April 18-April 30, 2007
Jonathan & Nancy's Vacation Trip to the Caribbean Islands of St. Kitts & Nevis
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
We left home around 10:15 AM and headed towards the airport. We zipped into
Kaloko and picked up our good friend Alexa who is going to take care of our
car while we're gone. She dropped us at the airport and took the car back with
her. We were already checked in and had boarding passes for our Aloha flight
to Maui. We had a good 90 minutes to kill so we popped into the airport restaurant
where we were extorted for a sandwich which consisted of bread and meat. As
we sat at the restaurant, we saw our friends Ramana, Lakshmi, and Anita in line
for security. Ramana and I worked together back at Tandem in the early 90's
before he returned to Stanford to complete his PhD. He and his family were visiting
friends in Waimea and were on their way to Honolulu for a few says there before
returning to California. Ramana had called the day before and popped down to
the farm on Tuesday evening for a quick visit and catch-up. Aloha had three
flights all boarding at the same time, and it was less than organized. We found
the line for the Maui flight and easily found seats together at the rear of
the plane. The flight to Maui was a quick 18 minutes. We had a real lunch at
the airport restaurant in Maui and then checked in with American at the gate
after their LA flight departed. We still had three hours to kill and spent the
time reading. This is our first time flying on American in at least ten years.
We used to fly them a lot, but since I stopped college recruiting and traveling
in the Midwest, we've not flown them at all. The flight to Dallas is a two-class
767, but the First/Business cabin is similar to what United offers in its International
Business Class. The seat pitch is at least five feet and the seats have leg
rests. The only thing missing is personal entertainment. The flight offered
dinner and then a movie. We managed to catch a few winks before landing in Dallas.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
I'm not really sure where Thursday began for us. It was dark when we landed
at DFW and it was still dark when we took off about 90 minutes later. The
DFW airport seemed nice and well-marked, and not too many people at 5am. We
had to take a train to another terminal for our connection to Miami, but that
was easy and uneventful. There were more folks waiting at the gate for the
Miami flight, but it still wasn't bad. We boarded on time and were on our
way to Miami. On the way back, we'll be spending the night here at the Grand
Hyatt.
Miami airport is abysmal. It was crowded and dirty and in much disrepair. We were glad the layover there was short. We both snoozed a little on the flight to St. Kitts and had some food on the plane.
St. Kitts airport is small. Walking across the tarmac to the international arrivals was quite hot. We were just about first in line at immigration and through customs quickly. Our pre-arranged taxi driver was not there when we went out. He had told us he might not be there as there was supposed to be a cruise ship in town. We later learned we had just missed him. I guess we should have mentioned that we were not checking luggage. We taxied to the resort which is a few miles and were wide-eyed when we saw how large it is in comparison to anything around it.
Our room is quite nice with tile floors and a king-sized bed. I'm so happy that the hotel and resort chains are competing on bedding as ours has a down coverlet and lots of pillows. Our bathroom has a bidet but no instructions :. The room faces the mountains and if you ignore the bit of the lower floor roof, it has a nice view of a pond, the tennis courts and the sunset.
Friday, April 20, 2007
We were up around 9am or so and ventured down to the Calypso buffet for breakfast.
The temperature in the dining room was warm, and the buffet seemed to be running
out of just about everything. It was re-supplied, but you had to wait, and
it's not appealing to see so many empty dishes at a buffet. From here we headed
out to the beach and snagged a cabana and a couple of chaises. We were immediately
set upon by the beach vendors wanting to take our picture with a monkey, or
massage our feet, sell us jewelry, or offer us a conch shell. We were friendly
and firm with our statements of "no thank you" and "we're fine".
There are servers from the beach restaurant, Bohemia, that come out to the
beach, but it helps to flag one down when you see them. We had chicken strips
and a burger. After lunch I came back to the main building and bought a bottle
of Barbancourt Rum and headed back to the beach with something to spice up
the diet Coke, er, make that Coke Light. We spent the rest of the day here,
heading back to the room shortly after 6pm. For dinner we ordered room service,
which is reasonably priced.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Thenford called around 8am this morning to confirm our private taxi tour of
the island; he'll pick us up at 10am for a "four hour tour". We
had the cold buffet at Calypso this morning which was good, but still felt
a little over-priced for what was available. The pastries are uniformly dry,
and don't have a fresh feel to them. After we returned from the tour, we headed
directly for Bohemia and a late lunch. We split chips/salsa/cheese and a hoagies
sandwich and each had a painkiller. The chips were unremarkable but greasy,
the salsa also unremarkable, and the cheese was cheese-whizzy in consistency.
