Flip Flops & Time Off – Adventures in Travel & Every Day Life

St. Thomas, 2016

When: April 23 – April 27

Where: Bluebeards Beach Club

This trip was not planned with a lot of lead time. While we were in St. Maarten in December, I heard from one of my dear friends. She was inviting us to her wedding on St. Thomas!! I distinctly remember saying “if that’s a serious invite – count us in!” There may have been a few rum drinks behind that statement at the time. When we got home from SXM, we looked at airline tickets, checked time share inventory and quickly realized we were probably not going to make it to STT in April. No time share inventory was available and flights were running around $700 per person at the time.

I spent the next 3 months stalking time share inventory online and travel packages from Columbus to St. Thomas. Low and behold, one afternoon, I logged into Wyndham’s website and staring back at me was the exact week that we needed – in a sea of booked days. Without even discussing it with Marcus, I booked the week. Worst case scenario, I could cancel two weeks before the trip and get my points back. Why not?! When I got home that night, I told DH what I had done, and the look on his face subtly screamed “that’s not going to happen.”

Have I mentioned that I am blessed to be married to a very laid back man, who, on occasion will indulge my crazy ideas?

It’s been 4 years since our last trip to the Virgin Islands. We’ve been dying to go back, but at the same time, we needed to go out and explore new places. Maybe our love for the VI’s was because we didn’t have much to compare it to. After spending some time in Aruba and St. Maarten, we had already decided that we would be headed back to the VI’s in 2016, only we had planned on it being December.

So, I had the room booked – now I had to get Marcus on board. I continued to look at air fare, which showed zero sign of going down. After a particularly rough couple of weeks, I needed a little break…some time away from real life. DH and I took a serious look at our calendars the first weekend in March and decided that we could probably make it work – likely not the entire week, with his finals schedule, but a long weekend was definitely doable. Armed with his consent, a stretch of about 3 days on either side of my friend’s wedding I set my airfare alerts and quietly stalked all of the websites. One afternoon I stumbled on airfare from Cleveland, OH to St. Thomas for just over $300 round trip, per person. A quick text to DH for consent – and 15 minutes later, the tickets were booked. Just over $600 total. With the resort already booked through our time share – we could officially say – St. Thomas, here we come!

Friday, April 22nd we headed from Columbus to Cleveland. Yes, we live 10 minutes from CMH, but at the time of booking, flights out of CMH was nearly double those out of CLE, making the drive to CLE worth it. We would probably pay for our entire trip with what we saved. I booked a hotel for Friday night through Hotwire and scored the Sheraton Airport Hotel for $79.00 for the night. Turns out, the Sheraton is basically on airport property.

By the time DH was off of work on Friday, traffic was pretty light headed North on 71 – other than some rain showers, we had an uneventful drive to Cleveland.

That is, unless you count the fact that I realized in the car that I had forgot to pack a hairbrush. I can manage to travel without a lot of things, but a week with wild and crazy hair was not something I was willing to do. We stopped for dinner at Applebee’s, found a Target and were checked into our room at the Sheraton by 9pm. We had planned on a side trip to Horseshoe Casino once we checked in but we were exhausted and decided instead to head to bed – 3:30am would soon come.

Saturday, April 23

Up early, no thanks to me. Luckily DH had set his alarm, as did I. I, however, failed to set it to Saturday – just edited my Mon-Fri alarm…so, my alarm did not go off. That would have sucked. When we arrived at the Sheraton on Friday, we parked in the parking garage across the street, figuring it would be an easier in and out for departure and return days. We took only our backpacks and change of clothes into the hotel Friday night, so a quick trip by the car for our two roller boards was necessary. Off we went to check in.

Because I booked our flights a month before we were scheduled to leave – I booked them with no seat assignments on the way down. There were plenty of seats, but none together. Decided to take the risk and hope that Delta would either give us the Comfort Plus upgrade, or upgrade some other couple and give us their seats. When I checked in online Friday, we had no seat assignments…instead the boarding passes read the dreaded phrase “assigned at Gate.” I panicked! When I looked at our flight on Delta’s website, we were on the Upgrade/Standby list. NOT what I had expected when I took that risk.

Other than the massive construction project underway at CLE – it was fairly easy to get through. We had our boarding passes (without seat assignments), carry-on luggage and our passports in hand so we headed straight to TSA. Hardly any line for TSA, we were through TSA and on the way to our gate in less than an hour. I had been so nervous that we weren’t going to get seats that I headed straight to the gate agent who may, or may not, have been mildly annoyed by my statement/question – “I’ve never had a flight without a seat assignment before. Do I come to you for my seat, or wait for you to call my name?” I was sent back to wait and told she would call when she was ready for us. Long story short, I stepped away long enough to grab some drinks for us, and as I was walking back, our names had been called. As soon as those boarding passes, with seat assignments for both flights was in my hand, I felt so much better. We managed to pack everything for this trip into two carry on suitcases. We each had a backpack with our electronics, books, etc. in them – but all of our food and clothes would be with us. I despise lugging suitcases through airports. The whole thing stresses me out – fighting for overhead bin space, fighting to be first in your zone to board, wheeling my bags through crowds of people, etc. – so, I almost always check our bags. Because the account we use to save for our trips was a little light after our trip to SXM, we didn’t want to pay $100 round trip just to check our bags for convenience. To my delight, the DL gate agent announced that the flight out of CLE was full, so she was looking for volunteers to check their carryon’s. Of course, she would check them through to the final destination for free. Music to my ears! We were customers #1 and #2 to take her up on that offer. Thanks to advancements in technology, I knew where our bags were every step of the way.

