Here we are at the dreaded last full day. A traumatic time on any holiday. Once again I was up at 7.30 and off down to the pool to secure our cabana. The Pool guy was there one final time and in some tragic Spanglish I somehow managed to get it understood that we were heading home tomorrow. It involved “manyana” and my arms outstretched in some aeroplane style moves. He got tipped again and it seemed we were now friends for life as he made me send a Facebook friend request and have some photos taken.
Then it was breakfast. Cereal and toast.
We called Rebecca and wished her a happy birthday before concentrating on the last of the sunbathing. Lunch was from the pizza place by the pool. It seems I didn’t take any photos today until 5pm as some sort of protest at having to go home tomorrow.
Our last afternoon was spent mainly in the quiet pool trying to figure out a lottery win or anything else that would prevent a need to go back to work. This last day melancholy/mild panic at the return to work is getting worse as I get older. At one point I nearly broke my toe on the bottom of the pool whilst mounting a float. I am confident the pain surpassed child birth.
As the day came to an end I suggested a final beach walk and this was, even though I say it myself a great idea and a lovely way to say goodbye to the place. It was a perfect golden hour stroll.
We turned back and headed back to the resort, past the beach bar, headed for the main pool and the bar there for a last drink in the pool. Margs and shots were had.
Up to the room next for one final getting ready and watching CNN. It’s sad how much I loved this time of day. Showers were done and we were not out until 8.30. We walked to Bordeaux, the restaurant we felt had been best all trip so this was to be our choice for the final meal. I don’t know if we’d caught too much sun but it felt very cold in there tonight.
Sadly the service was very slow, but the food was still good.
Quiche and French onion soup for both of us.
Steak for Louise and Pork for me.
To finish we shared a crepe suzette.
The Piano Bar was rammed so we had a walk over to Dreams, the other half of the resort, which was the family version of ours and had a drink there in the lobby bar. We wandered around having a look at their pool and impressive water park style rides. Back at our bar it was still busy so we sat in the public square till it cleared. We had a couple of drinks there before heading home at 12.
I was awake around 8. I readied and went down to get a cabana, and I was sulking about huge weight gains. You will know that over the years my weight has often featured in all my posts. Having been a very fat kid, there is no doubt some deep lying psychological damage at play, and when I do manage to shift a few pounds, I do get very tetchy when my body betrays me and adds some pounds back after eating and drinking shite.
One of the things I really appreciated about both Secrets resorts so far was the fact that they had scales in the bathroom. I know that sounds counter intuitive but believe me, my mind will convince itself that I have gained thirteen stone in a daaaaayyy, and then usually when I get home I find it’s nowhere as bad as I thought, and I could have enjoyed myself a lot more.
So being able to keep a daily eye on things was a good thing for me. Apart from today when for some reason several pounds had come from nowhere and I had a cob on. They would come off again and go on again a few times during the trip with me returning home just a couple up on my pre departure fighting weight. However, today I was still in a mood about it.
So I had no breakfast and instead went for a huge walk around 11.20 all the way to the end of the bay.
It was a hell of a walk taking about an hour each way.
To put it in context, that tip of land you can see out to sea is our resort.
I was a big ball of sweat when I got as far as I was going to walk. So I stripped down to my shorts and went for a welcome dip in the sea.
I could have carried on this way….
But I turned for home, noticing a brand new resort being built at this end of the cove.
Once I got back to our resort I had clocked 7.5k in total. What do you mean I have a mild eating disorder?
We immediately went for lunch at the Seaside Grill. Chicken Burrito starters (oddly with chips) and a Cuban sandwich for both of us. Very good and filling.
After lunch there was lots of resting and reading. At around 4.30 we went into the main pool and its bar, for drinks. We watched some volleyball taking place on the beach and then returned to our cabana.
There was more golden hour action as we watched sun go down behind one of the hotel buildings.
Once the sun had left us we went back to our room at 6.15. We watched a couple of weddings from our balcony.
