Saturday, January 4th
Our flight left at 645AM so we were up and ready to go pretty early so we dropped the dogs off the night before. We land in SXM after about 5 hours on a direct flight from MSP and it’s now mid afternoon. We get to our lodging Divi Little Bay Beach Resort and check in around 4PM. This place is a huge timeshare property. When we checked in they gave us their best try to get us to come to a meeting and see what kind of money we can screw you out of and she was adamant until the 5th time saying no thanks we really just want to enjoy the resort for a week. We put our stuff in the room and changed into beach clothes. Our room was an end unit on the bottom floor and was about 10 steps from the sand with a view of palm trees, sand and classic Caribbean turquoise water. The room itself was dated, dungy and not worth the hundreds of dollars per night we were paying but what can you do.. After checking out our room we walked around the beach and grounds a little and then found a table by the sand and had a couple beers. Our table overlooked the hermit crab races that were about to begin. Lots of people joined around for this. When the server finally showed up 20 minutes later he just stood there and looked at us. We said could we have 2 presidente’s and some coconut shrimp please. Over an hour later it all came out… 2 beers and some frozen coconut shrimp took over an hour. He just wandered back out and dropped them off and didn’t ask if we wanted anything else or anything just dropped and left. We just watched the crab races. A nice older man came over and introduced himself and was from Minnesota too! He introduced us to his wife and later his son that would be staying with them for a week. We finished our stuff and walked 20 feet to the open air bar called Gizmos named after a parrot that inhabits the bar. We put in a order for some food and some more beverages. The bevies came out right away but the food took another hour. SO now we’ve been on this patio for 3 hours and have had 2 beverages and some food. Not a great start and we come to find out this is how the service is. We decided to ask for several to go beers and went up to the hot tub for a while. While there we chatted with some people we met at the open air bar who also were not impressed with the service. We hung out for about an hour and then went back to the room as it had been a long day.
Sunday, January 5th
Today we were up before sun and decided it’d be a good time to walk up to For Amsterdam at the end of the peninsula our resort was on. Best to do this in the morning or at night as it gets super hot. This hill top peninsula overlooks both Great Bay and Little Bay. We walked around the ruins for a while and read the signs then headed back and walked around our resort that we didn’t see yet. We went to breakfast and found it was pretty minimal at best.. If we did not get the all inclusive it would have been $28 US dollars. RIDICULOUS! Also the cleanliness around the food lacked a little. We had a little bit of eggs and bacon and a mimosa and called it good. One positive was the staff in the breakfast area was awesome about service. We went back to the room and popped on our suits and headed for the Pure Ocean pool. The pool was cold so we went into the hot tub for a little bit and then walked along the beach and looked for cool shells and rocks. It was starting to get super hot now around 11AM and so we retreated to our room and hung out and played UNO and had some beverages and water. After a while in the room we decided to walk on the Great bay side of the resort and there were huge rocks for the break water and a single iguana! We decided to go to the Seabreeze pool area which is down toward the more townhouse style rentals on the property. It was a cool area tucked away. There is a restaurant and pool bar and we had lunch here. We did mango daquiris and Katie got the Mahi Mahi and I got a burger. We were both let down as the bread and buns were rock solid and made them both hard to eat. I guess we’ll drink our lunch. There was a fancy boat that was picking up some fancy people that then brought them to their fancy yaht off shore and while we were finishing our liquid lunch we were watching these people try to time the waves and jump onto this boat. The bartender also was sneaking some alcohol and watching as well. He did not ask us if we wanted anything else or anything so we said check please tipped very little and got out of there. We walked back the main area on the beach and saw a huge iguana. We then settled in at the Pure Ocean pool for a while. We didn’t want to go back to Gizmos so we went to the Mexican place on site and the fish tacos and shrimp tacos were really good and the service was a tiny bit better! After eating we thought it would be a good idea to get some sort of food for the room so we went to the take out pizza place and got a pizza to go. It was FANTASTIC pizza and held up nicely however it didn’t last long because it was so good. We called it a night after that.
