June 27, 2008

Where NOT to Honeymoon Part II

This story is continued from a previous post.

We awoke in the morning to more rain, but at least we could see where we were. Our surroundings were beautiful, but that didn’t change our disgust with the situation. Mr. BBM tried to call our travel agent. She basically told us her hands were tied. We weren’t getting in to Sandals St. Lucia anytime soon. We decided we’d make the best of it.

The sun began to come out. For once the rain had stopped, so we thought we’d go play a quick set of tennis. To get around the resort, either a golf cart or a van would come to transport you. They dropped us off at the tennis/spa area and we started to play. We were the only idiots stupid enough to be playing tennis instead of enjoying the spa. But spa treatments were not covered by Sandals so we stayed away. In retrospect, we should have gone and made them pay for it. I’m sure we could have convinced them that we ate a sugar wrap or cucumber mask instead of bathing in it.

The air was thick with humidity and we barely made it through the set when it started to rain again. We had no idea that they were so serious about October being part of the rainy season when we booked our honeymoon. When we arrived back at our villa, all I wanted to do was take a shower. I tried to run the water and nothing happened. I tried to run the sink and nothing happened.

The next thing we knew, there was a man knocking on our door with a large water dispenser jug of water. He explained to us that because of all the rain, the water filtration system had flooded and was contaminated. This jug was our water for the forseeable future. This is not what you want to be told after playing tennis is 99 degree weather on your honeymoon.

We needed to use the water to bathe, brush our teeth, and even to flush the toilet. This was not going to be fun. We basically took sponge baths and then Mr. BBM assisted me with washing my hair. We didn’t want to waste too much water. We weren’t sure how much we would get or how long this would last!

We ended up needing that jug of water for just over 24 hours. We were never so happy to see running water when it was finally fixed. Of course, we could have just bathed outside in the rain because it rained pretty much non-stop.

Despite this, we tried to make the best of it. We ate lavish meals that we decided to stick to Sandals. We weren’t as bad as some of the other couples who were ordering bottles of Dom to stick it to Sandals even worse. We stayed at the Jalousie Hilton for four days and three nights.

It was on Wednesday of our week long honeymoon that Sandals sent a boat for us. It was faster to travel to the resort via the boat. Unfortunately, Sandals forgot to tell us and one other couple, and we missed the boat. We had to take a van to the other side of the island.

A driver came to pick us up and we drove up and down windy and terrifying roads. I have never had such horrible motion sickness. It was a scary drive I don’t wish to repeat. As we went through certain villages, the driver would instruct us to keep the doors locked, look straight ahead, etc. It was just plain awful.

When we finally arrived at Sandals St. Lucia, we were severely disappointed. The brochures had obviously been airbrushed extensively and the resort was buzzing the way a fraternity party would be, not a honeymooning resort. We were told we were given upgraded rooms, but they were directly above the DJ booth at the pool, which meant that the next morning we would be woken up to beer-chugging contests at 10 a.m. It wasn’t exactly the upgrade we were looking for.

Upon arrival we made an appointment to speak with the manager the next morning. We were livid about our treatment and wanted some answers and payment for all of the inconveniences.

That night, we ate dinner and then went dancing with our new friends from Boston. We had a pretty good time, but another set-back was just around the corner.

A few hours after arriving back at our room, I woke up alone in bed. There was no noise in the room and I had no idea where Mr. BBM had gone. I slowly crept around the room and found him in the bathroom. He was curled around the toilet, trying to keep cool on the tile floor. He had a fever and had apparently been sick with horrible food poisoning while I had been snoozing. He looked green.

Mr. BBM spent the night getting sick on and off, and was too weak to make it to Sandals "orientation" and our subsequent meeting with the manager. He told me to go. What else was I going to do? Sit there and watch him barf all day? So, I went to orientation alone and was immediately singled out because I was without my husband.

"Oh, your man had too much to drink last night, huh?" the obnoxious orientation leader asked me on his microphone in front of a crowd of about 30 couples. He was trying to embarrass me as he jutted the microphone out at me. I doubt he expected me to grab the microphone with such force.

"No, actually my husband is currently curled around the toilet not knowing which end of his body to put over the toilet because he got food poisoning shortly after eating at one of your crappy restaurants."

That shut him up.

I stormed across the resort to the manager’s office. The other forgotten couple and I sat there shooting visual daggers at the manager. His apology was not forthcoming and his only answer to our troubles was to offer us three free nights at the same crappy airbrushed resort, provided we pay for a total of seven nights and our own airfare. We all told him where he could stick that invitation and left. We obviously weren’t getting anywhere with him.

Our next visit was to the resort nurse, who gave Mr. BBM something that finally calmed his digestive tract down enough to function outside the bathroom. He spent all of Thursday and Friday feeling horrible, weak and still slightly nauseous.

On one of the evenings, we managed to get into the french restaurant on site. Most of the restaurants were booked solid since the people who had arrived earlier in the week booked up all the reservations. We were mostly stuck with the dregs.

We expected the french restaurant to be romantic and wonderful. It was anything but. Tables were stacked close enough that I had to watch my elbows when I ate. There was no privacy, no romance, only more disappointment and girls who appeared to be wearing prom gowns. It was like being stuck in a bad movie.

There were beer chugging contests at the break of dawn, dumpsters strewn about the property and the private beaches were anything but private. You had to be careful because there were people begging for money all over the beach. The beautiful hillside of the brochure was more like a mirage created by the artist who airbrushed it. It was anything but a relaxing honeymoon.

On our final day, we finally had a little bit of sun. I convinced Mr. BBM to take a kayak out into the Caribbean with me. He was still feeling sick. We rowed our kayak out into the sea. It was beautiful, but as we got out as far as we were comfortable going, the water got dark as did the clouds. And just like that, we were in the middle of a torrential downpour. We rowed back to shore, convinced that we had a big bad cloud following us everywhere we went.

When our plane touched down in our hometown, we were thrilled. I’ve never been so excited to go home. It was truly the honeymoon from hell.