Friday, August 15, 2008

My Vacation!


St. Thomas was FABULOUS! We had a great trip! I was and still am amazed at how blue the ocean is.


Saturday: St. Thomas is HUMID!
4am - Head to the airport for ST. THOMAS!!!!!!!! I was so worried that my bag would be over the 50 pound limit, but... guess what?! It was 50 lbs EXACT! Wahoo! Our first flight was from DFW to Miami and had no problems. Our next flight from Miami to St. Thomas, however was a different story. WE board the plane and quickly realize how hot the plane is. We all settle in, and hope to take off quickly. But, then we hear the Captain come on and tell us, not to worry, but there is just a little engine trouble and that is why the air isn't working properly but no worries, he called the mechanics. I wanted to yell at him and say "WHAT?!?! What do you mean a"little" engine trouble?" 45 minutes later we were coasting down the runway to what I assume was an engine that was working perfectly.


I tried to sleep as much as I could on our last flight. I woke up when the pilot said that we were about to land. I opened up my little window and just about came out of my chair. It appeared as though we were going to land IN the water. I wish I would have taken a picture of this, but I was too panicky and was preparing myself to grab my seat cushion and jump from the plane. When we finally landed safely on land, we walked down the stairs of the plane to an extremely humid airport and a very cloudy city. We made it with all of our luggage, (YEA!) and boarded the Tropic Tours bus that would take us to our hotel. On the trip to the hotel we learned that they drive on the left side of the road with the driver's seat on the left side of the car. The roads were so narrow and wind down mountains. They also don't believe in medians so oncoming traffic is just a small painted white line away. The drivers drive as quickly as possible just to scare the silly tourists.

We arrived at the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort and Spa and checked in. We were so excited to see that we had actually picked a nice hotel that looked better than the pictures. Our room had a great ocean view and seemed pretty clean too. The first thing we did was head to dinner to take full advantage of our all inclusive stay. (We skipped lunch so we would be extra hungry!) We loved the restaurant and especially loved the view!

Our next stop was the beach. Unfortunately it was too dark and we couldn't tell much, but we had fun laying on the chairs pretending we could see the fabulous ocean!

Sunday: Iguanas are not stupid!
We headed for the beach pretty early so that we could get started on our tans. We got to the beach around 10 and stayed until about 6ish. :) We were planning on having brunch at a little beach restaurant. While we were waiting on them to open at 11:30 we learned about "island time". Basically, island time is "Why hurry?, take your time." At 12:15 when they decided to finally open up for the day we enjoyed a yummy brunch. On Sunday, we enjoyed snorkeling and just being plain lazy! Here are some of our pictures:


Look how pretty the ocean is!!!!!!!!!!

My favorite spot at the hotel was in that chair.


Did someone say all inclusive?
YES! This was taken @ 10:15 am. That is the beauty of vacation!


This was taken from the pool looking out to the ocean.

St. Thomas has MANY iguanas just running around. This little stinker decided to stare at me for many minutes (but it seemed like hours!) I had a not so genius idea that if I would feed it and throw the food really far away it would go running after the food and go away. Well, this scary thing ran for the food, ate it and then returned for more. If you have never seen an iguana run, you should. They waddle, but it is the fastest waddle I have ever seen. SCARY!

Dinner at The Manor house

Monday and Tuesday: RELAXING is fun!


This is my favorite picture. I want to frame it!

That is me using my floaty in the ocean! Ahhhh.





Look! That is me up in the sky!

Just Kidding! But you can imagine that is me up there! I considered parasailing, however my wise travel buddy told me scary stories about sharks, and weird boat drivers who might drive around for hours and hours and not let you come down. So I decided to pass


We went to the casino and I won a whopping 25 cents. WOO HOO!

We ended Tuesday by getting massages at the spa!

Wednesday: Tour of St. Thomas




At a lookout point where you could see the cruise ships visiting.




DBU called, I am in!


A pretty tree near Magen's Bay



Lookout onto Magen's Bay. It was pretty cloudy. Normally you can see all the way to the BVI.






This was at Mountain Top, the highest point in St. Thomas and home of the world famous Banana Daiquiri.

It was yummy!


Thursday: More relaxing and having fun
Snorkeling with the Barracuda was fun!
My 'Happy Feet'!

Me and Audra after 6 days of fun in the sun!
Friday: OH NO!
The plan for Friday was to get to wake up and see the sunrise, and then have breakfast and get to the beach as quickly as possible so we wouldn't loose any of our sun time minutes. However, God had a different plan. When the alarm went off at 5 am, I decided to keep sleeping because my tummy was hurting. By 7 am, I was soooooo sick. Here is a little TMI story : I even had to call the hotel to come and fix our sink because I had stopped it all up. When it was evident that this was not going away I talked my friend into going to the beach so that her last day wasn't ruined. I thought I would just sleep off whatever little bug I had acquired, but after getting sick every 15-20 minutes and having my stomach start cramping really bad I realized I needed to go and see a Dr. So, I called the front desk and they had the Dr. call me. After telling him what was going on he said to get to his office as quickly as I could. Well, when you are sick the last thing you want to do is have to go somewhere. I got all turned around and lost looking for the front desk, that the same little man who came to fix our sink saw me and gave me a ride on the golf cart. He was one of my little angels for the day because he found me a taxi, told the driver exactly where I needed to go, and even went to the front desk to get me a free taxi voucher. Audra happened to call my cell just as I was getting into the taxi and was able to run from the beach to the front and jump in to go with me. I was so thankful that she was there! When we got to the office she made sure that they got me back right away. the Dr. said I had just come down with a bad virus and would just have to wait it out. He did give me 4 shots and 2 prescriptions, and also mentioned that if I didn't get better I wouldn't be able to go home the next day. WHAT?!??! I think I almost cried when he told me this. I would have loved to stay in St. Thomas while healthy, but when you are sick, you just want to be home. I finally stopped being sick long enough for the short taxi ride back to the hotel, and slept the entire last day away with short periods of still being sick. By the next morning, I was still not feeling well, but at least I wasn't getting sick! We boarded our plane home and arrived back here around 8. However, our luggage decided to stay in St. Thomas for another day.
Even with getting sick, I LOVED this vacation. It was so relaxing to go and just do nothing for an entire week! I have over 300 more pictures, so let me know if you want to see them!

3 comments:

Bethe said...

Oh Laura! St. Thomas is beautiful! Your pictures make me want to go! I'm so glad you two had fun.

gruvyteacher said...

those pics are awesome. I too love the photo of your feet and the water. That would be a great postcard!

Sarah said...

Oh Laura!! I am so glad you had fun despite the sickness. That banana daqueri looked yummmmmy!