The hoagie sandwich was good. The waitress was really nice and split the sandwich
for us, and we each got a full order of French fries even though Nancy doesn't
eat French fries and I needed another French fry like I needed a hole in the
head. We came back to the room and read for a while, and then headed down
to the pool right at 6pm. We picked up fresh towels just before the towel
place closed for the evening. The hot tub by the north pool is large, a good
twenty feet in diameter and only marginally warmer than the pool (not a problem
in my opinion), and it has plenty of jets for those aching muscles. Unfortunately,
the hot tub had about six other folks in it who had been drinking all day
(as stated by the one sober member of the crowd) and were engaged in a game
of "show your titties" and a conversation where every sentence began
F-this and F-that. They were also drinking beer and smoking and leaving the
cans and butts at the edge of the hot tub - obviously a fine example of American
behavior. They finally staggered off to get ready for dinner and we had the
hot tub and pool to ourselves. Given that we had a late lunch, dinner was
drinks and appetizers at the lobby bar. We snagged a table right next to a
window so that the incoming breeze blew away the smoke from other tables.
One of the corporations hosting their event here had their farewell dinner
tonight and the ear-splitting music continued until well after 11pm, keeping
everyone awake, and then having to listen to the drunks stagger and sing their
way back to their rooms.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
We slept late today - way late. We didn't drag ourselves out of bed until
noon. We made coffee in the room for breakfast and then put on our swimsuits
and headed down to Bohemia for lunch. We shared a burger and a Cuban sandwich.
Today we asked if there were substitutions available for the fries (I've seen
enough French fries to last me a long time), and we found that fresh cut fruit
or a tossed salad was an option! The burger was good as the past ones have
been - it comes standard with cheese and bacon. The Cuban sandwich was missing
something, in my opinion, but it was still good. I preferred the "hoagie"
that I had yesterday. We made it out to the beach around 1pm and found a cabana
with chaises already in-place, saving us from moving them ourselves. The beach
locals were a little less bothersome today, perhaps remembering us as the
"not interested" folks from Friday. Nancy made a couple of dips
in the ocean, but I stayed put with my book. Around 3pm things at Bohemia
livened up with a DJ and music for the trivia contest and calypso dancing
lessons. The noise was intrusive on the beach, but some folks seemed to be
enjoying themselves. Around this same time some folks came by and set up a
flowered arch, presumably for a beach wedding. After two hours, the flowers
were looking pretty tired in the sun, with no sign of a wedding party. We
headed back up to the room shortly after 5pm, traded our beach towels for
fresh ones. I stopped at the lobby restaurant desk and made reservations for
7:30pm at the Royal Grille; this will be our first real dinner here. Back
in the room we enjoyed drinks and more reading. Dinner at the Royal Grille
was OK - we used one of the Marriott $99 Dinner-for-Two certificates that
covered two appetizers, salads, entrée, dessert, non-alcoholic drinks,
tax, and gratuity. All we had to pay for was the wine and any additional gratuity.
The tab for dinner without the certificate would have been over $250 - and
this restaurant was certainly not worth that expense. The service was not
up to high-end restaurant standards. One thing that irked me was the lack
of enforcement of the dress-code - if a restaurant is going to have a dress
code, they should enforce it for the benefit of the folks who abide by it.
There were some folks in T-shirts, shorts, or flip-flops. We asked for bottled
water, and the water came in a 1.5 liter plastic bottle that was left on the
table! They had one size of wine glass for all varieties of wine, and were
unable to keep us in silverware. The Caesar salad is advertised as being made
table-side, but it appeared mysteriously from the kitchen for every order
we saw, and consisted of knife-cut romaine, bottled dressing, and the tiny
Pepperidge Farms style croutons - certainly not house or table-side made.
