"C" is for Caribbean

 We took a "babymoon" to the Caribbean in September to enjoy some quiet time together before Clare arrives.  We stayed at Secrets St. James in Montego Bay, Jamaica for almost a week, and it was really nice to get away.  We had everything we needed at the resort, so we spent our time sleeping, eating, laying at the pool/beach, reading, snorkeling, and sailing.  John also found a lot of time to play beach volleyball.  I was an excellent cheerleader.

There was a little concierge-type lounge near the main lobby of our hotel, and we made good use of it between meals.  If we didn't feel like walking down to the restaurants, we could make a meal out of the food there.  I felt like I was a bit of a waste at an all-inclusive resort, but John did enough drinking for the both of us.  He also got a kick out of the Jamaican paper, which was a copy (literally) of several other papers folded together.

John also enjoyed teasing the fish outside our hotel.  He doesn't even have any food, but they always reacted like this.

It rained several days while we were there, but that didn't stop us from reading books on the patio.  It didn't really matter to us where we relaxed, as long as we didn't have to chase a toddler around.  (Thanks, Grammy & PawPaw, for keeping Tully while we vacationed!)  John also captured some beautiful sunsets when it wasn't raining.

Funny story on the second to last day of our trip--I wanted to print our boarding passes to skip the lines at the airport because we only had carry-on luggage.  I tried to log in to the computers in the main lobby, but they make you use one wi-fi username and password for the entire stay, and it only works on one device at a time.  As much as I love Apple products, especially my iPhone, it didn't allow me to log off of the wi-fi even if I disabled the wi-fi and turned off the phone completely.  The only way to log off of the account was to wait 24 hours until it automatically kicked the phone out of the system.  I tried explaining this to the lady at the front desk and kindly asked her to use another wi-fi account to access the main computers in the lobby.  Clearly I cannot print from my iPhone, and I'm thinking to myself--shouldn't they have one account for ANYONE to use at those main computers??!!  Anyway, she told me I could call the internet cafe for help.  This wasn't the type of resort where you get told to figure it out yourself.  They are VERY service oriented, and I was shocked she didn't offer to just print our passes out quickly from her computer.  Printing our boarding passes seemed like a simple enough request to me.  Anyway, the lady's lack of helpfulness combined with my pregnancy hormones resulted in me asking John to take care of it while I stormed off to the room and viciously texted my mom (from my iPhone that was still obviously connected to the wi-fi...ha!).  I was telling my mom how I was going to need the address so I could write a letter when I got home.  She listened to me vent, asked for the resort info, and then I put my phone on the charger while I took a nap.  I didn't get any further texts from her or John because the wi-fi only worked from the balcony in our room, and my phone was charging inside.  Next thing I know, John is back in the room telling me the general manager was in the lobby helping him, and the GM was there because John's mother-in-law had called.  He questioned/corrected the GM saying, "You mean my wife?"  GM: "No your MIL...in Oklahoma"  I checked my phone texts and sure enough my mom had called the hotel (honestly to get contact info for my letter writing campaign), but she ended up talking directly to the GM.  I'm sure John wanted to dig a hole and bury himself, but that's just how my mom rolls.  All I could do was laugh.  She knew we wanted a super-relaxing stress free vacation, and some biddy at the front desk couldn't take two seconds out of her day to help me.  Mama bear in full force.  It took some patience on John's end, but they eventually kicked his phone from the system, got him logged into the main lobby computer, added paper and toner from the neighboring resort to the printer, and printed those gosh darn boarding passes.  They also sent up an over-priced bottle of champagne as an apology.  Just what this pregnant lady wanted.  (Our neighbors thoroughly enjoyed it!)

So minus the boarding pass debacle, we had an excellent trip.  We will definitely be taking more kid-free trips as long as we have infants and toddlers.  Susan, a friend of mine from college, is a travel agent, and she helped up narrow down our options in the Caribbean.  We're thinking Turks and Caicos or Dominican Republic for our next trip.  Better start saving now! 

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