Resort Fitness in Dominican Republic

To answer questions about the teaching vacation programs, Lisa Ownes staff at Fit Bodies, is taking a tour through their

Lisa Ownes - Fit Bodies Staff

contracted Dominican Republic Resorts. While making this tour, teaching at various resorts, and meeting management staff, Lisa is collecting pictures, video and writing a blog to share and answer questions along the way.

This is a guest post of one of those blogs from yesterday… To follow her blog in full, log into your Fitness Pro Travel account and search for Fitness Instructor Lisa Owens. Her account blog has the full story.

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Sanctuary grace to Dreams Punta Cana excitement

Yesterday we moved from Secrets Sanctuary relative solitude and grace to excitement and socialization of Dreams Punta Cana

It’s true; I am traveling just like any of you fitness professionals would be traveling. Yesterday Secrets Sanctuary went from 30% occupancy to 100% occupancy and my room was needed. I was Bumped. Bummer? Nah. But I did offer to stay and sleep on my balcony!

I was told we are going to be moved to another resort just before my 9:30am yoga class. As a guest instructor, I understood this can happen anytime, although it is rare, and in the spirit of business we should are glad the resorts have so many guests. In a way, we feel the resort’s max capacity should mean they need more fitness instructors, but alas there are only so many rooms to go around. Chad and I packed up our things, ate a wonderful lunch and said good bye to my new friends. Tony is a member of the Activities staff who is very motivating and fit. He conducts the morning power-walks and also the aqua aerobics. If you teach here and offer aqua classes I’m sure your skills will be appreciated and this class is at 11:30 or noon. His class encourages friendship and conversation among the pool people, like myself, and I appreciate this.

Here we are, now at Dreams Punta Cana where Mr. Jose Tolentino personally greeted us with big smile. This is someone who I correspond with on a regular basis and so to meet him, put an official face and voice to his email signatures is especially meaningful to me. A cold drink and towel welcome us after the 55-minute ride from Cap Cana to Dreams Punta Cana.

This resort is way big. Over 650 rooms, and all of them are next to the pool, which the rooms basically surround with the ocean at the end. Here there are couples, families with young and older kids, groups of friends, singles and senior citizens. They manage to keep everyone happy! Despite the size, I feel personal attention from the housekeepers to the restaurant service. They are almost always smiling, to resort guests and to one another. I think the staff at Sanctuary is absolutely top notch but here at Dreams Punta Cana they must have written the manual on resort hospitality.

Last night I saw the best resort entertainment I have ever seen. Dreams Punta Cana is an exciting, activity filled resort and their entertainers are absolutely top notch, coming from a dance or gymnast background and work very hard, practicing from 11a.m. to at least 6p.m. everyday. This does not even include the time they spend performing. I have so much respect for them.

The classes here are only 30 minutes long, so prepare to teach more often, but shorter classes. The guest fitness pros teach 4 thirty-minute classes and Mr. Tolentino wants pros to offer multiple formats. Being I only teach yoga, I am an exception to this rule. For all your classes, they are happy to hook your Ipod up to their beach sound system. I sign off for the moment to teach the 10 a.m. class and then Mr. Tolentino is taking us on a tour of Zoetry Agua. This is what I have been waiting for and I am very anxious to see the resort. You can rest assured I will have a detailed report about Zoetry Agua this evening.