We didn’t make it out till after 8. Tonight we were going to give the buffet a try at the World Café. Whilst everything was fine, this was not a standout meal of the trip. It was a little but “buffet slop” of the kind that had for years put us off all inclusive trips.
It was all freshly made and of decent quality but just not “five star”.
I do take full responsibility for my very poor plate presentation skills here which does not reflect the food in the best light!
We ended the night in the piano bar after waiting for a seat as it was very busy tonight. We felt sorry for the poor piano player. There were far too many people with main character syndrome who would not leave him alone to perform and constantly badgered him to let them join in etc. In the end he hardly got to play but to his credit he didn’t glass anyone. We left, frustrated at having to listen to amateurs murder some classics. Bed at midnight.
For those worried about my oral situation, things were starting to improve and my gum was starting to look a little less space hopper and the pain was only like routine child birth. An improvement on just a couple of days ago.
Forty years of getting up for work once again forced my body into waking up at an hour I did not appreciate but I used it to wander out to secure some breakfast from the coffee shop and then a cabana by the quiet pool.
This is the coffee shop and it was an upsetting 7.29am.
The early hour did mean I had my choice of all the cabanas. There was absolutely no sun bed reserving at this resort. We were glad as that is one of my pet hates that has put us off “non WDW” holidays for years.
By 9.25 the early morning cloud was clearing nicely and the relentless sun would char our bodies for most of the day.
At 10.30 I went for a walk up the beach.
My need to “earn” calories does not take a holiday.
Today I had turned left to see what lay in the other direction and it was a little more populated, with a large mainly French resort not too far away and then lots of very interesting little coves.
At times the terrain got a little too “natural” for my liking and all I could imagine were the headlines of “Fat Northern Bloke Dies Due to Stupidity on Nice Beach”.
So I headed back to safety.
See, lots of nature and danger…..
No idea what was going on here….
I was ready for lunch on my return to so I ordered some stuff from the same café/grill as yesterday, and a kind man brought it to our cabana.
Breaking every rule in the book, we went in the pool immediately after eating, but fear not, there was no swimming, just too much Tequila. By too much, I mean one. We did also have two Margaritas though so that exceeded my alcohol intake in one day for the about the past thirty years.
We saw that there was rain forecast from around 3pm, so we left the pool just before that and went to sit on the balcony until it arrived.
It was 4.30 before it finally did so we went inside then and started to get ready. It was raining when we set off for food, armed with umbrellas, but a nice man in a golf cart drove by and stopped to pick us up. He dropped us off outside our restaurant.
Dominican tonight….
I had some slightly odd crisp bread with Avocado mousse to start….
Louise’s Ricotta Balls persisted….
We were hungry so also had a soup each before my main which was Chicken and Rice…
and Beef Tenderloin for Louise.
This was one of our better meals of the trip.
We got a comfy couch in the piano bar and listened to a piano and violin duo for a bit who were somewhere over there.
We gave up after one drink and went to bed after another tiring day.
Normality was returning to our sleep patterns and we slept till a reasonable hour before heading to the coffee shop for a pastry and latte for breakfast.
We based ourselves at the quiet pool, snagging a very comfortable cabana. These were free, extremely comfy and from this point on we made sure we got ourselves one whenever possible.
It looks a little cloudy there but it was mighty hot and we enjoyed the hotness until lunchtime by not doing very much at all. My tolerance for doing absolutely nothing was unmatched on this trip. A welcome antidote to the chaos of working life I think.
For lunch we ordered Nachos and Pizza from the small café by the pool and it was delivered to our cabana at the exact moment the impending rain that had been threatening for an hour or so also arrived. Demonstrating our commitment to food we sat on our cabana, under two umbrellas, onboarding our lunch. We quickly became waterlogged and realising it wasn’t about to stop I went into the nearby (very) hot tub to avoid the cool rain. The food was very tasty but not captured on film due to the wet nature of our surroundings at this time.
Once I had warmed up, we took our dampness and brollies back to the room. We showered and relaxed in the room watching the King’s visit to the US on CNN.
