RP Trip Report – Nov 2009

 

WOW!!!!!  That’s our trip report….

 

Okay, on a more serious note, Debbie, Cyndi and Peter certainly out did themselves this time!  You know, just when you think a Sandals Reunion vacation can’t get any better, IT DOES!

 

This vacation was dubbed, “Escape in Luxury” and it was every bit of that and more.

Special events were planned by Debbie and Cyndi and co-coordinated with the GM of RP, Mr. Peter Fraser.

 

The resort

was at 100% occupancy for every day but our first day…. That day it was only 98%!

Even with a full resort, Peter and his staff did an outstanding job making sure everyone and everything was looked after down to the finest detail.

 

Congratulations Peter, and thank you to you and your team for once again taking such good care of us! You and your team are TOP NOTCH!!

  

Joan and I booked our Thanksgiving Sandals vacation to begin at Royal Plantation from Nov 18 – 25th and then conclude at Sandals Dunn’s River from Nov 25 – 28th.

It has become a tradition for us to vacation with our best friends, Randy and Cyndi each year at Thanksgiving and this year was no exception. It was seven years ago that Cyndi and I met on line at the Tropical Travel Online (TTO) site, hosted by Debbie. Cyndi and I discovered we were going to be at Sandals Montego Bay at the same time and arranged to meet for drinks one night after dinner. (Our spouses thought we had lost our minds!) What was thought would be a “one drink” get together has developed into a “Forever Friendship.” I would like to thank Debbie for her TTO website. If it wasn’t for it, Joan and I would not have met and made such a special friendship which we enjoy with Cyndi and Randy. Thank you, TTO!  Thank you, Debbie!

 

We also arranged this Thanksgiving Reunion trip with two other special couples we have become close with over the past few years where we all met through the Royal Plantation in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Bill & Trish and Jim & Annette were also celebrating our reunion this Thanksgiving trip. The fifth couple to join in our celebration was Geoff & June. Randy & Cyndi met this lovely couple a few years back at (where else) Royal Plantation. It was our first get together with this couple and they were such a delight to get to know! Another friendship developed!

 

Our flight to MoBay was uneventful, that is, once we got on the plane.  The day before we were to fly, Joan discovered that our flight had been changed and we were not even notified of the change. We highly recommend checking your flights within 24 hours!

We arrived in Montego Bay at 11:45am and we were through immigration, retrieved all four bags and were enjoying refreshments in the Sandals lounge at 12:15pm! That is by far the quickest we have gone from plane to lounge!!!

After a 15 minute wait we were summoned to our private car which was stocked with fruit, sandwiches and a wonderful bottle of red wine! Thank you Debbie and Cyndi!

 

We arrived at Royal Plantation where our Royal Friends were waiting for us! What a joy to see their smiling faces. After hugs, laughter and a few tears, (of joy) we enjoyed a glass of champagne and then Cyndi pulled out the Martini glasses! (pictures are worth a thousand words)

We were then whisked away to our favorite room, 355 but this time we were escorted by our BUTLER! RP is running a pilot project with Butler service with all room bookings in the “01” category and above. This was the first of many surprises that was waiting for us. Our butlers were Cleon and Oranyne. They were both there and ready to meet us and take care of us from the moment we arrived! (they just had to wait until we all hugged, laughed and cried and had our Champagne) .

 

Not only were we celebrating a reunion with our friends and “Escape in Luxury”, we were celebrating a very special birthday for Joan! As soon as we got to our room, I handed Cleon and Oranyne my special Happy Birthday banner and asked him to hang it from our balcony after we left for the Royal Grill.Shortly after we got seated at the Grill with Debbie, Cyndi & Randy, we were being whistled at from our balcony from our Butlers.  They had hung the Happy Birthday banner and wanted our approval.  They were both so proud and they did an awesome job!  Shortly after that, we were informed that Bill & Trish were close to arrival so we headed up to the front lobby to greet them.

They arrived safe, we had another glass of champagne and Cyndi broke out the Martini glasses to present Trish with a pair. (pictures are worth a million words)

They were escorted to their room and we all went back down to the Grill to have something to eat prior to Jim & Annette’s arrival. Bill & Trish checked into their room and came down to have a bite to eat with us. We all then went up to greet Jim & Annette. Again, hugs, champagne and of course, a pair of martini glasses for Annette! The group is complete.

 

We agreed on a time to meet for dinner but of course, we had to fit a hot tub in prior to dinner.

 

Dinner was a wonderful reunion but not all of us made it through dinner (darn champagne) and someone didn’t remember their main course. (if anyone asks, it was chicken pasta)  We had Spanish coffee for dessert and that became quite a popular item throughout our stay. At this point I have to ask, “Who needs a key to get in your room when Sandals provides the LADDER?” (sorry, only to be appreciated by those who were there)

 

There were too many events and WAY too many stories for me to do a day by day detailed report but I will touch on the highlights. I would like to say at this time that Debbie & Cyndi worked very hard with Mr. Peter Fraser, to make our “Escape to Luxury” experience a most memorable event, never to be forgotten.

 

Thursday Nov 19th we woke up in Paradise, full sun with coffee and juices to enjoy on the balcony of Suite 355! The reason I mentioned that we woke to full sun is because the year before our group experienced rain every day except our last day. This year the vacation began with sun and stayed that way the entire trip!

