David and Brigitte Wedding & Honeymoon

Trip to Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Oct. 16, 2003 – October 22, 2003

Bright and early Thursday, October 16, David and I were up, finishing our packing for our 6:00 a.m. flight to Montego Bay, by way of Philadelphia. (Never had quite understood this need of flying north to go south deal – oh, well.) No problem until we changed planes in Philadelphia and sat there and sat there and sat there. Never found out exactly why, but our plane was an hour late in leaving Philadelphia and, therefore, an hour late in arriving in Jamaica.

When we departed the plane in Jamaica and entered the airport, there was a group of singers and musicians to greet the international travelers. They were great. They were dressed in colorful costumes. I wish I had had my camera out and ready for pictures, but I never dreamed I would need to have it ready that soon!

Our trip through Customs was very smooth and uneventful. The lines were long, but the Customs agents moved us through very quickly. I was really dreading this part of the trip, but they surprised me by making it easy. We found our way to the Couples agency booth, checked in and waited for our infamous bus trip to the resort. There were other couples waiting as well, but we were disappointed to learn that they were not going to Ocho Rios. Within 15 minutes or so, the Couples representative escorted us out to the bus area and showed us our bus. I had expected a mini-van sort of bus, but instead we were loaded onto a typical school bus type of bus. After another 15 minutes or so, two men boarded the bus, introduced themselves as Peter, our driver, and his helper, Willie. We were it! I couldn’t believe it. This entire huge bus for just us two. I felt kind of silly. On we went, though, to our destination – Ocho Rios!

Peter and Willie were very entertaining on the way. They pointed out everything along the way and answered any kind of question we had. We did stop along the way at a jerk place and they had a lunch with us. At first they went to sit apart from us at the jerk stop, but we asked them to please sit with us since we were such an extremely small group. They were happy to oblige and moved over to our table. I absolutely fell in love with the jerk. Willie and David had made my plate while I visited the restroom though and it wasn’t spicy enough for me. I made a comment to David that I loved the taste, but just wished it were hotter. David told me he knew I would say that, told Willie that while preparing my plate, but Willie didn’t believe him, said not to put too much sauce on or I would regret it. Obviously my soon-to-be-husband knew me better than that. I quickly made my way back to the counter and smothered the rest of my chicken in the spicy sauce. Mmmmm good! We are going to try to figure out how to make good jerk here. I could eat it every day.

The ride from MoBay to Ocho Rios was bumpy and rustic, I will admit, except for the small portion of new highway they have finished. However, I was never frightened and the ride was never as fast and crazy as I had been warned on the Couples message board. Perhaps Peter was just a safer driver than most. Could be. He didn’t dawdle, though, and we made it to the resort in an hour-and-a-half, which included our jerk stop. It was right about 3:00 p.m. when we pulled into the resort. Even though it had been mentioned many times on the message board that a few American dollars as a trip to all the drivers would be all that was expected, my generous soon-to-be-husband peeled off a $20 bill and gave it to Peter for the trip. I think I forgot to tell him about what was usual tipping. Peter didn’t seem to have any problem with that at all. They did make our trip an interesting one, though, so it was okay.

The Couples Ocho Rios resort is breathtaking. As soon as we entered the lobby (which, by the way, is gorgeous – I have never seen an open lobby like that before!), we were greeted by the staff with the customary champagne and cool cloth and shown a comfy seat. They were much appreciated. The staff brought the necessary check-in paperwork to us to complete and we were on our way to our room within mere minutes.

We were taken to Room 208, the second room on the right at the top the stairs. We had only reserved an ocean view, but knew immediately this must be an upgrade. This room was exactly center of the hotel, overtop the lobby area, and was oceanfront with a huge balcony. There were French doors to the balcony, with heavy drapes for bad weather, and another set of billowy pale yellow curtains. Just about our entire time there, we kept the doors open and the billowy pale yellow curtains pulled. It was so romantic. The only thing the room could have used to make it more romantic would have been candles. The staff who carried our luggage up, opened the doors, placed our luggage where we asked and David promptly handed him a $5 bill. Oops, okay, a talk was obviously needed here. Wasn’t that part of the whole all-inclusive thing? No tipping, no need to carry money around? David just didn’t understand exactly what was covered and what wasn’t and didn’t want to offend him. So, another decent tip given. I told David they were probably going to all talk among themselves and everybody would be going out of their way to help us, thinking they would get a $5 or $20 slipped to them. I hope they didn’t think that, though, because I quickly stopped that. If he kept it up at that rate, we would have been out of cash by day two.

