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OK, here goes...
First off, let me say " I'm sorry for being so tardy!" My only excuse is that I'm sure this won't be an exciting report and I'm struggling with back to the routine depression.
We arrived at Sangster right on time, Tuesday, Aug. 26th at 12:50. We had purchased our tickets in April so we couldn't believe we'd finally made it. This is our second trip to Jamaica. It had taken 3 years to get back.
We get off the plane and follow the other passengers while realizing that the path seems almost familiar...ah, there are the "ladies singing OUR (lol) greeting". We go on alittle farther till we reach the immigration check points and go "clear to the left, nothing to declare line". Or so we thought. We just barely get in line with our passports in hand and the man in the "VERY last left booth (we had missed seeing it, it was alittle farther forward!) motions for us to come to his booth. We do and with a couple of quick stamps... we are actually on our way to get our luggage. We finally find the belt where our luggage should be coming in on and wait. And wait.. and wait. We haven't traveled much, this is actually our 2nd trip flying! I'm beginning to get worried that the lost luggage saga has happened to us. But finally, with only a very few other passengers left, here it comes. One nice thing about your luggage being next to the last to come in is that you don't have to fight the crowd of other passengers! We made our way as quickly as possible to find our ride. We're being picked up by Sienna and Soloman. Sienna is worried that we might not recognize them again so she has prepared a really bright sign with our names and given us instructions to go "clear to the left" again. We come out the doors and there are still alot of drivers waiting on other people. Don spots Soloman pretty quickly but by the time he convinces me to look FARTHER to the left..(OH, that left!), I turn and Soloman is standing right beside me! With a big grin he says, "See I remembered what you looked like!" A few more steps and there's Sienna. Hugs and we're on our way to their van. Sala loads our luggage.
Don sits up front with Soloman, I sit in the middle seat and Sienna sits in the back. We have a really great time catching up with each other and soon we are on our way to Negril.
This will be our first time staying in Negril. Sienna and Sala gave us a really quick visit 3 years ago but we actually stayed on the North coast at the Wyndham last time. We are staying at the CoCoLaPalm this trip. Sienna points out different resorts and such that we've read about here on the BB and gives us a briefing on places to eat, etc. She reminds us that any place on the opposite side of the road from the beach will be cheaper. They drop us off after making plans to pick us up tomorrow at 10:00 am for a trip to Mayfield Falls.
We settle in a little and venture down to the beach for our first peak. We barely reach the beach and we see two men standing at the edge of the property. They wave and ask us to come over. Ok, here we go... our first higglers. We are welcomed to Jamaica, asked if this is our first time there and then they ask Don... Do you smoke ganga? We are lucky enough that we don't smoke anything and that answer satisfies the first man. The second lets us know that he would be more than happy to set us up with things on the beach, like glass bottom boats, parasailing, etc. We thank him and tell him that we aren't sure what our agenda will be yet, but will let him know if we need his services. That's OK too and we go on our way to find something to eat.
We decide to take a walk down the road to see whats available. We've walked toward Negril maybe a mile or so when we hear thunder rumbling in the distance. Don can read the sky pretty well here at home and he says not to worry, it's way over there. We don't go much farther and decide we better head back anyway so we cross the road and start back to the hotel. We figured we'd just get some"barrel" jerk chicken from the place almost across the road from the hotel. We don't get very far and plop, plop. A few raindrops, big ones mind you, but just a few. We go just alittle farther and ...plop, plop, plop, plop....you get the idea. Way over there just got here! What was just a FEW drops soon turned into a DOWNPOUR! And boy, did it rain. By now almost everyone else had gone inside to take cover. We are almost back to the hotel and someone offers for us to come in but we're already soaked so we say "No Thanks" and just keep on. It is really coming down. We have to take our glasses off just to see! We're laughing so hard by now. We finally get back to the CoCoLaPalm and head for our room. The sidewalk in front of our room is downhill from the parking lot to the beach and it has at least 2-3 inches of water pouring down it! Oh, well, we're soaked anyway. We finally get back to our room. We have towels in the room...but clear across the room! Tile floors, of course. We decide to wait and drip off alittle. Alot actually! Thanks goodness we have a porch. It's warm and we're in Jamaica!!!! Finally, we manage to get into the room without soaking the floor. We dry off, change clothes and wait the for the rain to quit. Enough adventure for today. The sun is beginning to set so we go to the hotel's restaurant, an outside terrace type. The staff is friendly. They seat me, and place the napkin in my lap. I could get spoiled! The food is good and not too expensive. We watch the sun go down over the ocean while we eat.
We head back to our room and decide to settle in for the night. We rarely party or go dancing while at home and Don had been up since 1:30 am, me since just alittle after that. The airport we fly out of is an hour ahead of us (in Indiana) and Jamaica. We needed to be at the airport at 3:30 am our time. We didn't sleep on the way down either, too excited I guess. So, honestly, we were bushed! Oh well, we have 6 more full days to experience Jamaica. Good-night.
