Amber Cove, DR

We have another stop, but it’s a beach day in Amber Cove,

Dominican Republic.  So, we don’t have to try too hard.  We head off the ship and walk out to Amber Cove which has pools, ziplining, shops and private cabanas, but no beaches that we can find.  When we realize that the water in the pool and kid’s area is

My son's the white Michigander chasing after Isabel from Florida

chlorinated and not salt, well it cinches where we’re going to spend the day because Oscar has to wear his goggles in saltwater.  I know saltwater doesn’t feel good in your eyes, but he yelps and cries like someone has put a red hot poker in his eye.  The pool has

 a swim up bar and a lazy river and I ensconce myself in a shaded lounger to watch Oscar play in the kid’s area.  I don’t think that I can handle anymore sun and while we’re on that subject, a word about sunscreen.  I understand that the cool spray stuff that was 

 easy to put on and just soaked right in is now killing the coral and most likely us too, but can I say that the zinc oxide is a pain?  It doesn’t soak in, it doesn’t glide on, it’s a sticky white mess and John has white splotches in his ears from it, I look even whiter than I normally am when I put it on

 and it makes it impossible to shave your legs.  Yes, I have had to time shaving my legs for days that I have not put sunscreen on them in order to not clog up the razor to hell and back.  Can’t they put some sort of massage lotion or oil accent in that stuff to make it glide on easier?  There were already excursions on the boat that said that you had to have Caribbean approved sunscreen with you because you would be snorkeling.  So, it’s coming for all of you and you all will have

     the same problems with it, we did.  The pain in the ass aspect aside, the sun don’t get through that stuff.  I’m as white as I was when I left Michigan and that’s with 14 days in Florida, a week in the Caribbean.  I’ll get home and people will wonder if I really went where I said I did.  Oscar

 finds his friend, Isabel, and they play together to the point where she cries when he leaves to go to the pool and we take her with us in exchange for her mother watching all of our stuff.  But then, Oscar and Isabel have a fight and I’m left without a way to handle a kid fight.  Isabel wanted him to do 

 something a certain way and he didn’t want to so he got angry and told her that he didn’t want to be friends anymore, which to a 4 year old is the equivalent of cutting their heart out apparently.  It’s been several hours in the sun playing and they’re both probably tired and hungry, so I decide to head 

 back, butcan’t seem to make it happen fast enough to make sure Oscar doesn’t say something else mean.  They finally hug it out and we get some snacks and walk through the shopping part of the port.  Find the beach that was hidden behind the taxi building.  There’s a passport place and John gets our passports stamped after going back on the boat to get them.  At least the stamps only say “Puerto Plata” DR, because I think that this little pool haven hardly counts as having visited the Dominican Republic.