Honeymoon & Feline Report

Original post date 9/24/2008:

We're home from Jamaica and had a wonderful time. 

It seems like we were gone forever - we left on Monday morning and returned 8 days later (late Tuesday night). It sounds wrong to say this after spending 8 days in paradise, but Eric and I both agreed that 8 days might have been a wee bit too long. By the time we were packing up our stuff on Tuesday morning we were ready to be back in the US, where our iPhones worked (and didn't cost a ton), Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi tasted right, and we could have some good ol' American food. 

Here are the highlights....

* We used the last bit of my AA Miles to buy upgraded tickets, so we flew thru LGA on the way there, and the flight was pretty uneventful. The flight home was thru MIA and we both agreed that airport is a horrible, no fun place. No good food, messy/dirty, complicated, not organized, and just a mess. We had a 4 hour layover there, and between having to go thru customs, immigration, checking our bags back in, and  finding food, we ended up with about 60 minutes to spare, which I guess is not a bad thing. Anywho, will try and avoid that airport in the future.... :)

* Couples Swept Away is a wonderful resort and our room could not have been better. We'd signed up for the basic room (which was sans TV) but got upgraded thru our travel agent (not quite sure how that happened but we didn't argue) to a beachfront. Turns out that has a TV, and our patio door went straight out onto the beach. We were also almost equidistant from the two main areas in the resort - restaurants/pools/etc. Perfect! 

*  The TV came in handy for afternoon lounging as it seemed to rain each afternoon for between 30 minutes and 2 hours. And, Eric got sunburned pretty good on Wednesday so he stayed out of the sun for most of the day Thursday and part of Friday. I hung out on the patio and read a book, soaking in the Caribbean air!

* Finished New Moon and Breaking Dawn so I'm all caught up on the Stephenie Meyer series.

* We spent equal amounts of time in the Caribbean and in the pool (with a swim up bar!!).

* They had an internet cafe, and since we were an hour early (the island is on Eastern Time but doesn't adjust for daylight savings so we were effectively in Central Time) we popped in there each morning after breakfast. AND, the internet cafe was hyper air-conditioned.

* The food was AMAZING. There were two restaurants that you had to have reservations for - Lemongrass (Caribbean Thai, YUM!!), and Feathers (upscale dining). If I had to pick, I'd rate our two Feathers dinners (Lobster night and Surf & Turf) at the top but Lemongrass was a very close second. FABULOUS. And the other restaurants (buffet or restaurant/limited menu) were pretty good too. 

* My new favorite drink is a BBC - Bailey's, Banana (banana liquor?), and cocunut creme. YUMMY!!

* The service was even better than the food - amazing and felt odd to not tip

* We were given a free Couples Massage, and Eric had a straight-edge shave, I got a full-body exfoliation scrub, and got my hair french braided. 

* Our room was right next to where they held the beach weddings so we got a great view of each of the 10+ weddings held while we were there. I really enjoyed this! There were several weddings each day (except Sunday; the minister had to be at his own church that day) that varied in size from just the couple to one wedding of 30+ people. Eric ended up being the unofficial photographer for one of them as he started snapping pix with the big camera and then realized the couple had no photographer (just video). He took a ton of great shots that we'll be emailing to them and they were so appreciative!

* They drive like maniacs in Jamaica. It's disconcerting enough that they drive on the "wrong" side of the road, but they drive like crazy - passing people on the right, tailgating (I know I can be bad about this but NOTHING like Jamaican drivers), buzzing within inches of people/bicyclers on the side of the road...insane!

* we went over to Rick's Cafe for the evening on Saturday. Eric dove off a 50 foot cliff into the water, and after that we watched the 'professionals' who did the same from 100 feet or more up. We hung out there for sunset and it was pretty fun!

* we did the resort's Catamaran Cruise (also known as the booze cruise) and that was totally fun too. We weren't much into the booze aspect of it since we were headed home the next day, but seeing the island from that perspective was fun. 

* Met several fun couples who we visited with while we were there - tons of honeymooners!!

On a sad note, when we got home last night we found Tiki had passed away sometime between Monday night and when we got home (midnight Tuesday). He was 15 years old and had been moving very slow for the last 8 months or so, but was eating and drinking just fine. Well, when we talked to Eric's parents Tuesday night from the Miami airport they said he was looking bad but we weren't sure if that was just 'normal' or he had deteriorated. We came home to find him gone so Eric took care of that today. We're both a bit sad about it, but he had a long and wonderful life. Lightning and Hail were a bit wigged out by it but are calmed down now.