Within 5 minutes, a bucket of champagne was brought to our room and we toasted our upcoming week, upcoming marriage, honeymoon and life. We leisurely had our champagne on the balcony, but needed to be back downstairs at 5:00 for our orientation tour. I didn’t want to miss it, because I didn’t want to miss anything. It was very informative and didn’t take too long at all. I would suggest that every new guest go on the orientation tour. Immediately afterwards, we headed to the bar. I just had to have one of the hummingbird drinks I had read so much about. They didn’t disappoint.

Next was dinner and we chose the Verandah Room. Their selections were wonderful and the cook did a great job. I was so, so tired, though, that I honestly wasn’t able to really enjoy it. I don’t drink too terribly much and after our long trip, the bottle of champagne in our room, the hummingbirds I had had, and the glass of wine with dinner, I was just about to pass out on my feet from exhaustion. I know this sounds ridiculous to admit, but we traveled all that way to get to paradise, something we had dreamed about for a year, and I couldn’t stay awake the first night to party and enjoy. Regrettably, we were in bed by 9:30 and asleep shortly after.

But, this did allow for a bright and early morning! We were up so early, went to the Patio Restaurant for breakfast, and they weren’t open yet. We strolled around the grounds until 7:00 and then returned for breakfast. This is the day I discovered capers and fell in love with them. I love salmon so I chose that, and decided to try a spoon of capers with it. I had never tasted them, but love them and can gladly say there are now capers in my refrigerator. After our breakfast, we visited the tour booth near the pool to check out the optional tours that were offered. There were several we were interested in, but after looking at our events already scheduled and the times available for the tours we would want to take advantage of, there just wasn’t the physical opportunity to do the tours as they were all done in the morning hours. As it was at that point, we had a 10 AM wedding coordinator appointment that morning, our wedding was at 11:00 the next day (Saturday), we were going to Dunns River Falls on Sunday morning, the glass bottom boat trip on Monday morning and really wanted one free morning to do nothing but sunbathe. So, no optional trips this time. Maybe next time, though!

Our 10:00 wedding coordinator meeting finally came around, though time just seemed to crawl while we were waiting. We wanted so badly to get over to the island, shed our clothes and get some long-awaited sun. But first things first – we had to arrange for the wedding. Nicole greeted us promptly at 10:00 and went over the wedding with us. I was rather disappointed with this part of the resort, though I have a feeling Nicole was new and not so inexperienced. As we had never been to a resort of any kind at all, we were very much depending on her to lead us through what options we had. We really didn’t even know what kind of questions to ask. We had really wanted to get married on the beach, but were told by her that we had to choose between the oceanside gazebo or the garden gazebo. We chose the oceanside. The next day, though, another couple did get married right on the beach, so that was quite a disappointment to find out after the fact that we could have done that, as well. Nicole also did not let us know that during the vows ceremony we would be asked if we had anything we wanted to say to each other, so we had not thought about it ahead of time and were taken by surprise when we were asked. Needless to say, our words to each other were very short and not well thought out. That could have been handled better. We had also asked for a written copy of our vows, but never received them. The last detail of our wedding that was very very important to me was my bouquet. I wore a very simple, sleeveless red dress and very much wanted a flowing bouquet of tropical flowers in as many colors as possible. I described what I wanted in detail, even tried to pick something similar out of a book, and thought I had conveyed my wish clearly. However, the bouquet I was handed at 11:00 the next day was a very small bouquet, all the same flower, originally white, but each flower spray-painted a different color. Quite a disappointment and not all what I had been picturing and dreaming of. Even though the resort is wonderful, the staff are great, and the wedding pictures turned out even better than I had hoped, the actual coordinating of the weddings still need work. We are legally married, though, and I have beautiful memories, so I won’t complain too much.

