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Entertaining Babies Thru Teens

To further enhance the appeal to families, Punta Cana also extended the children's programs to handle every age from 4-months to late teens (joining Club Med Sandpiper in Florida, and Ixtapa in Mexico in offering that broad range). The Mini Club has been expanded to become the largest in the Club Med system worldwide, with separate sections for Baby (ages 4 to 23 months), Petit (ages 2-3 years), and Mini Clubs (ages 4-10 years) grouped around a fenced-in array of recreation areas, playgrounds, and a shallow water park. Those ages 11 to 17, meanwhile, get "The Lab," their own exclusive area to hangout in, alongside a skateboard and rollerblade park known as "The Ramp."

For kids, Punta Cana is one giant summer camp. Their days are filled with a variety of diversions, most of them outdoors, and focused on learning skills, whether it's circus tricks, mini tennis, cooking lessons, inline skating, sailing, or any number of other sports and activities. Kids get shunted indoors only during inclement weather, or, in the case of younger kids, to take naps. Unlike most summer camps, however, this one goes on year-round and is multilingual, so your English-speaking child will be exposed to French and Spanish, the language of the Dominican Republic, as well as the possibility of a smattering of other languages.

Older kids, ages 11 and up, are treated to a sense of independence. Divided into two groups, (11-13 and 14-17), they have access to a huge variety of sports, including the flying trapeze and supervised inline skating at the Ramp, as well as video and sound editing, theater, performance, dances, magic, film (shown outside the Lab), and more. They get a say in what they participate in and what they don't (though that doesn't extend to spending all day playing video games).

What About Mom and Dad?

All of this leaves time for parents to indulge in whatever interests them.

For years, I resisted going to any Club Med, believing, falsely, that I would be badgered into joining group activities, whether I wanted to or not. In fact, once I did go, I was immediately attracted to the international clientele and the easy opportunity to indulge in activities I loved, like tennis, snorkeling, and scuba diving, and to try out others without making a big commitment of time or money. It was at Club Med that I first learned windsurfing, inline skating, and sailing something larger than a Sunfish.

At Punta Cana, I hoped to add the flying trapeze to my dilettante's repertoire, but somehow on the days and times of the adult class I always seemed to end up with something else to do, whether it was a massage at the new spa, drinks and a chance to resurrect my college French with two people from Marseilles, or heading to the Mini Club to watch four year olds learn mini tennis, a variation on the teaching method that first exposed former world No. 1 Justine Henin to the game.