Jamaica, beautiful every day of 10.

I have already written some words about Jamaica but those were for the time when Jill and I went "off the reserve" as a friend here in Canada said. This blog entry is purely for our time at the resort - in other words, bliss.

Jill watches Paige in the main pool.

Ten days of wind down after 6 weeks or more of constant travelling and change was exactly what all of us needed. The girls spent much of their time in the swimming pool, Ash spent his in front of the computers and mum and dad spent theirs doing as little as possible. This was helped by having a nanny - Tina.

Tina with kids at FDR resort

Tina was our saviour when it came to occupying Paige during the day. They became good friends and spent much of their days in the pool or doing the things that Paige wanted.The resort is touted as a family site and it really is designed for the relaxation of ALL in a family. The facilities are older than others, but that fact actually adds to the appeal I thought.  Jill and I wandered into the next door Breezes resort that does not allow children and there was a feeling of sterility, somewhere you only go to party but not feel at home.  The resort offered a range of activities, such as tennis with a coach - something that Jill took 'advantage' of.
Eating and drinking was a favourite pastime for the Jenkinson family too. The kids enjoyed special cocktails such as the chilly willy while mum and dad enjoyed any cocktail that they could find on the internet and had heard of in the past - which did not amount to much.
We sorted our meal times after a couple of days, with the kids eating early from their own menu and restaurant. Later, as the kids played in the kids club or watched TV in our villa.

Dinner at the veranda restaurant

Our villa was a two story affair with two bedrooms upstairs and a day bed downstairs in a lounge room-kitchen area. Ash slept on the bed downstairs and the girls shared a room upstairs. The downstairs area had a small balcony that looked over a tropical garden and out to the sea.

Balcony view



 We really didn't need a kitchen as we could get food at any time from the snack bar and meals always seemed to be so big that wanting extra food was not usually an option. However Ash did enjoy dropping by the snack bar for an ice cream or THREE most days, helped along with a plate of chips every now and then. When he found that we had cable TV in our villa he declared that he was "in heaven."

I agreed with him for different reasons, leisurely mornings followed by even more leisurely afternoons and absolutely NOTHING that HAD to be done meant Jill and I could truly unwind. Wireless internet from the villa helped me to relax by updating the blog and tidying up the records of our travels.

Beach front feast being prepared for dinner one night


The employees at the resort never stopped working. A simple sounding statement, but they were constantly engaged in maintaining the resort in seemingly "busy work"activities. I felt as though they had to be seen to be busy by the guests just to justify being there, and perhaps that was the case because I don't think that labour relations are high on the priority list for these places.

Apart from the trip that Jill and I took to the nearest big town for tourists, Ash and Megan joined us on a trip to the Dunn River Falls - Paige being too young stayed at the resort with Tina. That is another blog entry, along with the whole families trip to the green Grotto Caves.



Jamaican sunset



Towards the end of our stay, we got to see a beautiful tropical sunset which helped to top off a great stay. The picture here shows the steps to the water slide. Paige eventually gathered the courage (with much of mum's encouragement) to go down this slide and then couldn't get enough of it. A pity that was the second to last day. Tina wouldn't do it as she cannot swim and according to her, most Jamaicans can't swim! A strange idea for a small island nation surrounded by tropical waters - next they'll be claiming to have entered the winter Olympics with a bob-sled team!!