Immediately after that appointment, we rushed to our room, changed clothes and headed to the island. Both of us have been to a local nudist campground before, and David has been to a few nude beaches, so this wasn’t a traumatic first-time experience for either of us. We both absolutely love the feel of the sun soaking into our entire bodies. I know I don’t have a gorgeous model body, but that’s not what I go for. I would love to look better than I do, but that isn’t going to stop me from something I enjoy. So off we hurried. It was after 11:00 by the time we made it over there, by 1:00 it started getting overcast, and by 2:00 it started raining, so we left the island. We headed straight to the Patio bar, got a hummingbird, and the rain stopped. Since the sun was back out and the pool was so close at hand, we found a couple of loungers by the pool and decided to hang out there for awhile. I took the white lounge float off the lounger and used it as a float in the pool. After spending a little time in the pool, I got out and was walking around the pool back to where David was. As I made the turn around the pool at the corner nearest the hot tubs, I stepped in a puddle of rain water and lost my footing. My feet flew out from under me, and I landed with a hard thud on my rear. I was so embarrassed. My left hand also had shooting pain in it, so I looked down and saw that aside from cuts and scrapes on nearly ever finger, and a partially broken nail on my middle finger, the entire nail, all the way to the cuticle, of my left little finger had ripped out, only hanging on by one small piece of the corner. It is amazing how excruciating a small thing like a fingernail can be.

David hurried me to the nurse’s station in the hotel where, of course, the first thing mentioned was a tetanus shot. That was the last thing I wanted and being 80% sure that I had received a tetanus shot within the last 5 years, I decided to chance it. The nurse asked if I wanted him to finish removing the nail or not, and I opted for NOT! So he pressed it back down, cleaned it with antiseptic, covered it with Neosporin and a bandage.

After this, I needed a drink, something to calm my nerves down, so we went back to the Patio bar. After a short time, the nurse and another gentleman (who I later learned was the manage of the three Jamaica Couples resorts), came to me to see how I was going, asked where the accident occurred, and investigated the area. The manager (an English man, but cannot recall his name) was extremely nice, told me he was going to make me a beauty salon appointment for first thing next morning to have my nails repaired, and to let him know if I needed anything else. He was a very, very nice gentleman.

That evening we went to the Verandah Room again, but this time I was able to enjoy it much more, since I had been able to rest to well the night before. It was the strangest feeling, though, to finish our meal and then just get up and leave. It took a few days of this before we felt like we weren’t sneaking out on the bill. (You will just have to take our word that the food was wonderful. I like food, and I like it to taste good, but I don’t take pictures of it and I don’t get into describing it in detail.)

We stopped at the Patio bar, got a drink, walked around and went on up to our room to relax and prepare for our big day the next morning.

Next day, Saturday – wedding day! We wake up early, shower and head to the Patio for breakfast. (The buffet is great – anything you want is there.) At 8:00, we head back to our room to get ready for our wedding. Remember, I have a 9:00 appointment for my nails. Shortly after 8:00, I decide to press the wrinkles out of the red dress I will wear. While doing so, I look up to see something David is showing me, look back down at my dress and discover that some kind of mineral deposit or something has spewed out of the steam holes of the iron onto my dress. Even though I immediately attempt to clean it with cold water, this only serves to cause a bigger stain. Between this and my throbbing left hand, I become so upset that I just break out in tears. Is all of this worth it! I became so frustrated, I grabbed my dress, hurried down to the front desk, and amidst my tears tries to explain to the staff there that the red dress is the only dress other than a black cocktail dress that I have. My wedding is at 11:00. Could they please have their laundry wash my dress and dry it before my wedding? After a few phone calls, they assure me that it will be done, no problem, and the dress will be waiting for me when I return from the salon. Feeling a little relieved, I head back to my room for a few last minute preparations before leaving to make my 9:00 salon appointment in time.

Rushing to the salon, I arrive to find the doors locked, so I sat down on the steps outside the door and waited - - and waited and waited and waited. Finally at 9:25, the salon staff begin arriving. It appears that nothing and nobody is in a hurry in Jamaica. They were very apologetic and courteous though, explaining something about buses and traffic. They immediately began working on my left hand, though, which ended up taking a lot of work. Just removing the bandage on my little finger was an accomplishment in itself, because the nail was stuck to the bandage and we were afraid it would rip the remainder of the nail when removed. They worked at it very slowly though and were able to remove the bandage, leaving the nail in tact. After an hour of detail work, my nails and damaged fingers looked as perfect as they possibly could, which made me feel a lot better about the pictures that would be taken in a short time. After this, the salon girls also told me they were going to also fix my hair for me, treat of the resort, since I had been injured. I though this was so sweet, and they finished up about 5 til 11:00.

