As I'm writing this, it is about 25 degrees outside in CT. It's snowing with about 2 inches of snow on the ground. About 24 hours before this, I was in 85 degree weather with bright sunny skies, a fruity drink in my hand, a bathing suit on with the waves crashing at my feet! Oh how sweet life can be!
We are officially back from our 6 months late 7 day trip, wait, actually, 8 day, honeymoon trip to St. Lucia (more on the trip extension as you read). It was a very well deserved vacation from the cold weather, work and excellent way to start 2009!
We left from Kristin and Patrick's new home in Queens in the early hours of New Years Day after a great New Years Eve night of food, games and of course, drinks made by Patrick...the perfect send off party! We arrived in St. Lucia around 4 pm, about a 4 hour plane ride; then we had an hour ride across the island to our destination, Sandals La Toc Regency Spa and Resort, around 5 pm. The hour ride across the island was the most interesting part of the ENTIRE day! They drive on the opposite side of the road as well as drive on what is our passenger side. The roads are narrow, very windy with significant changes in elevation. And if you don't drive fast enough, the locals fly by you. It was quite interesting on some of these turns at about a 90 degree turn, to actually watch people pass us by, with oncoming traffic!
Upon our arrival, the weather was slightly cloudy with a light drizzle. We went to bed early that night, exhausted from the day of travel and sitting on my butt. I prayed to my grandfather that night that the weather would be heavenly in the AM....
Well, the weather was not heavenly. All day Friday, it rained on and off with very cloudy skies; the rain wasn't heavy, just made it cold to lay on a beach chair and read a book. So instead of laying on the beach, Matt parked in butt at the swim up bar and we befriended a couple from New Orleans, Megan and John. Well, Matt and John decided that after a few fruity mixed drinks, that they would try and conquer "the board." "The Board" is a list of popular drink requests that they make. To sum it up, Matt had about 8 of these drinks in approximately 2 hours. This does not include the drinks he had before they started on "the board." Needless to say, I was starving at this point and asked Matt to get out of the pool to come eat lunch. He stumbled out of the pool with that glassy look in his eyes...he was drunk. We ate lunch @ the buffet and as we ate, I think I repeated myself within our short conversation a few times because Matt had no attention span. After lunch, it was drizzling so we walked over to our room and Matt literally passed out on the bed in a fetal position. He woke up 3 hours later and he promised to not try and conquer the board anymore. I said something about lunch and he looked at me with a blank stare and asked, "What did I eat for lunch?" Yup, that's my husband. Later on that night, we found out that John actually got sick and was sleeping in the tub of his room for a while. What a way to kick off vacation!!!
Again, I went to bed that night, praying to the heavens above for some fun in the sun. I went to bed that night, dreaming of floating in the pool with my sunglasses on and my Malibu BayBreeze in my hand. When I opened the curtains on Saturday morning, it was the same old story. Rain, clouds and minimal sun : ( I think Matt could sense I was ready to kill someone at this point. I was optomistic; I lathered myself in sunscreen, put on my bathing suit and cover up with my sandals, packed my UA bag with books and magazines, took the umbrella from the room and headed to breakfast. As we sat in the Pavillion, it started to downpour. It was unreal. I really thought someone from above was trying to punish me for something. Anyway, when it stopped raining, we claimed some chairs near the pool. I really refused to move at this point, even if it started to rain again. I guess you can say I was trying to put up a fight with the weather gods. After a few small little showers, the sun started to pier through the clouds after lunchtime. It didn't rain the rest of the day, which was a win to me!
I went to bed that night, confident that the next day would cooperate with me and did it ever! Everyday after that, the sun shined about 90% of the day. On average, St. Lucia gets an inch of rain a day. It wasn't unlikely to get some rain or drizzle at some point during the day. Laying there on a beach chair, it was somewhat refreshing when the hot sun was beating down on you for a while. It reminded me of when we were kids and you'd run through the sprinkler to cool off. The weather was absolutely perfect for the rest of the vacation.
Matt and I also made friends with an awesome couple from Indiana, Ian and Meghan. They were on the flight with us down to St. Lucia and experienced that crazy drive across the island after we landed. Not to embarrass Ian or anything, but he could seriously pass as Peyton Manning! I said something to Megan one of the days we were laying out on the chairs near the pool and she laughed, "He gets that ALOT." We all hit it off! We had dinner almost every night together with conversations recalling our days back in college, our weddings, how we met, our jobs...you know, the usual. We had a blast together people watching at the pool or the beach everyday; Matt and Ian usually had something funny to say about somebody.
