Trip Journal- Jan 30- Feb 13- Negril- by Newfiesub

[newfiesub]

Jamaica Trip Report
by Newfiesub

A little about us!

Trip date- Jan 30 – Feb 13- Negril- Fun Holiday Beach

We are a late 40ish couple living in a small town north of Barrie Ontario.
I have a small renovation company in the summer and I plow in the winter. The wife is in fine dinning and works at 2 restaurants.
Like most people we save all year so we can go away for 2 weeks every Feb. We have been to Mexico, Dom Rep and Cuba many times, but this was our first trip to Jamaica. We have stayed at 3,4&5 star resorts and are low maintenance tourists.
Al & Dar

Day 1- Mon Jan 30

So much for a clean start.

Woke @ 5am to 10' of snow and having a plow and contracts I had to go to work until 8.30. Work complete, we set off for Toronto, a 2 but with all this snow maybe a 3 hour drive. An uneventful drive other than the fact that we were finally on our way to Jamaica, or so we thought!!

Arrived in Toronto around noon and went to my moms for lunch and a little nap before checking into the sleep and fly. Between plowing and the trip to Toronto I had been driving for almost 7 hours and was already feeling fatigued and a power nap was needed. I didn't know at the time but I could have slept at moms for another 6 hours as I was soon to learn.

We arrived at the hotel around 2pm, checked in for the night of our return, and took the hotel shuttle to the airport. All this was very painless and went off without a hitch. I mention hitch because the next 16 hours were not fun to say the least.

End of chapter 1 Pictures sometime soon

[Rumrunner]

What happened??? Don't let us wait too long, please.

[yetta]

No kidding! Waiting for the next installment!!! Yeah, another report!!

[newfiesub]

Chapter 2
16 hours of nerve racking travel!

Arrived at the airport at around 2pm and tried to get one of those $2 carts to carry our luggage- insert $2 but it won't release the cart- go to another booth- insert $2 but it wont release the cart- look at the ole lady and said” I hope this isn't an indication of things to come. Finally, on the 3rd booth and $6, success, we now have a cart carrying our luggage.

Into the airport we go with our $6 cart and a big grin thinking this cart business is going to be the only hiccup of the day, yea right! After a short look see we find the Sunwing area for tickets and join the long line of what I hoped would be excited fellow passengers, but that was not to be. No sooner did we get in line a representative from Sunwing announces that our plane has been sent to Mexico to pick up passengers because their plane had some problems. We would only be delayed 3 hrs, our 5pm flight has been pushed ahead to 8pm but Sunwing was giving us a $10 voucher for supper, yip eee!! Now I'm not sure about any 1 else but the thought of spending from 2 till 8 in an airport is about as much fun as a tooth ache. Now there have been 2 hiccups since arriving at the airport, all in 15 minutes.

OK, now to find a place to rest for 5 hours, this is easier said than done. We walked around for half an hour and find an area at one end of the airport with lots of those seats that are bolted together. And there was no-one else around, perfect I thought. Not only was it a nice quiet place but out the window in front of us was a beautiful huge Air Delli aircraft, the one that has showers and bedrooms for the rich travelers. We are by ourselves so I turn 1 set of seats around so we can put our feet up and read or take a nap, not to be!! Just as I am falling into a nice sleep I hear a bunch of voices getting louder by the second and then it happened. That beautiful air plane was also delayed by a few hours and like us those people found our little piece of airport heaven and thought it a great place to set up shop. Just my luck, I can't find a cab when I need one. Kids yelling and jumping all over the seats and the adults oblivious to the kids. Can someone tell me why these people have to yell at each other in normal conversation, its beyond me the noise and it made the wife and I very uncomfortable. How dare we invade their space. The kids where bumping into me and the wife and I was about to explode. We decided to move, Jamaica seemed a lot more fun that jail for killing a few kids and their parents lol- not funny at the time.

The time now is around 4pm, 4 hours to go, or so I thought! We get our stuff together and start walking, looking for another place to parks our wary bones. On our quest for serenity we run into a couple whom we talked to in the line at the Sunwing counter. The guys says” hey did you hear the latest' the plane is delayed yet another hour and a half. I said he wasn't funny but low and behold we have now been pushed ahead until 9.30pm instead of our 5pm flight, o joy o bliss!! The cart issue when we arrived seems like a walk in the park lol.

I will spare you the rest of our airport experience only to say that after a couple more delays we took off from Toronto airport at 11.25pm, not the original 5pm and I am not a happy camper to say the least.

End of chapter 2

[Jim-Donna]

And the suspense
builds........

[Marko]

ugh.........mi had a charter flight like dat once from Boston...........left like at midnight
and there were a bunch of kids on Spring Break that made the flight.........different.....lol
and arrived in MoBay in da dark.........took about 5 minutes to clear immigrations and customs........
but der weren't many taxi's to get a ride from.......so mi and another guy paid $50 each to go to Negril........
and so wi are driving in da dark out to Negril and seeing a lot of dem kerosene lanterns lit..........
couldn't get one cold Red Stripe Beer if our life depended on it...lol..so wi drank warm Red Stripes....
mi got to Miss Mary's about 6AM and had to wait for her to wake up so wi could get a room..........
but that was the worse part of the vacation.......everything else rocked

Cool Runnings, Marko

[newfiesub]

once u get past the airports its all fun lol

[suzengrace]

Well, come on now...we want to hear more (LOL)

[newfiesub]

Chapter 3
Finally in Jamaica

One good thing about the flight was that it wasn't full so the wife and I had 3 seats each to lay down and I took full advantage of that little gift from Sunwing. I must have slept for over 2 hours because it felt like in no time we were landing in JAMAICA- yee haw.

The time now is 3am, get our luggage get thru customs and step out into the warm humid air I had been waiting a couple of months to experience. I guess because we were so late getting to Jamaica there were only 10 or so guys trying to sell us everything from weed to cocaine outside the airport. 10 or so polite no thank yous and we found our bus. We board the bus and are off to Negril, although still exhausted we am excited to be on our way to the resort.

I bought Canadian beer at the duty free before leaving Toronto and since the bus didn't have any I drank 6 Molson Canadian on the way. The bus is full and our first stop is at the Rui, everyone except us get off at that beautiful resort. My wife commented that she hoped our resort was as nice as this, now we've had a bad trip thus far and I couldn't bring myself to tell her that our resort may be a little less, how can I say, spectacular.

Anyway, we get to the resort and everything is closed. Go figure, its only 5.30 in the am. The security guard meets us out on the road and shows us to our room, we tip him 5 american, thank him, and assure him that “ANYTHING” I need I will buy from him. The time is now 5.50am. Lets recap- up at 5am Mon- arrive in hotel room at 5.50am Tue. The wife goes right to bed and I grab a beer and go out on the balcony to hopefully catch the sunrise, not to be, the sun doesn't rise there but sets in the evening. I drink my warm beer and do my immitation of Arnold SWartinegar in the movie Kindergarden Cop when he falls onto the bed after an exhausting day of chasing kids. O, yea, the wife hasn't said anything about the resort, she was just to tired to complain lol.

End of chapter 3

[newfiesub]

more come soon lol