Fun in Jamaica, Man!

That's right, the Yagers took a trip to Jamaica last week! Why? Well, the original reason was because we have a credit card that accrues airline miles, but it has an annual fee, which just plain bothers us. (Credit card companies should be paying us to use their card, not the other way around!) So, we redeemed all our miles for two round-trip tickets to Jamaica! And it was a nice coincidence that our 3 year anniversary fell in the same month. ;)

We also got a last minute deal at one of the "Beaches" resorts in Negril, Jamaica. Beaches is owned by Sandals, but is more family-oriented and much cheaper. So we booked a 3 night stay at Beaches Sandy Bay in Negril.

But, because we redeemed airline miles for our plane tickets, and because American Airlines hates their loyal 10-year veteran customers, the logistics of this vacation were quite a bit squirrely: we flew out of CS on Monday, May 31st and flew to Dallas, then from Dallas to Miami. We had an overnight stay in Miami, all day Tuesday in Miami, and flew out of Miami at 8:00pm Tuesday to Jamaica. Our trip home went straight from Jamaica to Dallas, but again had an overnight stay, and then flew home to CS the next morning. Needless to say, I'm DONE with airline miles and being tied down to one airline company!

Now for the stories and details...

Miami, FL:
We arrived in Miami very late Monday night and caught the shuttle van to the Holiday Inn Express. The hotel was wonderful: clean, spacious rooms, comfy beds, and free breakfast. Since we had until 8:00pm Tuesday in Miami, we thought it would be fun to go to Miami Beach Tuesday and eat lunch and hang out there as a pre-cursor to Jamaica. And so our plan was to ride the public transportation buses to the beach. Oh my. What....interesting...people there are in Miami. We saw sign advertisements for homosexuals encouraging them to stay "negative" (from HIV), as well as many questionable characters. Big-time culture shock! Once we finally made it out to the "tourist" part of South Beach, we saw women dressed like hookers and men dressed like pimps, and no tourists. Everything was dirty and looked like "the bad part of town." We walked along the beach for a little while, but were then asked to leave by hotel staff. Not seeing any restaurants around within walking distance and genuinely concerned for our safety, we decided it would be much more fun to hang out inside the Miami airport than in Miami itself. Maybe it's because we didn't know where to go, but I'm not anxious to go back for quite awhile. But the airport was fun: we ate lunch and played games to pass the time.

Jamaica:
We arrived to Jamaica about 8:30pm (Central time). Once through customs, we waited in the very nice Sandals lounge for other passengers to arrive. Then they split us up by our resort locations and sent us along with our shuttle driver. Once our baggage was loaded up, the driver did something that we just were not expecting. (Keep in mind, we booked our stay at an all-inclusive resort, where everything was included from food, drinks, airport shuttle, etc.) He blocked the door and held out his hand and said to everyone "Give some money to Juta Tours" and would not let you pass until you had given something. I wished we had been fore-warned that people in Jamaica are not at all shy about asking for money! Anyways, we tipped the man and then arrived at our resort 1.5 hours later (the airport is that far away).

Once at our resort, it was paradise! We could order as much food and drinks as we wanted. The view from our room was very lovely. And the service staff was so kind and helpful. And the beach! It's so beautiful!! The water is turquoise and because we were in a kind of cove, there were no waves, just blue, still water. My favorite thing was lounging in the shade on the beach. So relaxing!! Michael water skiied 4 times and we did several other water activities: snorkeling, hobby cat, hydro bike, and kayak. We also played pool and ping-pong several times. And at this time of year, it's Jamaica's wet season, so one day it rained for about 20 minutes, and since we were already out by the beach, we decided to just go swim in the rain. It was a really cool experience!

And Beaches has a deal where you stay at one resort, but can play at all, so we rode over to the other Beaches resort a couple times to eat and play. The restaurants at the resorts are amazing! And the other resort had two big water slides that Michael rode about 20 times I think! It was a great vacation that really relaxed and recharged us.

On our way home:
We flew from Jamaica to Dallas and our good friends, Jonathan and Jessica, picked us up and let us stay the night at their place. The dinner and breakfast they made us was amazing! And it was really healthy too because they have completely revamped the groceries they buy. I plan to research a little more and see if there are some changes we would like to incorporate too. It was so great getting to catch up with them again! Thanks again for having us!!

We got home last Saturday morning and reunited with our very anxious pups and cats. Michael's mom was so kind as to care for all 5 of them for the week we were gone. She's a wonderfully generous woman!

Lessons Learned:
*Research the culture of the place you are going before you go there!
*All-inclusive doesn't always mean all-inclusive
*Airport food is a monopoly that will never be defeated. They've got you right where they want you.
*Don't redeem airline miles from American Airlines unless you like overnight stays
*Jamaica's beaches are paradise!