Travel Musings

I had been discussing the idea of a long-weekend getaway with Dave a couple of times in passing in the office, and it came up more than once. So instead of continuing to just think about doing it, Dave, Chris and I brought up the subject over a couple of pints one Friday afternoon, and from there is was simply a matter of “when should we go”. We decided the Easter long-weekend was an ideal situation, so the only thing left to do was check with the girls and book the trip. The details as usual were handled by Lisa, and after conversing back-and-forth on some ideas, the six of us gathered as Dave & Cindy’s about a month before the adventure to throw some ideas on the table and next thing we knew, it was time to board an overnight flight from Ottawa to Heathrow.

We couldn’t have asked for or planned a better time, and in my case, being as this was my first time in the U.K. it was that much more special to be with Lisa and great friends. While the weather was brisk (apparently the coldest on record for Easter in 25 years) we still have a fantastic time with plenty of sight-seeing, a lot of laughs, some great food, and of course, one or 2 of London’s finest ales and lagers I couldn’t think of a better tune to plug in this photo-video recap of our adventure than the iconic Beatles – it just seems to fit perfectly in this case.

So, what’s up for next Easter guys? Shall we do Ireland or France !

This is a map highlighting (as of today) all of the cities and countries we have visited over the past 20 years. It is merely a visual display, with no specific order listed below, this is a default value based on the HTML code from a Facebook plug-in.

1. Paris, France
2. Santorini, Greece
3. Villefranche-sur-Mer, France
4. St-Paul-de-Vence, France
5. Phuket, Thailand
6. Savoca, Italy
7. Eze, France
8. Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
9. Kotor, Montenegro
10. Venice, Italy
11. Taormina, Italy
12. Sorrento, Italy
13. Valletta, Malta
14. Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy
15. Portofino, Italy

• Create your own travel map.

You have very few options for arriving at church in Venice, it’s either walk there, or you take some form of water transportation (water taxi, vaperetto, gondola, personal boat). This is a shot of the Church of Scalzi, located directly adjacent to the Ponte Scalzi, and also immediately on its left is the Termini station that whisks passengers from Venice to the mainland by train. Constructed in 1656 (and completed in 1689), it is considered one of the better baroque façades in Venice – well ordered and not too congested.

As usual, I always like to put together a small collection of some of the highlights of our most recent getaway selected from the hundreds of photos that I typically shoot while we are away – as most of you are well aware

So, in keeping with that tradition, and while putting together our review of the Sandals Whitehouse, Montego Bay, and Royal Caribbean properties which will be posted shortly, here’s a little teaser in the meantime to keep you all waiting with bated breath to see what we have to say about our fabulous holiday, and our awesome hosts in our “home-away-from-home”.

I hope this inspires you to call Lisa, and book an adventure to one of Sandals terrific all-inclusive resort hideaways, especially now that winter is on our doorstep !!

So after the fiasco that was last evening and finding out at 4:45PM that our destination resort was oversold and we were headed to another Sandals property, we woke up quite early, headed to the airport, boarded our flight, and took off not knowing what our fate had in store for us.

Our arrival in Jamaica at Sangster International Airport (Montego Bay) was eating away at us, expecting the worst but prepared somewhat for what might be the inevitable holiday at a property we just didn’t want to be at. We quickly received our luggage, and then got whisked to the Sandals lounge in the airport, where we were greeted with some surprising news. The rep had an iPad (hey…impressive) with an application loaded that indicated we were confirmed and headed to Whitehouse WHAT ??? Did a little bit of last minute phone calling and emails from Lisa to her contacts actually pan out unexpectedly.
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An early 2:45 AM wake-up alarm this morning had us both up for the start of a long day.  Our flight to Jamaica is scheduled for 6:00 AM, but while very little sleep is the typical norm for travel days to the Caribbean, the upside is that we arrive late morning on the island and have the majority of the day.  It doesn’t matter where we are headed, I’m always hyped to travel with Lisa and we have the best times together when we are traversing the globe discovering new places, familiar haunts, and meeting great friends.

But all is not wonderful on this morning – last night Lisa received an email at approximately 4:45 PM from Sandals which notified us that the property we are headed to (Whitehouse), is oversold and we have been bumped !  Apparently we are now headed to Sandals Ocho Rios, a property we have been to 3 times already in the past so we are more than disappointed to say the least.  What’s really disturbing about the discovery is the simple fact that Sandals would wait until that late hour of the day on the eve of our departure, as they no doubt had to be aware of this fact much earlier but waited until the last possible minute to advise us.  I suspect it was intentional, as it leaves Lisa very little time to make any inquiries through the Miami office or her sales rep, and now there is nobody around to be able to address the situation !
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