Sun, sea, sand and other words that begin with 'S... I was thinking about 'sleeping'. What were you thinking?
I know the hol was needed because we spent the first three days asleep. Our routine for those first days was quite simple: get up early and go to the gym for 7.00am. Breakfast followed by a morning sleep on a sun lounger. Maybe a spot of lunch before climbing back on to the sun lounger until about 5.00pm before going back to our room for a snooze. Dinner, then in bed for 9.30pm!
Of course, even though we were on holiday, I felt a bit guilty about the absolute level of inactivity we achieved over the first few days, but consoled myself by working really hard at doing nothing.
It was kind of a strange holiday for us. Usually we do adventurous stuff like climbing Kilimanjaro, or at least active breaks; changing locations, doing internal flights and that sort of thing.
This time round we were very much holidaymakers, staying in one place with all our needs catered for on an All Inclusive basis.
I have to say, that it struck home that we were having a 'different' experience when Renee Tweeted that 'We've escaped Colditz and left the hotel grounds!'
Hmmm...
It wasn't until later in the first week when we'd sufficiently recovered to sample to 'entertainment' put on by the hotel that I realised I was on a proper holiday.
This particular evening's entertainment involved that world famous bastion of entertainment: Karaoke.
Needless to say the Entertainment Team (I have to say that I will always worry in the future if I end up in an hotel with an 'Entertainment Team') was struggling to get people to join in. However, I had to smile (behind a raised hand and an incredulous look on my face) when the 'Ambassador of Fun' - genuinely, I'm not joking, that's what he called himself - said:
'I used to work at Sandals and I never had this much trouble getting people to join in there. This has been the most difficult night I've had at Smugglers Cove. How can you be having fun if you're not joining in?'
Renee leaned over to me and whispered, 'Come on, let's go. I didn't pay lots of money for this holiday to be part of the entertainment!'
As a side note about the Entertainment Team: there was a house band called the Smugglers Roots Band and they were actually pretty good. Although every night at dinner we would be served by the keyboard player and the drummer mixed a pretty decent Rum Punch!
After the Karaoke night we decided that it would be best to avoid the in-house entertainment, although during the second week we did start going more often just so we could be outraged and shocked at amateurish nature of Limbo Fire: The Best Limbo Dancers in the East Caribbean and the Salsa Experience. I have to say, though, the absolute nadir of the entertainment was the Mr & Mrs gameshow held on Valentines night!
Pure solid entertainment gold!
So, after the very long preamble, we get to the moral of the story. We're a service provider and to get our customers to do things for themselves is a bit like getting them to perform karaoke... so we don't do it! Give us your accounts to look after and we'll do just that.
There you go - got there in the end.
As a last word, I have to say I really enjoyed my holiday. After the first three days hibernating we found a mountain to climb called Gros Piton and I learned to water-ski, sail a catamaran and play tennis... much more like it!
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