Christmas Day was glorious. We were all well, enjoyed opening gifts, sipping coffee, and eating good food.
Then Saturday hits and my sister gets sick. Hers was so bad that after 36 hours of it, she opted for the ER. Two bags of fluid and a nausea shot later, she was on the mend. My mom and Aunt came down on Saturday and managed to avoid getting sick right away.
After all this sickness, Pat and I flew to Jamaica to celebrate our sixth anniversary on the beaches of Sandals Whitehouse.
All I wanted to do was literally sleep. On the beach. But still, sleep. Our flight in was quick and painless, of course after a 90 minute delay due to someone forgetting to sign maintenance paperwork. Going through customs and immigration was pretty easy, no luggage issues, and we got onto our resort bus very quickly.The drive to the resort was about 2 hours long due to traffic and mountainous terrain. Driving through the Jamaican mountains and seeing how the natives live made me really appreciate how lucky we are to live in such a nice home with well maintained, level roads without goats tied to the trees. About 30 minutes into the trip I just had to shut my eyes. They drive 80 mph around very sharp turns and there are no separating lines in the road. The cars literally drive in the middle of the road straight toward each other until they're 10 yards away from crashing, and then they move over.
Finally, we pull into the resort and are whisked away to the welcome center where they can't find our reservation. I tell them we have confirmation codes in our emails, but they won't let us on their wifi because we're not technically "guests" yet. It was an hour of straight up panic. What it came down to is that for an hour they were looking up "Cummings" and not "Clancy". MINOR heart attack. Once we were checked in and shown to our room we immediately bolted for food.
The best thing about Sandals is that it's all-inclusive. I love not having to carry around a purse or credit card or cash. They don't accept tips, so it's just show up and eat/drink/do activities. All you have to do is give your name and room number. There were 7 restaurants and we ate at all of them at one point or another throughout our stay. My favorite was "Cafe de Paris" which was essentially a desserterie. All sorts of desserts, changed daily. There was a crepe bar and coffee bar, and their frappucinos were literally better than Starbucks. Don't ask how many I had.
We opted out of doing excursions due to the extra cost but mainly because you can't sleep and go on excursions. Like I said, my goal was SLEEP. Each day, however, we tried something in an effort to cool off from sun bathing. First day we did a tube ride behind a boat. It was fun, but my eyes were closed for most of it because of the massive amounts of salt water being sprayed in my eyes (sunglasses would've helped). The second day we tried Paddleboarding. It was both of our very first times trying this. Sandals has photographers all over the place capturing sweet candid and posed moments, trying to lure you in to purchasing memories from your trip at a disgusting price. Well of course the photographers just happen to be snapping away at our Paddleboarding experience. Me? I did ok. Got up, stayed up. Pat? Well. I won't get into too much detail
Our anniversary is New Years Eve. That was the first full day we spent at the resort. The resort workers spent every waking moment getting things set up for the festivities of ringing in the New Year. Stages, rafters, red carpets, photo sets, bands, dancers, the whole shabang. So, you can imagine everyone was anticipating something beyond their wildest dreams. The theme of the evening was The Great Gatsby. Pretty much every vacationer was dressed to the nines. You walk in on the red carpet, have your picture made, then have these acrobats hanging upside down pour you your first glass of champagne. I was impressed. Then all 7 restaurants have majorly impressive buffets. You grab a plate and fill it up with anything ranging from grilled lobster to lasagna to lo mein. Tables were set up on the outside patio of the pool. I think we both had at least 2 full plates of food. And then there was the dessert buffet. Amazing pudding concoction in a martini glass with all kinds of delicious fruit and chocolate shavings.
An interesting singer/karaoke person started off the evening during dinner. He wasn't very good but it was music. After he finished, toward dessert time, a Sandals band takes the stage. Worse than the karaoke singer. I mean bad. Then the Sandals dancers take the stage and do a tribute to all the major countries and their dances - they were decent. Then the Sandals band takes the stage again, and it appeared they were the headliners until midnight. I kid you not, 80% of the people were sitting in chairs staring at them. The other 20% either were too wasted to notice or had meandered off elsewhere. We TRIED to get in to it, tried to dance to a few songs, to no avail. We ended up leaving the "party" around 11:30 and finished the evening on our balcony. Fireworks went off at midnight, and most people were celebrating from their balconies as well.
On our final evening we went by the photography shop to view all of our photos. I was really hoping for a few good shots, especially one of Pat mid-fall into the ocean from his board. No such luck. We had 2 pictures we liked, but it would cost $16 per picture to burn it to a CD. I think I need to be a Sandals photographer. Needless to say, we did not make the purchase. Therefore, this blog post is photo-free. I didn't bring my camera and my phone was only turned on twice daily to check in with my sister and mom on how the boys were doing.
After our final meal, we enjoyed an evening at the piano bar where several Sandals workers jammed out together and sang. It was amazing. They are such talented people who love to have fun with the vacationers. One of the things I love about Sandals is that their employees seem to genuinely love their job. I mean, they live on the resort so how could you NOT love it? They always seem to be having a good time regardless of their assignment for the day.
Thankfully our trip home was seamless. The drive to the airport was short with no traffic, and the flight home was not delayed. It was so nice to see our boys, they were excited to see us as well. Finn told us repeatedly how much he loved and missed us.
My sister was a great replacement parent while we were away, my mom said she parented just like I would've.
She experienced her challenges, but also appreciated the opportunity to bond with each boy. I'm so lucky that she, my mom and Aunt were all able to be there together. Unfortunately the sickness plagued my mom and Aunt while we were away as well.
Magena flew back to California Tuesday morning, but we got to spend a few hours out on Monday evening just the two of us. This is what we did:
Pat and I decided our next trip will be to Beaches, which is the family resort version of Sandals in Turks & Caicos once the boys are old enough to appreciate it but young enough to still want to vacation with us. That'll give us ample time to start saving!
I'm enjoying a week of January with a slight tan, and fondly remembering my days sleeping on the warm beach! Now, back to it...
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