Las Vegas to Punta Cana
Recapping an incredible two week run at the end of November, 2022
Late November to early December will go down as one of the craziest schedules I’ve encountered in my 37 years on this planet.
For anyone who’s never lived in the US, one of the greatest advantages is the two-day holiday that is Thanksgiving. It’s observed during the last full weekend in November, and it truly kicks off the season of “that’s a next year problem” in the working world.
I work at a startup so we literally can’t afford to allow that to happen, but the time off is still an absolute treat. In my past years in America, I’ve gone to Connecticut, to Toronto, or even to Winnipeg during Thanksgiving. But this year, it happened to nicely coincide with a good friend’s bachelor party, naturally it was happening in Vegas!
Stage 1: Las Vegas, NV
Most of the guys went for four nights, but in my old age and maturity (lol), I went for three nights and flew across the country on Black Friday (Nov. 25th) to meet 13 friends at Planet Hollywood on the Las Vegas Strip.
The trip - my 19th time to Vegas - was unbelievable. We enjoyed a couple nice dinners to toast the groom-to-be, laughed non-stop during an 18-hole round of golf where we decided to play two-man scrambles across the groups, and of course experienced the highs and lows of gambling in Sin City.
Golfing in Vegas is amazing. I will always vote for that as an option on future trips. Not only do we all love golf and it’s a fun way to explore the region, but it gets you away from the tables for at least five hours. That alone is guaranteed to save you money, regardless of the drinks cart bill. The groom’s brother found an unbelievable service that will cause us to never bring our clubs to Vegas again. For a flat fee, they covered the green fees, dropped off rental clubs to our hotel the night before, and picked them up the day after our round. This means that degenerate golfers like us could inspect our sticks, and more importantly, fill our bags with High Noons, White Claws, and IPAs before we even left for the course. The service also sent a limo bus to our hotel to transport us to the course and back!
Since 70% of the bachelor party forged their deep relationship on the golf course in Manitoba, it was really fun to re-kindle that on a completely new track.
Sunday was our final day as a team in Vegas, and boy did we make it count. It began with an 8:30am kickoff for Canada in the World Cup. My main connection with the groom actually began through soccer, so there were a good chunk of guys on the trip who were extremely passionate about Canada’s match in Qatar. We hauled our corpses out of bed and took cabs downtown to, what ended up being, our own private bar in the Sahara hotel. This resulted in one of the most fun 5 minutes of sports I’ve experienced. Less than 2 minutes into the game, Alfonso Davies heads home a goal for Canada and the 12 of us in attendance went ballistic. Not only were there no other patrons, but the entire staff had no clue what we were doing, especially since it was an NFL Sunday.
That launched us into a Sunday to remember. Canada got murdered 4-1, but that didn’t ruin our vibe. Shortly after the match ended, we found out our “reserved” cabana at the pool party at Sahara was non-existent, and the pool wasn’t even open!
We improvised by taking the high from the Canada lashing, and parlayed that into a booking at supposedly the best swim/sports party in Las Vegas – Stadium Swim.
Stadium Swim is the result of someone saying “why don’t we consider the interests of those guys who love gambling, sports, swimming, people (read: women) in bathing suits, and drinking?” This place was heaven and here’s a short video that I took.
We bet some NFL games, played some nearly-swim-up blackjack, filled our cabana with chicken fingers, nachos and beers, and had so much fun. The highlight was cheering like crazy when the Ravens covered our one bet while 9 of us were in the pool – we splashed and yelled and probably ruined the day for several other tourists. What a great way to spend the last day in the desert!
Stage 2 – Dominican Republic
I landed back in New York from Vegas on Monday afternoon (took the day off) and then had two busy days of work before packing back up to head to the Dominican Republic with Lynn on Thursday. My good friend and former Toronto roommate, Marc Henry, was getting married in Punta Cana, so it was great to travel somewhere warm in December and celebrate their wedding in style.
We stayed at an all-inclusive with tons of friends who were invited to the wedding, including Dan and Steve, plus a bunch of beauties from Winnipeg and Toronto who I hadn’t seen in a while. We spent time on the beach, in the pools, at the hotel bars, on the tennis courts, and most importantly in the sunshine. The wedding was at a gorgeous venue overlooking the ocean. We danced the night away to some traditional Dominican music, and then mixed in some University memories back on the resort by playing flip cup with ~20 wedding attendees!
What’s even more wild about this trip was that the wedding was on Saturday, December 3, and my company offsite was scheduled for Monday, December 5th through Thursday, December 8th…. also in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic!
So after four great nights at one resort, catching up with friends and celebrating an awesome wedding, I jumped in a cab on Monday morning and drove 40 minutes up the island to another resort for our offsite. Obviously it’s pretty amazing to have a company meeting in a tropical destination in December, and I still can’t believe that was “work”.
The way they structure the event is amazing. We do strategy sessions in the morning, then grab lunch, and head outside for afternoon team-building activities (one day was an obstacle course of carnival games on the beach, and one day was a water-park adventure and Tik Tok challenge). Then there’s a short break, where we usually just hang out in the pools and drink beers or fruity cocktails, before heading to dinner followed by some sort of night event.
It's both super inspiring to hear about the future plans for the company, but also exhausting from the late nights on the dance floor! Like last year, when we went to Mexico, it amazes me how well I get along with the 170+ co-workers I now have. Over the course of three nights, it was nothing but laughter, good food and drinks, and catching up with work friends. Oh, and karaoke plus hours of dancing and jumping (the last night was a dance party on the beach, which is basically a workout).
Needless to say, it was an amazing two-week run to head into late December. I was able to recover just in time to fly to England for the holidays. But that’s for another blog.
Thanks for reading,
Mike