Sunday night, Matt and I enjoyed a private 5 course dinner overlooking the beach, which was a wedding present from Diana. Oh my god, the food was amazing and actually normal American food size portions! The funniest part about the whole dinner was the salad. The salad was placed inside a bowl, made of what I thought was lettuce. So I cut into the bowl, took a bite...crunch...and immediately spit it back out. It was actually raw onion! I think I guzzled down my glass of champagne and water and still couldn't get the taste out of my mouth! Matt laughed at me the entire time as this little scene is going on. I didn't eat anymore of the salad after that!
On Monday morning, we all boarded a bus to one of St. Lucia's rainforests for a canopy tour to be Jane and Tarzan for the day. This sounds so childish but it was the coolest thing I've ever done in my life! It included 19 platforms and 12 ziplines, alot of hiking and alot of laughs, especially from me. On the video, you'll see how much I laugh and smile as I go down this zipline. Matt had the ability to hook my camera up to the harnass for videa. The views of the landscape were breathtakingly beautiful. While initating Jane, you had to remind yourself to look around and not necessarily infront of you or you'd miss out on the litte waterfalls, streams and huge trees. Again, absolutely AMAZING!
Wednesday, we had a couples massage....again, AMAZING. Matt has never had a massage and he was a little big nervous before it started. But after an hour of soothing music, tension reducing scents and a Swedish massage, Matt and I had gone to heaven and back. I looked over at Matt after it was all over and his words were, "I never knew it would feel that good." Yeah, apparently I don't do it for him : (
Now this is where the vacation gets interesting! Thursday our departure on AA 2018 was scheduled for 5:40 pm so we departured Sandals at 2 pm for our hour long trip back across the island. When we arrived at the airport, the line was rather long and didn't really seem to be moving. An American Airlines employee approached me and with a smile on my face says to me, "Did you know your flight has been cancalled?" I just looked and him and with a little laugh said, "Yeah." Like yeah, good joke. After a few minutes, I said to Matt that the guy had said something about our flight being cancelled but he seemed to be kidding. I took a stroll over to the board and in blinking red...
AA 2018 CANCELLED!
I couldn't believe it! We were there with Megan and Ian, as well as two other couples. We had no idea why the flight was cancelled, if something else would be coming in. So we stood online for about another hour and a half, playing out what we would say at the ticket counter and various situations that could arise. When we got to the counter, we found out that there were problems with the plane and our only option would be to fly out tomorrow....FABULOUS!
So now instead of a direct flight, we would have to fly into Miama and then JFK. But we couldn't fly into JFK because that flight was overbooked. So it was either LGA or Newark; obviously LGA. We were then informed that we would have to be back @ the airport when the counter opened @ 12:30 to ensure that we would get our flight to Miama...ok flight out @ 3:50...awesome! However, the greatest news ever was when the nice young lady at the ticket counter said this, " I've reserved seats for you in the emergency exit row for your flight up to Miama. I may lose my job for this but I bumped you up to Business class for your flight from Miama to New York." OMG...I wanted to jump over the counter and kiss this young lady. "Here are your vouchers for a cab to the hotel, back to the airport in the morning and a voucher for the hotel. You will be staying at Coconut Bay." Coconut Bay was a family all inclusive 10 minutes from the hotel. We walked into the hotel...this definitely was not the Regency. Our rooms was painted various colors with a run down couch, a very small chair and a bed that seemed to have a covering of plastic under it....oh yeah!
So to make a long story short, we finally left St. Lucia on Friday @ 3:50 PM, got into LGA @ 12 AM on Saturday; back in CT @ 2 AM. It was an extremely long day but lets put it this way...Matt and I will pay to fly First Class any day of the week. We got drinks as soon as we got on the plane, hot peanuts as a snack, burgers and salads, a large warm cookie, mints and a hot towel. This was in a 2 1/2 hour flight period! Absolutely AMAZING. Matt and I literally laughed with everything that came to us.
So to summarize it all, it was an absolutely AMAZING vacation. Unfortunately, reality is around the corner with an early morning wake up call tomorrow @ 5 AM...wippee!
