Jamaica trip report
I just got back from a three day vacation in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It was a well-deserved trip after a hectic summer at the World Series of Poker and even more poker after that ended. And it was a good excuse to spend some time with my girlfriend Nissa as poker’s been monopolizing my time a lot lately.
The trip started off super weird. After going through the security line at the airport, I spotted a creepy looking dude and pointed him out to Nissa. A while later I went to the bathroom and caught the dude in the stall next to me using his laptop while doing his business. I thought it was funny and snapped a pic, and just when I finished chuckling to myself, I noticed he was now playing hardcore porn. I was super weirded out and almost ran out of the bathroom to tell Nissa what I just saw. We studied the guy’s shoes in the picture, and sure enough creepy guy eventually emerged wearing the shoes. At least my reading abilities are right on even away from the poker tables!
Luckily weirdo wasn’t on my flight, and we took our redeye to Dallas without getting raped. We had a 5 hour layover at DFW, so we decided to book a room on priceline.com for a mere $35 + tax. So worth it! We took their free shuttle to the hotel and had a nice 3 hour nap before heading back for our flight to Jamaica.
Customs was a breeze, and we found our private car filled with booze to get us into the party atmosphere during the long drive. We arrived at the Riu an hour later, buzzed and excited about our upcoming relaxation. We went to bed early, planning to wake up early to make dinner reservations and enjoy the beach.
We had the alarm clock set for 9am, which was an hour after they starting taking reservations for that evening’s nicer restaurants. We got down there and found out ALL of the reservations were booked. That’s weird. They got us into the steakhouse for the next night, but I was bummed we wouldn’t have a fancy dinner the first night we’d be there. We went to go get breakfast and were confused as to why breakfast wasn’t being served anymore. I asked the guy what time it was, and he said around 12:30pm. What?! No wonder all of the reservations were full.
We ate lunch now, not able to enjoy a custom omelet or any of the foods we were craving, and we discussed how we made such an error. We set the clock ourselves when we arrived as it was blinking like it barely survived a power outage. Did we set it to Las Vegas time by accident? That was possible, but Nissa ensured me she set the clock to the time I told her, and my phone was on at least Dallas time, so I could only be off an hour if I gave the wrong time.
After blowing through theory after theory, we returned from our room and re-set our clock. After enjoying a few more hours of our vacation, we returned to find that the clock lost more time. Apparently this was a clock that looked like it worked, but would lose about 20 minutes every our. So overnight, it lost 3 hours. I wanted to break that alarm clock into a bunch of pieces. No fancy dinner, and I felt robbed of 3 hours of vacation. We slept like 14 hours the first night instead of our intended 11. Grrrr.
Oh well, we’re on vacation in Jamaica, so we’re supposed to let that stuff go, right? So I did. I told the hotel about the broken clock and they did nothing, so I just used my iPod as an alarm clock from then on and set wake-up calls from the front desk as backup.
Other than that minor incident, the hotel exceeded my expectations as the grounds were terrific, the food was good, and the staff were the friendliest I’d encountered in any resort hotel I’ve stayed in. For the price, I don’t think I could have been happier. We spent our time lounging in the sun, enjoying tropical drinks and each others company. I only wish we could have stayed an extra day or three. 
I can’t wait until we have the time and money to take another all-inclusive trip, though I think our next vacation may have to be a big city one for variety sake. Hmm, where to go, where to go…
Pictures of our trip are at http://bit.ly/I4ep5
A full review of the hotel is at http://bit.ly/1oIkXw