I rushed back to my room and there on the bed was my nice CLEAN red dress. I removed my clothes and pulled the dress over my head. Hmm, that was strange, this dress wasn’t this tight last week - - or this short. Oh, no, my wedding dress shrunk in the laundry!!! I couldn’t believe it. What else could happen? My nearly knee-length dress was now so short that I was afraid to walk in public in it for fear of my rear showing in the back. It had to be worn, though, as I didn’t think to bring a spare wedding dress. So, I just tugged and pulled as much as I could to lengthen it, and tried to not bend over.

It was 11:00, so we had to run. At the bottom of the staircase we found Nicole, the minister/officiant, and the photographer waiting on us. The wedding was on! Here we go!

The wedding was beautiful, the vows were perfect, and having our wedding in Jamaica is a memory we will always cherish, a choice we will always be glad we made. The wedding pictures in our gallery are the actual photographs taken by the COR photographer and pretty much tell the story of the wedding from beginning to end. I recommend it to anyone! During the reception portion, we were given another bottle of champagne and the photographer insisted that we finish the bottle before continuing with the photographs. I was so tipsy during our pictures I couldn’t stop laughing. Another memory!

After the wedding, we changed and rushed right back to the island. Same story again, shortly after we got there, it started raining. This was a disappointing part of the trip. We are serious sun worshippers and every time we had a chance to lay in the sun, it would start raining. So back to the hotel we went.

Another bottle of champagne in our room, as well as some beautiful drizzled chocolates in celebration of our marriage, and we spent the afternoon watching the rain from the balcony, feeding each other the chocolates and champagne. We have reservations at Le Gourmet for our wedding dinner, but by the time 7:30 arrived, we were not in the mood to get dressed up for the restaurant, canceled our reservations, and decided to just have dinner at the poolside international buffet that was held that night. Great choice actually. I discovered mussels that night. I had never tried them, got the guts to try them then, and love them. I ate so many that David ended up going and getting me another plate of them because I was embarrassed to go back for a third time – or was it four. We met up with a couple we had met on the island earlier that day, Glenda and Shannon, and we went back to their room for drinks. While there, my left hand began throbbing relentlessly. I looked at my ring finger, and it had swollen (I guess due to the fall at the pool) and my wedding ring was practically imbedded into my skin. Glenda rushed me into their bathroom, soaped up my finger and pulled and pulled until my ring finally came off. It was terrible. (The next morning, the staff were kind enough to arrange to have my ring resized for me so I could wear it the remainder of the week and home from the honeymoon.) After this, my hand was really in pain, so we thanked them for the drinks and called it a night.

The next morning, Sunday, our honeymoon breakfast was delivered to our room and we ate on the balcony, looking out at the ocean. It was lovely. The meal was good, but aside from the romance factor, we both decided we prefer the buffet because of the selection.

At 9:00, we met in the lobby with others to go on the Dunn River Falls outing. This was a great trip! The climb up the falls was a lot of fun and a lot of pictures were taken. We even purchased the video of it all. Very worth it. The only part of this outing that was a downer was that immediately after the climb, even though there was another exit from the area, our Couples escort made a point of driving us like a herd of cattle through this large shopping area. By the time we made it out of that area, we felt entirely used and set up. For instance, this man grabbed our arms, literally pulled us into his hut, and began his hard sell. We tried to be courteous and answer his questions, but before we knew it he had actually carved our names into this two little statues he had, placed them in bags and told us we owed him $90.00. ($35.00 of this was for two mugs that he had also carved our named on. Once we returned to the resort, I saw the exact mugs for $6 apiece!!!!) Talk about being pressured. We were at a loss - - what were we supposed to do now? The guy had already put our names onto these object and our wedding date before we even decided if we wanted them or not. We felt like we had no choice now but to buy them, and I’m sure that is exactly why he did it. As we finally pulled ourselves out of the clutches of those people, literally walking out the gate, another of them ran up to David, threw a necklace around his neck, said it was a gift, David said "thank you," and then the man informed us though it was a gift, we should make a donation to him. I was so mad at that I just grabbed the necklace off of David’s neck and threw it at the man, told him to stay away and we would not be ripped off again. In summary, I do not think that the Couples staff should work with these people and herd their resort guests through that maze of stores. It is fine, in my opinion, to be given the option of going through it if desired, but an option should be given. We were not given an option and did not learn there was another exit until after we were gone. I was furious about this, and it still gets me upset.