The rain stopped at around 4pm so we got dressed and went for a wander around the resort. We had a couple of games of pool on the least flat pool table in the world, which made things interesting to say the least before heading up to the lobby bar for a couple of drinks and chat with Emily back home. I lost the first game as the black ball fell into a pocket it should have been nowhere near had the table even been close to being flat. No, I am NOT a bad loser.
Some idiot got us Tequila shots which resulted in about three days in hospital for me. I am not a big drinker and I struggle to understand how folks do shots on purpose and enjoy them.
It was nice to just sit on a comfy couch in a perfect temperature and not have to be anywhere or do anything. We walked back to the toom to get changed for dinner and we were off to Portofino, an Italian, at 7.30.
I had soup….
and pasta…
Louise had Ricotta Balls….which can be painful if left untreated….
and Cannelloni.
The food was decent but not earth shattering. We watched the band in the Town Square thing very briefly before heading to the Piano Bar. The entertainment there had finished for the evening, or at least the early spot had and frankly we were too tired to wait for the 11pm spot, so we went to bed around 10.30 after potentially the most uneventful day anyone has had ever. Luckily, you get to read about it here.
Usually, about now, in the standard cycle of our endless Disney trips, I would be elbow deep in all kinds of planning activities. Assuming a summer trip, once we start to see daffodils and daylight beyond tea time it normally feels like a proper sea change in daily life, everything looks literally and figuratively brighter and I undergo self imposed and unnecessary stress about where we might eat in a few months.
Do I miss it, with our plans not involving the US this year? A bit, yes. One of the big benefits of a holiday that takes more than the action of booking it is the continuing dopamine hit of doing the bits of planning that are the milestones in the countdown.
With us heading for Mexico and an all inclusive experience I have nothing to do other than ensure I have the appropriate attire for our activities that might even fit me. On Friday, not being allowed to work, I found myself in the unusual setting of a retail location and did cast my eye over some suitable long trousers for the posher restaurants at the resort which insist on such. After about twenty minutes of pushing things around racks I left with a pack of socks and nothing related to the holiday.
There’s plenty of time yet and I as ever I hold onto the hope that I will lose fourteen stone “in a daaaaay” before July and any wardrobe additions now would be wasted. Socks however, will fit me whatever shape my body is in.
Conversely, not having to keep up to date on all the happenings at our destination to understand what attractions might be closed and what format and price this week’s FastPass system may take is liberating. I’m not saying we’ll make a habit of it but this relaxed approach to going away to relax is definitely a change and in some ways welcome, especially with work being stupidly mad at the moment.
I am even thankful that our chosen resort does not operate a reservation system for their restaurants. I am an animal of extremes! The absolute extent of my pre-holiday activity has been watching the resort post on Instagram.
I really don’t want to wait four years before returning to the US so let’s hope something happens over there to return things to something approaching normality. It may just be my soft lefty liberal echo chamber on social media but I am seeing lots of articles detailing large downturns in tourism to the US. It’s a real shame that ordinary folks in the relevant industries will be affected, unless of course they voted for him, then not so much. Maybe the downturn in numbers will see some keener prices for flights and more offers from Disney and the like, but I suspect any downturn from the UK market won’t be significant enough to make that much of a difference.
So as we enter the season of bank holidays, allegedly higher temperatures (although nobody seems to have told the weather up North), power washing your flagging and unavoidably visiting DIY shops and garden centres I find myself with nothing holiday related to do. It’s different, but I’m not too sure whether that is good or bad different. I am absolutely looking forward to our change of pace and plans, mostly because I am just sick to death of being cold!
I’ll just have to spend the next few months browsing lightweight chinos online I suppose and call that holiday planning.
I spent most of the morning in bed doing something I very rarely do.
Having a lie-in.
It was 10.30 before I was up and about but hey, we had nowhere to be. I had some breakfast and watched some telly whilst Louise slept on. Once she arose she wanted to go out for breakfast. Clearly, as I had already had mine I would just get a drink or something at Boheme Bistro.
I don’t know how to explain why the waitress brought me this to be honest….
It was definite brunch/early lunch territory so Louise went for a BLT.