First off, let me say " I'm sorry for being so tardy!" My only excuse is that I'm sure this won't be an exciting report and I'm struggling with back to the routine depression.
We arrived at Sangster right on time, Tuesday, Aug. 26th at 12:50. We had purchased our tickets in April so we couldn't believe we'd finally made it. This is our second trip to Jamaica. It had taken 3 years to get back.
We get off the plane and follow the other passengers while realizing that the path seems almost familiar...ah, there are the "ladies singing OUR (lol) greeting". We go on alittle farther till we reach the immigration check points and go "clear to the left, nothing to declare line". Or so we thought. We just barely get in line with our passports in hand and the man in the "VERY last left booth (we had missed seeing it, it was alittle farther forward!) motions for us to come to his booth. We do and with a couple of quick stamps... we are actually on our way to get our luggage. We finally find the belt where our luggage should be coming in on and wait. And wait.. and wait. We haven't traveled much, this is actually our 2nd trip flying! I'm beginning to get worried that the lost luggage saga has happened to us. But finally, with only a very few other passengers left, here it comes. One nice thing about your luggage being next to the last to come in is that you don't have to fight the crowd of other passengers! We made our way as quickly as possible to find our ride. We're being picked up by Sienna and Soloman. Sienna is worried that we might not recognize them again so she has prepared a really bright sign with our names and given us instructions to go "clear to the left" again. We come out the doors and there are still alot of drivers waiting on other people. Don spots Soloman pretty quickly but by the time he convinces me to look FARTHER to the left..(OH, that left!), I turn and Soloman is standing right beside me! With a big grin he says, "See I remembered what you looked like!" A few more steps and there's Sienna. Hugs and we're on our way to their van. Sala loads our luggage.
Don sits up front with Soloman, I sit in the middle seat and Sienna sits in the back. We have a really great time catching up with each other and soon we are on our way to Negril.
This will be our first time staying in Negril. Sienna and Sala gave us a really quick visit 3 years ago but we actually stayed on the North coast at the Wyndham last time. We are staying at the CoCoLaPalm this trip. Sienna points out different resorts and such that we've read about here on the BB and gives us a briefing on places to eat, etc. She reminds us that any place on the opposite side of the road from the beach will be cheaper. They drop us off after making plans to pick us up tomorrow at 10:00 am for a trip to Mayfield Falls.
We settle in a little and venture down to the beach for our first peak. We barely reach the beach and we see two men standing at the edge of the property. They wave and ask us to come over. Ok, here we go... our first higglers. We are welcomed to Jamaica, asked if this is our first time there and then they ask Don... Do you smoke ganga? We are lucky enough that we don't smoke anything and that answer satisfies the first man. The second lets us know that he would be more than happy to set us up with things on the beach, like glass bottom boats, parasailing, etc. We thank him and tell him that we aren't sure what our agenda will be yet, but will let him know if we need his services. That's OK too and we go on our way to find something to eat.
We decide to take a walk down the road to see whats available. We've walked toward Negril maybe a mile or so when we hear thunder rumbling in the distance. Don can read the sky pretty well here at home and he says not to worry, it's way over there. We don't go much farther and decide we better head back anyway so we cross the road and start back to the hotel. We figured we'd just get some"barrel" jerk chicken from the place almost across the road from the hotel. We don't get very far and plop, plop. A few raindrops, big ones mind you, but just a few. We go just alittle farther and ...plop, plop, plop, plop....you get the idea. Way over there just got here! What was just a FEW drops soon turned into a DOWNPOUR! And boy, did it rain. By now almost everyone else had gone inside to take cover. We are almost back to the hotel and someone offers for us to come in but we're already soaked so we say "No Thanks" and just keep on. It is really coming down. We have to take our glasses off just to see! We're laughing so hard by now. We finally get back to the CoCoLaPalm and head for our room. The sidewalk in front of our room is downhill from the parking lot to the beach and it has at least 2-3 inches of water pouring down it! Oh, well, we're soaked anyway. We finally get back to our room. We have towels in the room...but clear across the room! Tile floors, of course. We decide to wait and drip off alittle. Alot actually! Thanks goodness we have a porch. It's warm and we're in Jamaica!!!! Finally, we manage to get into the room without soaking the floor. We dry off, change clothes and wait the for the rain to quit. Enough adventure for today. The sun is beginning to set so we go to the hotel's restaurant, an outside terrace type. The staff is friendly. They seat me, and place the napkin in my lap. I could get spoiled! The food is good and not too expensive. We watch the sun go down over the ocean while we eat.
We head back to our room and decide to settle in for the night. We rarely party or go dancing while at home and Don had been up since 1:30 am, me since just alittle after that. The airport we fly out of is an hour ahead of us (in Indiana) and Jamaica. We needed to be at the airport at 3:30 am our time. We didn't sleep on the way down either, too excited I guess. So, honestly, we were bushed! Oh well, we have 6 more full days to experience Jamaica. Good-night.
[img]/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] ) around Negril and Jamaica some day soon!
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