Angie's BoBloG: Jamaica - part four (Can you believe there's more?)

I know, I need to quit blabbing about my awesome vacation to Jamaica. But how can I? I'm only half-way through, and have you realized yet that

Jamaica (and vacation)!?

Did you notice that I didn't show you a picture of our room at Beaches? I didn't even think to -- it was a hotel room basically. Here it is (sorry the bed is all rumply):

I didn't even take a picture of the bathroom, and it was too dark to get a good one anyway.

Now here's our room at Idle Awhile, the second place we stayed on our trip:

While the (what do you call him?) concierge was showing us our room, Ben and I were both thinking, "okay, so we don't get normal pillows or any blankets..." but it turned out that the red thing is just a cover and there were pillows in the closet. Phew. And, by the way, I think at Sandals/Beaches you have to pay about $3,000/night for a room that qualifies you for one of these swan towel flower arrangements:

The bathroom was lovely too -- so open and bright:

Idle Awhile isn't all-inclusive like Beaches, but seeing as how we were saving about $600/night by staying there, we could pretty much eat and drink all we wanted anyway. We ordered room service for every meal we ate there except breakfast, because it's so much easier to enjoy food with Bob asleep in his crib than with him grabbing everything he can reach and/or whining because he's bored in a high chair. The only tricky thing about staying at a hotel where luxury is not included is the tipping -- we didn't carry enough cash and we didn't know the appropriate way to tip anyway. Made for some awkward moments, but everything worked out in the end...

The genuine Jamaican feel of the place was accentuated by the stray cats that hung out by our veranda -- a mother with four or five kittens. Ben kept shooing them away, but I was just having a kitty photo shoot. Here's the mom, skinny as a paper clip, nursing two of her babies:

And now three:

(Sure did make me thankful that I only have one baby to nurse!)

Here's a partial look at our veranda, which was lovely. Two sides were open and there was a ceiling fan above, plus there were plenty of trees and shade, making the veranda far cooler than anyplace outdoors at Beaches, and therefore a very enjoyable place to spend time. It was also nice to be on the first floor so that we could walk straight out to the beach.

The sunset on our first night at Idle Awhile was definitely the best of our trip:

The next morning Bubbs got us up early, then ate and went back to sleep, so Ben and I just hung out outside -- he read on the veranda and I walked around taking pictures (surprised?).

Here's the view from our veranda down to the beach:

Here's the rest room by the ocean:

The view from the restaurant/bar:

And then our little prince awoke:

We spent the majority of the day down at the beach. (Warning: serious chunk-butt to follow.)

We brought a baby beach tent with us and didn't use it until this, our final day, hoping Bobby would rest in it while Ben and I swam.

He chillaxed for about 10 minutes before he plotted his escape and started shoveling sand into his tent.

It was a perfect day:

Oh, Jamaica, I miss you. See Ben and Bob on the beach below?

We also brought this floaty for Bob and regrettably didn't use it until the last day either:

As you can see, Bobby loved it.

It's a shame we didn't use the float at Beaches, but we did have the best laugh of our vacation at the thought of using it. In our minds the darn thing was huge and covered in pink flowers. And there we were at a resort with a bunch of rich people, already sticking out because we had the youngest baby there (not that it was a bad thing - everyone loved him), and we were about to pull out and blow up a giant neon floatation device to throw in the pool? Um, no. Once we finally gave it a shot, I really did wish we had used it all along, but oh well...

As soon as Bobby got tired, bobbing in the water put him right to sleep, face down:

We leaned him back so that he wouldn't suffocate:

And after I was done taking pictures Ben carried him out of the water asleep:

On our last night in Negril we went to Rick's Cafe, probably the most famous restaurant/bar in Jamaica, known for its sunsets and for the fact that it's set on a cliff that you can jump off into the ocean. I'd normally be all about something crazy like that, but I don't really want to be jumping off any cliffs until I've weaned my baby at least. The food we ordered wasn't bad, but nothing special really. I sort-of wish we had gone to one of the local places our cab driver recommended, but I guess it's cool that we can say we went to Rick's.

We saw a bride and groom jump:

The sunset was pretty spectacular from up there; the span of the sky was incredible and the cliffs were awesome, but the light was much better at Idle Awhile the night before.