Vacation day 15: a few last things

So during the month of fun, we had several guides on the different things that we did. I was wondering which would really be the best guide to be. So I rated them in order of 1 to 5 (with 1 being the worst and 5 the best).

For the fun category, it is how much fun the guide would have doing the activity everyday. The best two were the ones where you might see different things each day. Sky diving was next because of the adrenaline rush. The last two seem like they would just be the same thing over and over.

The ease of dealing with people category is how bad things can get if you have a bad customer...scuba was the worst because if something goes wrong while you're down at the sea floor it seems like there could be some serious problems. (Sky-diving doesn't have that because the guide is completely in control. The passenger can do whatever and it won't really affect anything.)

....................Fun.Ease of dealing with people.Pay.Total

Helicopter pilot:....1...5...........................5...11

Tandem sky-diver:....3...3...........................4...10

Scuba diver:.........5...1...........................3...9

Horseback rider:.....2...2...........................1...5

Zip-liner (jungle):..4...4...........................2...10

And the results show...helicopter pilot is the best! However, I also rated it as least fun, so personally I might end up doing sky-diving or zip-lining.

Here are the things we ended up taking home with us. (Betsy, we saw a bottle of banana ketchup in the airport and grabbed it. We didn't have a chance to try any.) The hardened coral was washed up on the beach from our kayaking trip.

Flurry was still rather cuddly today. Tonight however she really wanted water from the sink. She was mewing up the wall...here she is wondering why I'm going back upstairs instead of to the bathroom.

Review: Calabash Cove, St. Lucia

Well, I'm on the plane returning from St. Lucia and thought I'd write a quick review...just in case anyone else out there was curious. The resort we stayed at was Calabash Cove. We were in one of the villas. (Follow this link for blog posts starting at the beginning of the trip.)

Overall, it was a great vacation. I'm going to post a few "negative" things, but they really are greatly out weighed by the positive things.

Downside:
1. There were a lot of steps. We only went up and down them once or twice a day, but if you're not in a villa and like the beach it could be more.
2. The one time we took a taxi somewhere "on our own" it seemed rather expensive. (Also check with your hotel about prices getting to/from the airport...if not included they might need to be included in your budget.)
3. A few of the light bulbs were burned out. (I know, now I'm stretching to find things.)
4. The door to the shower was hard to open because the wood had warped.
5. There were a few food inconsistencies...we would order these delicious chocolate pastries for breakfast and never knew how many we were going to get.
6. It was a little hard to find shade in the late afternoon. There were a few places, but sometimes we just ended up going inside for a bit.
7. There was no clock/alarm clock...we woke up an hour too early for one excursion because we had the wrong time zone.

Upsides:
1.The food was delicious.
2. Room service didn't cost extra.
3. House keeping came twice a day with fresh towels.
4. The view was gorgeous.
5. There is snorkel gear at the front desk (and fish to see by the pier).
6. The excursions are very well organized...you get a ticket with where to meet and when. The taxis were always on time. The same taxi picked you up at the end.
7. The excursions we went on were very fun.
8. The villas have their own little pool...we used ours a lot. The pools were kept clean.
9. There weren't many pesky bugs (at least compared to my backyard in upstate NY).
10. The tap water is safe to drink (which saves a lot on bottled water costs).
11. There were kayaks that we could use at the resort.
12. The private dinner was very romantic.
13. There was free wi-fi. I know it sounds dorky to want to be connected to the Internet, but it helped keep us occupied.
14. I could swim and read at the same time...what can be better?
15. The villa had an outside bed, outside table, outside hammock, inside sitting room, and air conditioned bedroom. There were plenty of places to sit depending on my mood.
16. The outside shower was a lot of fun. During the day I could look out on the ocean. During the night I could watch lizards.
17. There were lizards all over the place! They were fun to watch.
I'm sure there are more things, but I can't think of them right now. :)

Vacation day 14: home

Today we made it home. It was cold.

But Flurry was happy to see us! Laura also happened to be in town and so stopped by for a while, which was nice.

I was going to take a picture of Flurry but I'm rather tired now and the camera is downstairs. Maybe I'll get one tomorrow.

vacation day 13: washington dc

Since we were so close to Washington DC, we thought we would spend a day at the museums.

We started at the natural history museum.

We also watched a 3D movie. The movie itself was really good...especially these birds that bombed the water. The 3D part we have mixed feelings on...some was really good and looked cool, but some of it just was blurry and made us a tad sick. I especially had problems with birds flying through the air.

We had a few more hours before everything closed so we also stopped at the air and space museum. With a heavy emphasis on the space part. Below Ben is holding his phone, which now has more computing power than the big thing behind him. Ah, how times have changed.

oh, one more picture.

I haven't had any Flurry pictures lately and am missing her. This is the closest I found.

Vacation day 12: leaving

Today we left. :(. It was sad, but we were also ready to come home. We had a few hours before we had to leave for the airport, so we were still able to get in a few last swims.




The trip really went quite smoothly. Customs is a pain, but there isn't much I could do about that. None of the bottles in the suitcase broke. Actually, the most annoying part of the trip was listening to some guy complain to a credit card about a charge refusal for our entire dinner. I could give you all the details,but I'll spare you the pain. It did give us a bonding time with the neighboring table though.

vacation day 11: this and that

On our last day, we didn't really do anything too special. We relaxed around the pool in the morning and then tried out some different chairs on the grass in the shade for the early afternoon because they put up some new, big umbrellas.

This is the view from those chairs.




We actually had a sunset without too many clouds on the horizon!



For dinner we went to a restaurant outside the resort called the Coal Pot. We had a table right next to the water and so we could see all of these little fish swimming around. And then big fish came! There was also a swooping bird that we think was trying to catch the little fish. The food was very good, but the menus were written on chalkboards and then set near the tables. I've never been in a place that has done that.

Vacation day10: the pier

Today we ended up doing a lot around the little pier that is here.





First we went snorkeling. We looked all around the cove, only to find grass-fish. Then we went by the pier and found many real fish...brown ones, blue ones, small ones, bigs ones, stripped ones. It was a cool find.





For dinner we had a private dinner on the pier. It was delicious and romantic.