Back at the resort, we went to the Patio for lunch and much needed drinks just to calm me down, then a mad rush to the island. Of course, it began raining against within an hour or little more from our arrival. This was becoming a discouraging everyday occurrence. This time the storm was so bad, though, that the boat would not come to the island to retrieve the people, so we had to wait it out under the shelters. We were all pretty blasted by the time the rain let up a couple or hours later and we returned to the hotel.

Tonight we decided to try for reservations at Le Gourmet again and were successful. The restaurant was very, very nice, though we were seated at a small table situated at the bottom of the stairway and seemingly right in the path of travel. I would have much preferred a side table. We did not ask to be moved to another table because of the reservation process. There were plenty of tables available, so I’m not sure why they sat us in the middle of traffic. Other than that, it was a very good meal and experience.

After dinner, we just had a couple of drinks, took a walk, and returned to our room.

Monday morning we had scheduled for the glass bottom boat ride. I had heard of glass bottom boats all my life, but had never had the chance to ride one, so I was very anxious for this outing. There were a few interesting highlights, e.g., the swarms of fish that would attack bread pieces thrown by our guide as well as the shipwreck that we were taken over, but I did not get to see brightly colored fish and such that I had envisioned. I guess I look at too many books and movies and thought it would be like that in real life. But it was an experience that we can say we have had. We won’t do it again, but we have done it once at least.

After returning to the resort, you guessed - - off to the island again and - - you’re right - - we only had a short time in the sun before it rained again. We have, at this point, pretty much resigned ourself to the fact that we will not be getting a tan this week. We headed back to the hotel and had lunch at the beach grill.

Monday night was the scheduled beach party, but the rain refused to stop, so the party had to be moved indoors. I know they do their best when it rains and the weather is out of their control, but it just isn’t the same. I really would loved to have experienced the beach party, but missed that, too, because of the rain.

Tuesday we vowed to get to the island as soon as the boat started ferrying people over, so we were there at 9:00. The sun was good and the rain stayed away. The sky did become overcast from about noon to 2:00, but we could live with that. We were still amazed, though, to find that we spent the entire day in the Jamaican sun and still did not get burned. We tried to spend every minute we could on the island in the sun that day, as it was our last day in the sun. At 3:00, though, the catamaran trip that we had reservations for would set sail, so we said our farewell to the island at about 2 minutes before 3:00 and then rushed straight to the catamaran, barely making it in time.

The catamaran trip was a blast. We partied for three hours, dancing, swimming, drinking rum punch. The sun set while we were out. It was a fun trip. We even learned a few Jamaican dances while we were out. I highly recommend this trip to everyone!

Back at the hotel, we had dinner, our last, at the Bayside Restaurant. The restaurant is secluded and situated directly over the water, very romantic. A strolling musician walked around playing a song at each table. The meals were very good and that is quite a compliment, considering that David is from an Italian family and was raised on good homemade Italian cuisine.

Alas, this was the end, pretty much, of our honeymoon. The next morning, Wednesday, we rose, had breakfast, and then rushed to the lobby for our 9:15 bus to Montego Bay. The trip back was not as uneventful as the trip to the resort.

First off, we were scheduled to leave the resort at 9:15 and our flight from Montego Bay was at 1:00. Since we had been strongly advised to arrive at the airport 2 hours before departure, that would mean we needed to get there by 11:00.

Second, we were 20 minutes late leaving the resort, putting us behind schedule to start.

Then after we were on our way, the bus driver informs us we have to stop at another hotel in Ocho Rios to pick up someone who missed their bus ride earlier that day. This was another 15 minute delay.

Along the way, we ran into so much construction that further delayed us, and then on top of the obvious time problem we have, the bus driver still insisted on stopping at a beer shop along the way, even though it was obvious nobody wanted to.

We did not arrive at the airport until 12:00, only one hour to spare. The line that we had to wait in to get our tickets and baggage checked was horrendous. Finally making it through that, we then went to our gate, only to find another huge line. Needless to say, we barely had enough time to get through these lines and onto our flight. The remainder of our travel was uneventful. We flew through Charlotte, had dinner during our layover, and arrived back home at 10:00 p.m., just in time to relax for a few minutes before going to sleep because we had work the next day.

So, it was a wonderful trip, all in all, and even considering the wedding day fiasco and my injuries, the honeymoon was a memorable time, something we will never forget!