We had been told about their "chocolate soufflé" dessert,
and made sure that we ordered it when we ordered dinner - the waitress said
we didn't need to order it then because there were other options she'd tell
us about and after all, the soufflé only took "five minutes"
to make - not my idea of anything I'd call a soufflé. The soufflé
turned out to be a cup with a chocolate crust around the exterior and something
the consistency of warm chocolate pudding in the center. It was rich and chocolaty
and came with a small scoop of vanilla ice-cream, but it was not soufflé.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Lunch at Sunset Grill at Timothy Bay. Walked along beach checking out various
beach bars. Took taxi into Basseterre for sightseeing and shopping. It was
very hot and still, only lasted about an hour before returning to the hotel.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Lazy beach day. Dinner at La Cucina.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Took a taxi with Sackville Grey to Turtle Bay. Stopped several places along
the way to take pictures of scenery. Had lunch at Turtle Bay and spent the
afternoon on chaises on the beach. Had originally planned to return around
3pm, but were having such a good time that we stayed an extra two hours until
5pm. Great views of Nevis. Several boats came by to drop off or pickup folks
- presumably to/from Nevis.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Lazy beach day. Lunch at Bohemia. Dinner at Blu.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thenford picked us up at 9am and took us to the ferry terminal for the 930am
ferry to Nevis. While waiting to buy tickets (and port impact fee) were approached
by two guys who wanted a "tip". When we declined, they became quite
foul-mouthed. This was the only instance of rudeness that we saw the entire
time. Thenford had arranged for a Nevis Island tour with Hillarine, his wife's
cousin who runs a taxi service on Nevis. We started out with a trip through
Charleston and then headed up into the hills to visit some of the old plantation
homes that have been converted into hotels and inns. Of particular interest
was the Montpelier Inn. The trip around the island was a bit rough on the
backside due to reconstruction of the road. As we completed the circuit of
the island Hillarine dropped us at the Four Seasons where we had lunch at
the grill overlooking the ocean. The service and, the surroundings, and food
were simply outstanding, including chilled washcloths to freshen up with.
After a leisurely lunch we called Hillarine and she picked us up and returned
us to the ferry terminal for the 4pm ferry back to St. Kitts. Thenford picked
us up at the ferry terminal and zipped us back to the hotel in time for a
quick swim and a cool drink at the swim up Bohemia bar. For dinner we walked
down to PJ's restaurant, a short walk from the Marriott where we had some
great spaghetti & meatballs.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Our last full day in St.Kitts. Headed back to Turtle Bay at 11am with York,
an associate of Thenford's. Things were busier today since it was the weekend,
many students from the Vet School and the Nursing School. York picked us up
at 5pm and brought us back towards the hotel, dropping us at PJ's for an early
dinner where we sampled the pizza (excellent!).
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Our departure day. Had the buffet at Calypso which was a final parting disappointment.
They can't seem to keep the buffet replenished, and have difficulty cooking
the food completely. The scrambled eggs were more liquid than scrambled, the
sausage was bloody-rare in the middle, and the waffles didn't even have a
hint of golden-brown. Thenford picked us up at noon for a quick trip to the
airport for our 2:50pm American flight to Miami. Airport check-in was fine,
and the departure fee purchase was easy ($22), although it's really a combination
of several impact fees that are collected. Security was uneventful and we
killed time in the waiting room people watching and trying to recall where
we had seen people form over the past ten days. The flight was on-time and
we regrettably returned to Miami where the airport is some n-th level of Hell
with poor signage, too many people, and marginal air-conditioning. We had
just under four hours for our connecting flight to Dallas, which was also
on-time and equally uneventful. We arrived at Dallas around midnight and made
our way to the in-airport Grand Hyatt hotel where we spent the night.
Monday, April 30, 2007
After a good night's sleep we headed down to the terminal and through security
to our gate. From the time we left our room, checked-out, and went through
security, only 15 minutes had elapsed. This left us plenty of time for breakfast
and a pass through the bookstore. Our flight departs to Honolulu at 1130am
and they boarded promptly at 11am.