As it turns out, my gamble with the seat assignments was worth the risk – at least from CLE – ATL. Marcus and I were sitting together, and we were lucky enough to be in the Comfort Rows. Quick and painless flight from CLE – ATL, with an early arrival in ATL. Very happy for the early arrival. As usual, we were going to have quite the haul from our arrival gate to our departure gate, and we were going to have only 40 minutes between flights. By the time we landed in ATL, I was feeling a little under the weather. I don’t know if it was the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything, had downed half a bottle of Cherry Coke (I don’t normally drink Caffeine) or what the deal was, but I was overheated, nauseous and not looking forward to getting on another plane. Ugh.

Delta was not able to seat us together on our flight from ATL – STT, but we were in the same row, with Marcus on the other side of the isle. Lucky for me, they also honored my seat preference in my Sky Miles profile and I ended up with a window seat. Too bad it’s my least favorite window seat – right over the wing. I had quite the entertaining, older couple sitting next to me on the plane. I won’t get too much into it, but it was more entertaining watching and listening to this couple than working on this blog or watching the movie that was playing! As I was telling Marcus some of the stories later, he gave me a nice little reality check, “is that you in 30 years?” Lord help me, I certainly hope not! But, it probably will be.

Other than some rough air the last hour, we had a pretty uneventful flight. And then we landed. I couldn’t believe it – we were back on STT!!! As we taxied to the gate, the sky opened up and down poured buckets and buckets of big, heavy raindrops. Should we have brought a raft?! We were on STT alright, but we weren’t getting off the plane just yet. I am happy to report, it was the usual Caribbean shower, and passed completely overhead within 10-15 minutes.

It was still sprinkling a bit as we deplaned, not enough to dampen my mood – I looked at Marcus with this cheesy grin on my face and said “Can you believe it?! We’re finally back!” Coming through the STT airport, so much has changed in 4 years. Most notably, the bathroom situation (for the better). Unfortunately, given there were 4 flights that arrived at the same time (and kept passengers sitting on the plane while the rain passed) the line for the ladies’ room wrapped around the corner. No thank you, I’ll hold it. Walked past the rum tasting (too many people) and past the steel drums welcoming everyone, through the sea of people waiting for their bags.

Eventually, our bags came out and we were off to the taxi stand. A few stops to drop others off at the ferry for Tortola, another to pick up their rental car at Havensight, one last pair to the Marriott and we were the final stop at Bluebeards Beach Club. We were two-hours early for check in, so I fully expected that we would not be able to check in. To my surprise, we were checked in and keys in hand within 15 minutes. Sweet!! We checked in to get our Welcome Packet (aka get suckered into a time share update), had a welcome rum punch and hauled our bags to our room.

Our previous stay at BBC we were so incredibly lucky to be in Building A…right on the beach. I had been wishing all week that we would land in A or B again, because the views are just stunning. Alas, we were not that lucky. We were in Building F, right above Crab Village (a little grassy area safe for the hermit crabs to live, undisturbed). I was sad, but wasn’t going to go back and ask for A or B, they certainly can’t give everyone those buildings. J For the first time ever we were in a Studio Loft. Normally, I wouldn’t book a room this size because a.) we’re only two people b.) we’re never in the room except to sleep and shower and c.) I like to conserve points, so we can travel several times a year. But, given this was the only unit available, I really didn’t have a choice. We’re in trouble now – because this unit is awesome. Plenty of room for 4 people to live for a week and not be on top of one another. You just have to really love each other and respect personal space – because even though there are separate sleeping areas, there’s not an actual bedroom – so it’s not private sleeping for 2 couples.

I had our bags unpacked in record time, changed into my swimsuit, lathered in sunscreen and bug spray (not risking Zika virus) and was headed to the beach before 3pm.

As my toes were back in the VI sand, and I walked the coast, I may have gotten a little teary eyed. There’s just something about this place that took a piece of my heart the first time we were here and I’ve never been able to shake it. It feels like home. Yes, there are other islands we’ve not visited, and we will continue to travel to new places, but even the air here is different. The sea smells different, the sand is different, and the people are just so wonderful! I couldn’t focus on reading my book. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Spent the next 4 hours at the pool – attempting to read a book, sipping some rum punch (Corona for DH), visiting with other guests, chatting with Nick (owner and bartender at Limetree Pool Bar) and looking at each other with cheesy grins on our faces.

For dinner tonight, I had planned on eating at the new restaurant at BBC – only to get here and discover they were closed for renovations. Crap. By 6:30, we were starving, other than ½ a panini bought in ATL, we hadn’t eaten anything. We considered the taxi into Red Hook, but quite honestly we didn’t feel like taking a shower, changing and going out. We had been up since 3:30am, drinking on basically empty stomachs all afternoon, and Nick had been grilling up hotdogs and sandwiches all afternoon that smelled delicious. We decided a gourmet hot dog at the pool bar would make a perfectly acceptable dinner. I can honestly tell you, that hot dog was the best hot dog I have ever eaten. Made our way back to the room, showered and passed out by 8pm.