Tag: RIU

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Flashback to Jamaica

Ahhh, Jamaica! One of my favorite places in the world to visit. It is an island in the Caribbean and is part of the Greater Antilles. When you fly into Sangster Airport, you land right on the beach on the North Coast.  So, as your plane descends, you feel like you are incredibly close to the water.  I remember being overwhelmed with the stunning blue colors of the sea.  I had never seen such beautiful hues.

This past winter, we headed down for a week of R and R. Since this wasn’t our first trip to Jamaica, or the second, or the third (have I mentioned it’s one of my favorite places?) we knew exactly what we did and didn’t want to do this time.  For this trip, we wanted to stay in Montego Bay, close to the airport, so I found a sale for the RIU Montego Bay on Apple Vacations.  If you’ve never shopped for a vacation on Apple Vacations, you’ve been missing out.  It’s one of the travel sites I watch regularly and they run some great sales on trips.  While we’d never stayed at this particular RIU resort before, I am a fan of the RIU brand, so this was an easy decision.IMG_0258In Montego Bay, I knew we would be close enough to see our friend, Paul (see post Everyone Should Meet a Paul).  I also wanted to take my husband Sonny to eat at Scotchie’s, which is known for their jerk chicken and pork.  I also love breadfruit, which I was hoping was in season.  Scotchie’s serves the majority of their dishes in tin foil or on paper plates, and with gravy (think hot sauce) made from scotch bonnet peppers.  Also on the itinerary, was a trip to Luminous Lagoon, which I’ve wanted to check out for a while.  The tour starts at sunset and takes you through the lagoon, which is home to phosphorescent micro-organisms that glow in the dark when agitated.

As the saying goes, ” the best-laid plans of mice and men, often go awry”, so did ours.  We had some transportation issues and didn’t get to go to Scotchie’s for jerk and due to a small monsoon (flash-flooding, thunderstorm) our trip to the Luminous Lagoon was cancelled.

What we did get to do was hang out at our resort, meet new friends, and visit with old friends.  Paul was able to come visit our resort on a day pass and he brought his wife, Tansia,  and daughter, Talia, along.  He also brought us a bottle of Sangster’s Chocolate Rum Cream.  If you’ve never tried rum cream, you must–it’s what every good dirty banana is made from.  I knew it came in flavors, but this was the first time I had had Chocolate. And since I can’t order it online back home, I was very grateful for Paul’s gift!

Paul, who is a jack-of-all-trades, entrepreneur, and a lifeguard, took us out for a quick sail around Mahee Bay in a small catamaran.  We also walked up the beach to watch a wedding with Talia and our new friends Don and Stephanie.  We sampled numerous frozen drinks “Jamaican style” compliments of a friend of Paul’s who was the bar supervisor.  It was so nice to visit with Paul and his family for the day.  Next time we hope to go visit the villa he is building just outside of the town of Lucea.blue drinkThe following day we got to take a snorkeling excursion/sunset cruise.  We loaded up on a big catamaran, cruised west down the coast a bit, went snorkeling, and ended up at Margaritaville in Montego Bay.

We did a little shopping on the Hip Strip before heading back for a cocktail at Margaritaville, and then headed back to the resort for dinner which was right on time.lobsterI’ve never eaten so many seafood dinners as I have at RIU Resorts.  It turned out this night was seafood night at the buffet restaurant and they had lobster tail available.  My husband ate nothing but lobster and I think he topped out at 8 tails.  I partook of the incredibly good lobster, but also enjoyed the shrimp and fish.

The next day was departure day.  We got to the airport early, which is great because Sangster Airport has excellent duty-free shopping and we love to shop there.  We picked up some souvenirs, and a little jewelry, and then finished waiting for our flight at Margaritaville with lunch and a beer!

Until next time Jamaica.  Soon come back!

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Monkeying Around in Costa Rica


A couple of years back, we found a steal of a deal on a trip to Guanacaste, Costa Rica because it was the last non-stop flight for the season. Costa Rica had been on the “list” for a long time, so we couldn’t pass up going. This trip was to a RIU Palace, which is one of our favorite resort brands. We like it enough that we got married at RIU in Negril, Jamaica. What we didn’t realize in Jamaica, but we learned in Costa Rica, is that the “Palace” side would have been slightly more upscale–better food, premium drinks, and adults only.

Costa Rica is known for it’s population of monkeys, and in doing my research, I discovered a place called Monkey’s Bar just down from our resort where guests would go to watch and feed the monkeys. Much to hubby’s chagrin, I made him get up so early on a number of mornings that it wasn’t even light out, just so we could go down to Monkey’s Bar. It wasn’t open in mornings, but it looked like a pretty neat place to grab a beer in the evening.

Some people would feed the monkey’s bananas and strawberries. We didn’t.  Most mornings we could barely see them, and only once did our friend get to see one up close. They were really cute, but reputably vicious.
We hung out a lot with our friends on this trip, but one afternoon we took a snorkeling and sunset cruise excursion. We went out on a huge catamaran, the Vision, and toured the Gulf of Papagayo.

The crew served a really tasty light lunch and there were fun cocktails available.

We stopped off to do a little snorkeling and then continued over to Monkey Head Rock. Who knew we’d even see monkeys in the ocean?

Shortly after the big rock, we ran into some dolphins swimming along side our boat. They looked like they were having as much fun as we were having, yet looked so graceful.img_0372.jpgWe then witnessed one of the most beautiful, albeit cloudy sunsets ever before being returned back to the RIU.

I may just have considered it to be so beautiful, because we had just had one of the most relaxed, fun days ever. It was a day that will make me always consider Costa Rica a wonderful, beautiful place!