Greg & Tiffany's 1st Jamaica trip... Pure bliss with a side of rice & beans!

Okay... so TFW inspired me! Here is the start of my trip report! It is mine & Gary's first trip, so please excuse all the "OMG it was spectacular" or "Unbelievable" or "Pure bliss" .... I may have to use a thesaurus to come up with some other words. I have to pre-write it in word and then paste it, because if I don't do that I'll be all over the place. I wrote thru Day 2, and I noticed that I kept using the same above phrases. Hence my title! Thiss trip was pure bliss.... no doubt! It certainly made Gary & I realize that we have to spend time together as a couple... away from our kids, and reality. At first, we kept thinking how we could get our kids there, so they could experience what we were experiencing, but then I thought "Nope, Ima keep this place just for us... for now."

I am going to enjoy writing this, just please excuse me if I confuse you or if I'm too wordy. I really don't think words appropriately describe our feelings about our trip to Negril and the people we met.

Day 1…

Our day one started on a Friday. Granted we were only driving to ATL for the night to catch our plane the next day, but that began my time with my husband… and THAT is when my vacation started. The week leading up to our departure was pure misery for me. I was so nervous about leaving my kids, flying on a plane, going to a another country for the first time, and knowing what kind of luck I have that it couldn’t all go exactly right (and yes I was definitely right about that!).

Our drive to ATL was so nice. No kids in the car yelling at each other, no one needing to go to the bathroom, no one wanting to play on my iPhone (so I played with it the whole way up), no one but me and my Gary and Katie’s empty car seat in the back! It was a lovely ride. Apparently, the weekend we left was the hottest on record. ATL is a 3 hr drive for us, and the outside temp in my car never wavered off of 108 degrees! Unbelievable… It has to be cooler in Negril!

I booked a hotel in ATL that sits right next to the airport. This hotel had the cutest patio/restaurant on top so you could sit and watch the planes come and go. I needed to see this, because I wanted to make sure the folks that had my life in their hands knew what they were doing! It was called the Blue Sky Café, and this is where we had our first vacation dinner and a few beers (no Red Stripe, I was sad). Our waitress was such a sweetheart. I told her this was our first trip together in 15 yrs of marriage and she exclaimed that we (the café) needed to do something.... They certainly did. They created our own shot special. Ours, of course, was free, but it was the special for the moment. It was called The 15 Years Grapes of Wrath… no idea where the name came from. I personally think they could’ve done better!

Anyway, after dinner, we went back to our room, climbed into the Comfort Inn cozy bed... blah blah blah :o …. I set my Ziggy Marley alarm on the ole iPhone, and we went to sleep!

It really was a lovely day.

Sitting atop the Blue Sky Cafe
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Niceeeeeeee! When I first read the title I thought, dang someone's jacked our saying LOL

i'm here ready to read - always like newbie reports!
come with it!

Yay! Great start! More please!
Tiffany & Greg?? lol - I really look forward to reading about this transformation that occured in Negril!

P.S. "15 years grapes of wrath" hahaha yeah, they could have done better! But Hey... a free special shot to celebrate the start of your vacation is awesome! :cool:

Loving it already!!

I am soo looking forward to this! Great start...keep it rolling gal.

Great start for sure, looking forward to day 2, day 3..............................

I'll be watching for your next posts.

Peace,
Brynn - Islander

Ivan's Bar has these sayings hammered into the thatch.... this is my favorite because according to a a few folks I should be balled up in a corner some where rocking back & forth with all the hell I went thru as a kid (and I don't dwell, so I'm done with that bit of info)...
but this does say it all, and I am truly a happy person ;)
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Day Deuce....

Okay… on to JA! “Take Me to Jamaica” goes off at 7:00am! It was very easy to get up, because we knew we were going to a happy place! Yee haw! We had a mid-day flight, leaving at 12:10! We had our morning continental breakfast, got dressed, and were ready to get to the airport! I did, however, have a morning tidy of hydrocodone! I was a nervous wreck about flying, and I didn’t want to drink alcohol, so 15mls of hydrocodone works just as good :p

We had no idea about this new international terminal at ATL, and our plane was not leaving from there. So, do we go to the new terminal or not!? I called, the customer service person AT ATL says no… go to domestic… so we did! Guess what! We were supposed to go to the international terminal! Lucky for us, we got a nice guy who checked us in anyway. Now for the 2 hr wait!

Okay, so we board the Airtran, or as I call it, the Wal-Mart of airlines. Nothing fancy, but exactly what you need! Our seats were close to the back, but turned out to be just fine! I have flown ONE time in my life, and it was a pretty long time ago, so I might as well have been a born again flight virgin! This big metal thing taking me into the air… really, how does it stay!!!!!! I’m lucky to have a man who loves me enough to allow me to squeeze the circulation out of his hand, because that is what I did!

So we are flying, flying, and I look out the window, and I see cracks on my window! Holy freaking cow… “Gary why are there cracks on my window?” “Steph that is frost. We are way up in the sky, and it’s cold up here.” Okay… “Stewardess, beer please!” No, I didn’t, but I so wanted to!

At the airport & ready to go! I am so not a fan of self arm-stretching portraits!
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I apparently make this ridiculous face a couple of times during the trip...
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Can't you see where I might mistake these for cracks???
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Deuce to be con't... Landing in JA... ahhhhh what a feeling :cool:

GREG!!!! lol

I always fly out of Atlanta...about an hour from my house. I need to check out the blue sky cafe....looks like a nice place to chill.