other than the hierarchy of rooms which are politely hidden away out of sight, behind closed doors. Touche, resorts, for finding a system that works to seize the chunk of many travellers’ money that would otherwise go to excursions.

We had implicitly agreed to “go with our guts” and make the decision when checking in, although it was never really a question that we would upgrade. Some of the perks were useful (24h room service!!) and some not (10% off massage — I was never paying extra for a massage). But we were mostly in it for the slightly better room and separate beach area and bar. With that final expense out of the way, we were at a total of around $1650 CAD per person.

The value of an all-inclusive vacation can’t be topped, gauche as such vacations may be. The joy of not having to worry about meting out your cash bit by bit, instead being challenged to indulge as much as possible at some of the nicest meals you’ll eat this year, cannot be overstated. Still, we couldn’t shake the feeling that some extra costs were going to be jammed in where we didn’t expect them. Every bite of our room service breakfasts was eaten cautiously, as we anticipated some sort of misunderstanding bill at check-out time, at which point our reticence to eat the food would help our case.

In order to make up for the guilt of shelling out for this trip, and to allay the unseen costs we were sure would materialize, we decided to do nothing but eat, drink, and lay on cabanas for the entire trip, much to the dismay of anyone we encountered who wanted some kind of story about what we were planning to do on vacation.

After answering in the affirmative that you are going down south for most of the year, the follow-up question is, Are you are planning on doing any excursions? Catamaran? Dolphin swim? Horse-back riding? No, nothing? No, nothing. We chose to front-load the cost of the vacation and enjoy every inch of the resort rather than jetting off on a multi-hulled vessel to some broke-ass island with a catered lunch. Last time I checked, lunch was free at multiple venues on the resort, suckers!

Our tipping strategy was equal parts pragmatic and altruistic. We wanted to ensure steady drink service and we wanted to be decent. We left five dollar tips on top of our mini-bar every other day, a pointed gesture by which we never managed to be sufficiently embarrassed. I hope there is a Dominican Republic-based Tumblr account called “Shit Tourists Try To Write” or something to that effect, with our note asking for “mas agua por favor” on it. “Walk to the bar 20 yards away, idiots,” could be the caption.

The rest of the incidental cash went to rotating tips between our servers and bartenders, and one enterprising jewelry salesman that quite literally took us for all we were worth on the last night of the trip.

Our shuttle guide’s spiel on the way to the airport was a far cry from his counterpart’s. Instead of advice on how to enjoy paradise, all he had were customs cards for us to fill out, and not enough pens. As we approached the airport he did offer one gem: “You want to come back next week? Buy a lottery ticket.”

After deplaning in Halifax, our plan to be driven home by a relative got derailed when the vehicle broke down. The final cost of the trip was a $75 cab ride, simply because the next cab in line was a minivan and not a sedan, which jacked it from the usual rate of $60. This was the Fuck It phase where extra costs cease to be painful and fall into the category of We’ll Work It Out Later.

I can’t provide a final total for all these costs because one has never been, and at this point won’t ever be, taken. Why self-flagellate any more than necessary? Some of the spending decisions were wise, some not. We wholeheartedly stood behind our decision to upgrade the package at the last minute.

Taking vacation in late April had been a strategic move; you come home to a smooth transition to spring, followed by summer season, which in Canadian culture is pretty much openly acknowledged as when real life happens. The distractions of holiday season get you to January, then it’s hell-tundra for awhile until the countdown begins again. The purpose of an all-inclusive trip is to cram all the luxury you don’t get year-round into that one week that you spend all year working for, to get you through the winter until you can start thinking about going away again.

A few weeks after returning to my normal life post-trip, I realized I was doing it backwards. Instead of feeling sated from a week of relative luxury, I was wondering why I couldn’t have Prosecco and tapas whenever I wanted. Or a Mai Tai followed by an espresso or whatever else I wanted in that moment. On vacation, the stakes for ordering food and drinks had been the lowest they had ever been in my life, and that stuck with me. Through a week of habit, I had subconsciously upgraded myself to a higher level of consumer than I was. I eventually shook off the misplaced feeling of entitlement, but it took a few weeks.

One habit that stayed with me after leaving Punta Cana though — the lottery tickets. I still buy those.

This story is part of our Travel Month series.

Alexandra MacRae is a writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Follow her on Twitter @alliejandra_m

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