Eating Hobbit style, with a middle breakfast, might just be the lifestyle I’ve been looking for.
Leaving $60 including tip, we set off back to the hotel to take up our positions by the pool. It was rammed today, with two other people crowding us.
Louise ignored the “you have to wait for an hour after eating before going in the pool” rule….
I cowered in the shade as certain body parts were still a little well done. We only had to move beds once today to chase the shade, but I did have to make several dashes back to the room for reasons I won’t go into, but I was very glad we were not at the beach today. Nobody wants *that* in the water.
With little else to report other than more of the same for the rest of the day, Louise went back to the room around 5.30 to start getting ready and I stayed out by the pool for a bit reading.
I showered and readied around 6.30 and we nipped out to Publix for “bits”.
We dropped the car off back at the hotel and ordered a Lyft. Stand by, because after a lot of nothing happening, there is about to be some mild drama.
We were picked up in a HUGE Toyota Sequoia by a lovely female driver. Delray was rammed, being the start of the weekend, and once she got us within striking distance of our restaurant of choice, we jumped out of the car in the middle of backed-up traffic and jogged unathletically across the road to avoid death.
We walked the remaining distance to Rocco’s Tacos and approached the podium. Upon hearing my accent the young girl trying to sort us a table asked which part of London I was from. Vocally, Dick Van Dyke I am not. I rolled my eyes and explained roughly where we lived and she explained that she lived in Cambridge when she was very young as her Dad was in the Air Force, stationed in the UK.
Pleasant chat over, she asked for my mobile number so she could text me. I thought that was a little bold with Louise stood next to me, but after a few awkward moments, it turns out she meant when the table was ready.
We started walking to the bar, and I did one of 300 daily pocket pats, ensuring I had my car keys, phone, etc. A sudden sickness came over me as I felt the emptiness of one pocket. Looking paler than milk I realised I had left my phone in the Lyft!
We ran outside, knowing she had long gone and with panic raging, I grabbed Louise’s phone and tried to call mine. It would not connect.
I tried to log into my Lyft account on Louise’s phone so that I could message the driver, but that wasn’t possible as it sent a verification code to my phone!
I logged into my iCloud on Louise’s phone and could see my phone moving, so it was definitely in the car, but that was driving away from Delray.
With my mind swimming with the horrors of dealing with losing my phone whilst away, I sent the sound alarm thing to my phone many times. I then tried calling it via every method available, Messenger, WhatsApp and the like. Finally, what felt like a thousand minutes later, the driver picked up. She had heard me pinging it and realised what had happened. She very kindly agreed to bring it back to Delray once she had finished her current drop-off.
I cannot describe the feeling of relief.
We stood outside the restaurant for about 20 minutes, having gone back inside to tell them that there was no point texting me yet and I explained why.
Eventually, she pulled up and I could have dragged her through the passenger window and kissed her. Instead, I gave her the maximum tip the app would allow which was the better option for everyone all things considered..
With my sheen of sweat now subsiding, we claimed our table and sat down to eat. This was the second time that I have left my phone in a taxi whilst overseas and I can only blame the poor pocketage on my very attractive holiday shorts.
We started with some chips and Guac. Enough to sink a battleship.
We ordered a Margharita each.
and ordered the same entree….a salad….
Honest! It was called a Taco Salad Bowl and it was awesome. This was our best meal so far, perhaps enhanced by the surge of adrenaline still pumping through my body, but we paid the $120 including tip happily and left.
We strolled down to Johnny Brown’s, a bar that always seemed to have live music on. It was absolutely packed. It was a literal fight to get a drink and we somehow bagged a table right outside the restrooms. Maybe that was why.
We’ve had better views.
The band were decent but the thought of another trip to the bar and the feeling that we were getting eaten alive by something drove us to seek another venue.
We ended up in the Yacht Club again where another band was playing. This place was much less crowded and civilized and we had a few drinks here whilst listening to the band, who, again were pretty good. Unlike my photography.
We jumped in a Lyft home around midnight and bed swallowed us up as eagerly as I had that Taco Salad earlier.
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