Well, here it is. One month after my
Supremely Fancy Jamaica Vacation and I am still so overwhelmed I
can't even begin to write about it. I noticed this same phenomenon
after last year's Vacation of Awesomeness to the British Virgin
Islands.
Maybe it is the beautiful blue ocean.
Or the familiar yet foreign accents. Or the miniature water related
traumas...
Anyway.
I have been reading over my notes and I
am going to give it a go. My posts may be a little erratic. Some may
include info and stories from both vacations. I promise you there
will be vomiting.
Sorry.
The Supremely Fancy Jamaica Vacation
(SFJV) was a year in the making. A year plus five or sixish. You see,
this was our first Dinner Club vacation. (Several years ago, a mutual
friend thought it would be fun to get together every couple months
for dinner as a way to keep in touch. We all had kids at home and it
sounded like a good idea.
Dinner Club - from left to right: Friends since Brownie Scout Leading, Rob and me, Nebraska Fans, Fireman and our Founder! |
No one warned me that five years later I
would have six very good friends and find myself being served cake by
the side of a crystal clear swimming pool while a Romanian
Octogenarian modeled the latest in Speedo fashion.)
But I digress.
The SFJV was set for November –
nicely cushioned between hurricane season and resort season. The
Iberostar Grand Rose Hall resort was chosen for its previous history
of impressing two of our dinner club members, their adults only
policy and the Dirty Bananas – more on that later.
(It should be
noted that Dinner Club is essentially an empty-nester club now.) The
flurry of planning emails makes Hilary's message problems look like
grade school note passing. Suffice it to say, it is not easy coordinating four couples, all of whom work, even though some of
them are retired, causing a question of mental stability by some of
the other members of the club. But thanks to the perseverance of
our founding member, a kindly travel agent and approximately 100
overtime shifts, I found myself standing at the Southwest Airline
check in at 0530 on a November Saturday.
Let it be noted that there is NO ONE at
the Southwest Airline check in at 0530. No one except other Midwest
travelers praying to get the heck out of the first wave of cold
arctic air. The first guy to arrive was a TSA agent, who promptly set
off the security alarms. Using his embarrassment to our advantage we
made it through the gates in time to grab primo spots at the
Dunkin'Donut shop inside the terminal. (At one time Lambert Field in
St. Louis was a busy hub airport. Now it is sadly quiet and even
though there are numerous food service spots, it seems that at 05:50,
Dunkin'Donut is the only one to still care about the nutritional
requirements of their travelers.)
Now, a few thoughts on air travel:
Can anyone tell me what Southwest has
against assigning seats?
Maybe it's the German in me but come
on! It is just plain old laziness on the airline's part for using
that ridiculous A-B-C nonsense. Oh sure, it works great when your
travel agent comes through and gets you in the A group of single
digits. But when the same travel agent gets you in the triple digit D
group...well, lets just say there is now a new travel game called –
Let's Get the Flight Attendent to Pass Various Magazines, Earbuds and
Pre-purchased Snacks to the Man in Row 43B. I mean 42B. Sorry...
I will NEVER travel without my newly
purchased neck pillow with removable, washable cover because that
thing touched EVERYTHING on the return trip.
And along those lines:
Sleeping passengers DO NOT NEED
peanuts. Neither does that poor guy in Row 43B.
Evian Pure Mineral Water Facial Spray
really is refreshing. And a super fun way to spritz your travel
companions in the face with a fine water mist.
The lack of non-stop flights seems to
be fueled by a secret agreement with Starbucks, who conveniently has
it's kiosk set up as the first stop outside the air-bridge, just past
the bathroom.
And finally, I don't really have to sit
in the window seat. But I am going to lean across your lap to stare
out the window when there are interesting sites to be seen – such
as the Seven Mile Bridge and Cuba.
See that dark line, just at the horizon between the blue sky and clouds? That's Cuba! |
Sorry Rob.
Not sorry.
Our flights were actually quite nice
and we arrived in Montego Bay to this beautiful sight.
Makes getting up before you go to bed completely worth it! |
Immigration was another story.
The Montego Bay airport has these super
effecient auto-immigration machines which require you to slide your
passport into a slot and stand back while the machine takes your
photo and compares it to the passport pic. Naturally, being the
current owner of the World's Worse Passport Picture, I managed to
break the machine and immediately got the message 'PLEASE SEE AN
AGENT' which is always a little unnerving. Those immigration people
have NO sense of humor. Of course my heinous picture was enough
distraction to allow our other travelers to immigrate through
unscathed.
Montego Bay offers the 'MoBay Club'
for air travelers. This service is available on arrival as well as
departure and allows you access to a quiet, well air-conditioned place
to relax, get some complimentary snacks and slide through immigration
quickly. We opted to only use this service on departure as we knew we
would be waiting several hours for our flight home. The cost was
around $30 per person and well worth the price. (The cost for arrival
and departure was around $75 per person. Depending on your arrival
time it might be worth it to line jump in immigration. But we made it
through without in about 30-45 minutes.)
Our bus ride to the
hotel was pleasant, if you can get past the fact that the steering
wheel is on the WRONG side. The gear shift is on the WRONG side. And
all the cars are on the WRONG side. Every time we turned into oncoming
traffic my foot went through the floor and I waited for my life to
pass before my eyes. Instead, I saw a panoramic view of the ocean on
my left and the hills of Jamaica on my right.
These terraced gardens great you as you arrive at Iberostar. In the distance is a grand old plantation house. |
We arrived at
Iberostar around noon.
Bellman met the
bus, unloaded our luggage and delivered to our rooms as we checked in
and sipped welcome mimosas. This is also where they 'tag' you.
Did I mention this
was my first trip to an All-Inclusive resort? I had not considered
how they kept track of who was a guest and who wasn't. I just assumed
they had a highly evolved facial recognition system.
Nope.
We received clear
bands with stars.
Much fancier than
the sister resorts, further down the beach. Sister resorts who were
NOT allowed on our much fancier beach, yet had to endure our
considerable strutting as we hiked down the lesser beaches to the
scuba shop.
Just one view of our exclusive fancy beach. (photo by our Fireman) |
(Truthfully, the
only difference was the fact that our resort was adults only. Which
meant that our pool was crystal clear while the other pools were a
little more...sandy...)
And speaking of
Scuba shops...
Set your alarms and
come back next week for:
Laura vs King
Neptune or Why Does the Ocean Hate me So!
Because I had to
set MY alarm, while ON VACATION, in order to experience
this...experience.
Upcoming posts will include:
I Get a BUTLER with that?
Coffee, it's calling me home.
PIRATES!
Catamaran, Shmatamaran!
As always – these are not
sponsored posts. The opinions are strictly mine. This is not to say I
couldn't be persuaded to make an all expenses paid, return trip for
actual promotion purposes.
Please click on this link: http://iberostargrandhotel.com/ for more information on the fabulous Iberostar Resort.