Monday, January 6th
We woke up slow and hung around the room watching the sun rise over the bay. We went snorkeling in the ocean right outside our door. There was a dock with some rocks around it. The visibility wasn’t great and the waves kind of freaked Katie out. We were out for a while and then headed back in for some lunch. When Gizmos opened we figured we’d give it another go. This was a different bartender so we will see if the service is better. We both ordered a fancy cocktail and watched Gizmo the Red Macaw as he was also ponied up to the bar drinking water with fruit in it. It was pretty entertaining and this bartender actually treated us like we were here and human so it was a pretty nice way to spend lunch. Our bartender had the right amount of sass to bring that feeling of don’t mess with her but then the look like I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you what are you talking about. We hung out for a while and then walked the grounds and went up to the Pure Ocean pool and got a cabana. It was nice way to spend the afternoon. It rained for 30 seconds and then the sun came back out. We went back to the room for a siesta and hang. Next we went to dinner as it was taste of the Caribbean night in the main dining room. It was okay. The service was good though! we called it a night after dinner as it was pretty late.
Tuesday, January 7th
After a quick breakfast we wandered up to the fort again to see it a little more in depth. Still super cool and lots of wildlife. The ocean was a bit calmer today so we went back in for a while. We then walked around the grounds again and had our reserved dinner at the Sea Breeze restaurant. I had the lamb and Katie and the beef and shrimp. These came with steaming hot rocks which we were to cook our own food on these rocks. We didn’t necessarily know that and I had to cook all of our food. We were worn down from the day and it was kind of a big night so we finished up and got out of there and crashed early.
Wednesday, January 8th
We woke up and went for a walk before it got too hot. We then went to the pool, hot tub and then the ocean until a bigger wave scared Katie so we got out and hung around the room in the heat of the day and packed up as we’d be leaving the next day. We decided to go back to Gizmos for dinner and we had good coconut shrimp mediocre gyros and bad corn dogs. We just took it easy the rest of the night and watched movies and packed up the rest of our things.
Thursday, January 9th
We woke up and wanted to do a little bit of everything one more time today before we leave. They typically charge for a late check out but I just asked nicely and they said we could leave at 12 instead of 10. This helped as we could do more and still shower and get ready for travel after. So we started the day by going up to the fort for sunrise and watched 2 cruise ships come and go . We then went to breakfast and then did some laps on the beach before it got too hot. We then went swimming in the ocean as this would be the last time for a while. It was calm, warm and perfect. Too bad it wasn’t like that the whole trip but what can ya do. We then walked the big rocks on the Great bay side again but this time went all the way down and there were dozens of iguanas! We got hot and took one more dip in the ocean then went back to the room to shower up. Then we went to the cafe that we wanted to go to but was not included in all inclusive but we got gelato and it was fantastic! bummer we didn’t try it earlier. worth the cost for sure. Right at 12 our driver that dropped us here picked us up and brought us to the airport. We got a complimentary upgrade to comfort plus but we were directly behind first class and that kind of was not great. We wish we would have kept our original seats but no big deal. This flight was odd that it had 157 open seats. They had to put pallets of sand bags in the storage hold to balance out the weight properly. The flight was an hour longer than on the way down and 15 minutes before landing the captain came on and said that one of the three hydraulic systems onboard has failed and they need to do some circling to wait for MSP to clear the runway for an emergency landing just incase but it will be fine. When we landed it took forever to stop and we basically ran out of runway. The emergency vehicles came and had to inspect the plane to make sure it was safe to bring the plane to the gate. It was so we went to the gate. While waiting to deplane I saw a flight attendant texting like crazy and shaking and typing we had an emergency landing and used all of the runway close call. We flew right through customs and made it to the 4runner. When I got on 494 we saw a card in our windshield wipers. I pull over in the snow and pull it. It is a card from an MSP police officer saying our vehicle was hit and they have all the info please call them. We get out and see that our bumper is bashed and a huge chunk missing. We did not notice as we were tired and after the ordeal on the plane we just wanted to get home. Not a great way to end the trip but it ended up okay and her insurance paid for everything and she was not new to the legal system yada yada … UNTIL NEXT TIME!