The only way we enjoyed coffee and juice our first morning is because we had such good service from our Butlers, Cleon and Oranyne. On that the first morning we woke up (we had forgotten to put our room service selection card out the night before) I had to call our butler for juice and coffee. I called Cleon, who answered my call, took my request and 15 mins later Oranyne came to our door with coffee and juice. I told Oranyne that I thought that was cool that he was helping Cleon out by delivering our order and Oranyne just smiled and said, "today is Cleon's day off." I was completely blown away! Cleon made no mention that it was his day off. Like a professional, he just took my request and made sure it got done, to my complete satisfaction!  Later in the trip, I had the opportunity to share this story with Mr. Fraser. I wanted him to know how much Joan and I appreciated the Butler service and what an outstanding job Cleon and Oranyne were doing.

 

We all went on a shopping spree one day in downtown Ocho Rios. We started out at The House of Diamonds and let’s just say the ladies were pleased! We did manage to hit a few more stores before heading back “home.”

 

Dave and Holly arrived on the Saturday and it was great to catch up with them again.

 

Sunday was our off site special excursion to Evita’s for lunch which was part of our Escape in Luxury package. Debbie and crew certainly outdid themselves with this Restaurant. Eva is the owner and hostess and she was incredible, telling us some stories of her numerous famous guests. Dave took an awesome video of the excursion. The restaurant is elevated up on a hill top and has breath-taking views of downtown Ocho Rios! It was Joan and my first visit to Evita’s and most certainly will not be our last. If you have never experienced Evita’s, you owe it to yourself to go once!

 

That night, I had a special Birthday dinner planned for Joan. I had been working behind the scenes with Mr. Fraser, where to host the party, what would be the menu and how could we pull it off as a surprise. I am proud to announce that we were able to pull the first two off but the surprise? No way! It is very difficult to surprise Joan but we did have an awesome time celebrating at La Plantana! I need to thank Randy&Cyndi, Bill&Trish, Jim&Annette, Geof&June and Todd&Debbie for helping make the entire evening fun and most importantly… memorable!

 

Our butler, Cleon was at this special event as well as Jason, who is the butler at Plantana. These two gentlemen did an outstanding job at making sure every last detail was taken care of, so that Mrs. Smith was pleased!

 

A special thank you also goes out to Mr. Fraser for providing such a special venue and menu. Your kindness does not go un-appreciated, Mr. Fraser.

 

Tuesday evening was Returning Guest dinner and as always, Peter and his Team delivered an exception dinner, complete with wine pairing for every course! Joan and I LOVE wine pairing meals, so this was another special, unexpected treat for us. It was also a pleasure for our table to have Yannis as our RP representative. Yannis is the Food and Beverage Manager at RP. We spent a good deal of evening talking about his experiences in life and what eventually brought him to RP. (read Debbie’s Bio on TTO) I even learned that Yannis has a daughter going to school in Canada, close to where Joan and I lived prior to us moving to the States. A special thank you to Yannis for spending time and sharing some of your life experiences with me that evening. The Returning Guest evening was capped off with Randy performing a special Bead Presentation to Mr. Peter Fraser! (for those of us who wear the Sandals Beads know what an honor that is and for those of you who don’t, ask Randy sometime when you run into him at a Sandals Vacation).

 

Wednesday was departure day for some and moving day for Randy, Cyndi, Joan and I. Before we headed over to SDR, we all had to say to our dear friends, Bill and Trish, who had to head back to the States. We had to say our good byes to Jim and Annette who weren’t going home but were staying at RP for (3) more days! Debbie and Todd… it was SO good to see you and spend time with you again this vacation. Thank you for EVERYTHING!!! (most importantly, your friendship).

 

We then loaded up and headed over to SDR for (3) nights. The entire RP Staff was down to bid us farewell and wave good bye. As we drove off, Randy had one more prank up his sleeve…. He promptly asked the diver to do the complete circle at the RP entrance and drive back to the front lobby! Well, you should have seen the look on every ones faces when we opened the door and promptly announced, “WE’RE BACK!!!” We ALL had one more hysterical laugh!  Thanks Randy…. that sure broke up the tears!

Shortly after our arrival, the four of us were taken on a brief tour of the resort on our way to our rooms. Both couples were on the 2nd floor of the main building and we enjoyed Butler service once again.

 

The next few days were the perfect wind down from the crazy, fun week we all had at RP.

Geoff and June came over to SDR for the day on Thursday and we all had a blast just getting to know each other more and “goofing off” in that huge beautiful pool!

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we were all trying hard to figure out how we were going to have turkey for dinner. Before we left RP, Mr. Fraser had extended the invitation to come back over to RP for turkey, if we couldn’t get it at SDR. (another example of what a wonderful man Peter is and how he recognizes the importance of taking care of his multi returnee guests. He treats us like family and we treat him and his Team like family)

We did find out that SDR was having a pool side International Buffet and turkey was on the menu at one of the stations! We were all ecstatic!!!

 

The next day was the saddest day… we had to say good bye to our precious friends! It is hard saying good bye to all our Sandals Family but Randy and Cyndi…. Words can not describe!

What made this day worse was the fact that we were the ones staying alone at the resort. This is the FIRST time we have been the last couple to leave and my buddy Randy said it correct when he said it is by far the worst to be the last couple leaving the resort!

After we said good bye and watched them drive away, we walked back to ours poolside chairs, chilled and just started recounting the many memorable events that had just happened over the past (10) days.

 

It was a beautiful vacation with beautiful friends and so many special touches provided by Debbie, Cyndi and Peter!

 

As much as we enjoy every Sandals vacation, there is nothing quite like returning home to THE Royal Plantation! Peter Fraser, thank you for making our home away from home so special!

 

Sandals started off as a vacation destination for Joan and I back in Feb 2001 and 25 visits later, it has become a rendezvous of our Sandals Family!

 

Thank you all who have come into our lives and developed this special Family of Friends Forever!