Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 264

Chicago Tribune, Sunday, April 29, 1984 Section 12 15 Travel WhsnTlisEahamastSimi'isapaEty, it lasts all suisimsr. Join us "far including airfais. i ft In The Bahamas, summer- "(f) Kmo 5e narh i Hmo That'c iinor jt muiw UU1IV uiiiv. HVI I A ti i. i (Js.i? our yearly festival of rhythm, mood, spirit that lasts all summer long.

It's Junkanoo music, colorful costumes, Bahamian Food Festivals and beach parties. It's FreeportGrand Bahama from $279 4 Days3 Nights Includes round-trip airfare, hotel, airport transfers. (Good May 1-June 30.) NassauCable Beach Paradise Island Visitors return again and again because the action keeps getting hotter. Spectacular hotels featuring stunning shows and revues. Brand-new resorts.

Friendly people and crystal-clear water are about the only things that stay the same in NassauCable Beach Paradise Island. Ask your travel agent for specially moonlight cruises, Quadrille dancing, folklore perform- ances, craft exhibits and good times. Then slow down and relax on a sugar-white beach pnced summer vacation packages. Family Islands from $395 4 Days3 Nights Includes round-trip lifts or cool yourself in crystal-clear waters. Join the fun 4 airfare, and hotel.

(Good April 29-June 30.) See your Travel Agent. All packages are per person, double occupancy, and unless otherwise stated do not Include taxes and tips. Prices subject to change without notice. Freeport package operated by Flyfalre, Medallion, and in The Bahamas! r7 A MM Mils The prices alone are worth celebrating. 7)di ID) Ihomson Vacations, Family Island Package by Fly-(aire, Inc.

TMsyeaE cruise to Mexico ij i i i Soft landing at Med's new; resort By Horace Sutton PUNTA CANA, Dominican Repub-nc-we have resorts for singles, resorts for couples, rest resorts for the superannuated, resorts that burn off the flab and others that exercise the mind. And now the ultimate: a play-land on a foreign shore with its own airport, its own customs sniffers and its own immigration inspectors. This playpen with the unusual amenities is Club Med's outpost at Punta Cana, on the east shore of the Dominican Republic. When the three-hour-long tortuous bus ride from the capital, Santo Domingo. roved too wearisome, the Club and le Dominican Republic conspired to pave a mile-long strip of jungle that can take BAG Ills, turbo props of assorted shapes and any private jet short of Air Force One.

With San Juan, the busiest Caribbean terminal, less than an hour away, the club sat down with the Puerto Rican carrier, and arranged a schedule of shuttle flights that skip Santo Domingo and drop in at the new El Aeropuerto des Este. The vacationers are greeted at a terminal put together of stone and wood native to the area. A giant thatched roof of cana, the palm that grows all over Punta Cana, covers the hall. A smaller drop of thatch shades the tower. The sidewalks to the terminal are imprinted with birds' feet as if seagulls had paraded here when the cement was wet.

EL AEROPUERTO des Este Is a welcome relief from the daily tornado of tourists that blows through the aeropuerto of the west at Santo Domingo, where strip searching journalists is a popular sport. But that doesn't make the customs people, even at this sunswept outpost, much more friendly. They poke through toilet kits, unscrew bottles of prescription medicines, presumably looking for speed, coke and assorted uppers and downers. Curiously, they, brush past the ordinary bottles of aspirin, but peer suspiciously at antibiotics and other pills prescribed by physicians. Still, that is a small inconvenience compared to the zoo at Santo Domingo's airport, and once cleared, a crew of lightly clad smiling G.O.'s appears to nelp you claim a room and wrestle your baggage.

While it can offer its guests a private airport and customs and immigration formalities for the exclusive use of its members, Punta Cana, like other Club Med playgrounds, has no phones, no room service, no TV and no keys for guest rooms. Nor is there any tipping, and except in the shops, no cash changes hands. You stash your money in the bank and pay for drinks with beads. Once you plunk down the overall fee there are no extra charges for snorkeling, wind-surfing, sailing, archery, tennis, or even the madcap disco that explodes (every night at a seaside pavilion out of earshot of the sleeping quarters. For more cerebral types the Club provides a battery of computers in its Atari Computer With 14 machines and a cadre of patient instructors, it offers programs in everything from recordkeeping to language instructions.

PUNTA CANA opened two years ago on a 70-acre estate bordered by a sugar sand beach and a turquoise sea. Since then the horizon line has been made more interesting by an abandoned Italian freighter that ran aground on the reef, allegedly when its crew decided it would like to join a Bastille Day party the club was holding on the beach. Almost any afternoon here the quiet sea looks like a patchwork quilt of screaming colors as neophyte wind-surfers try mightily to pull up their sails and take off into the wind. The less energetic are supine on lounge chairs or sunk deep in the net hammocks slung between the palms. Far up the beach, out of eyeshot of everyone except the most dedicated voyeur, nudists take the sun in the, With Punta Cana in full swing, airport connections available by way of San Juan, and the immediate shuttle from almost any part of the country, Club Med is turning to other endeavors.

This summer it will open its fourth Mexican resort, this one at Guayamas on the Gulf of California. Its two- and three-story air-conditioned bungalows overlook two While fishing in the Sea of Cortez is going to be a big draw, the Club is putting in 30 tennis courts, half of them lit for night play. Before the next winter season descends it will open 450 beds on the rarely visited Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. Says Serge Trigano, the Club's chairman, it looks as Hawaii might have appeared 100 years ago. Without the missionaries.

News America Syndicate or the Caribbean 0 -fl 1 a-more attractive figure. pnnnnnnnpnsnaaa $200 off and free air from Chicago. Please send me Holland America's new brochure, which tells all about the exciting new Mexico and Caribbean 198485 season starting September 29 It also gives details on the Advance Purchase off all 7-day sailings, $400 off 14-day sailings I understand that Holland America will even cover my air fare on 7-day sailings. And besides enjoying the luxury of Holland America's Ocean Liner Service'" I'll also have my pick of the world's newest fleet of Ocean Liners" The ss Rotterdam, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Eastern Caribbean.The ms Nieuw Amsterdam, from Tampa to the Western Caribbean.

And the brand new ms Noordam, from San Francisco to Mexico. Please send my brochure quickly, the Advance Purchase Program is only good until September 1. Mail J) cr-iA 0. Molancl America Line, r.u. box 1 Trenton.

New Jersey 08650 Name Address. City, 0'- StateZip Travel Agent. 0f For reservations, see your travel agent. Per couple. Advance Purchase Program available for bookings on deposit by September 1.

1984. Ships'rcgis'ry: Netherlands Antilles. 1 1 3at rK'v a 1 Holland America to Mexico and the Caribbean 198485.