May 28 (Thursday) - June 3 (Wednesday), 1998

 Just a note before I start . . . our trip report my not seem ‘action packed’ but then again, we were on vacation to get away from everything and to take a much needed break from being new parents, our son was 18 months at the time of our trip. And as you may or may not know about being parents, your schedule revolves around them and you don’t really have a lot of quality time to spend with your spouse. And this trip made up for some of that lost time . . .

May 27 (Wednesday)

My wife and I drove to Chicago the night before so we didn’t have to leave our house at 2:00 a.m. It was hard to sleep knowing that in less than a day you were going to be in paradise!

May 28 (Thursday)

We had the 6:45 a.m. flight on Air-Jamaica. You had to be there at 6:00 a.m.

The flight was smooth and enjoyable.

We arrived in Montego Bay on time. The customs lines stretched all of the way to the opposite wall. But it only took 15-20 minutes to get through.

Our baggage arrived on time, too.

You have to be careful of the floors down by the baggage area, very slippery from the humidity.

After getting our luggage, we found our way to the Super Clubs desk. We told them that we were going to Braco and in a matter of minutes, we were escorted to the bus (minivan). It was about 1 hour from the time we landed to the time we left the airport. We were told by our driver that if we wanted a Red Stripe that he would pull over. But we didn’t, considering that it was only about a 50 minute ride to Braco and we were eager to get there and start our vacation. The bus carried 14 people, comfortably and with the A/C going. We tipped the guy that carried our bags to the bus and we tipped the bus driver once we arrived at Braco. One thing that surprised us was that no one else tipped them. Remember, they do not work for Super Clubs so tipping is appreciated.

The drive to Braco was humbling. You drive past the real Jamaica, the one that is a third world country, doesn’t have a good economy, etc.

At check in, the staff gives you a warm towel and a mamosa (spelling?) or wine. You have to give the staff a credit card for any long distant phone calls and for the lock, for the lock box in your room.

We had a few hours to kill before the required indoctrination and tour for the new comers. We went to our room (originally a Garden View on the textile side) to unpack and change. We went to the hot tub on the textile side. The people in there didn’t want to acknowledge that you were there and you had to force a conversation out of them, which was short.

After that ‘cold’ hour in the tub, we walked around the resort a little.

After the indoctrination and tour, we wound up getting our room upgraded from a Garden View on the textile side to a Junior Suite on the C/O side. As we walked past the bar on the C/O side, we saw a 4 couples sitting at a table and they said: "Welcome neighbors". That made us feel at ease, knowing these people weren’t going to be stuff-shirts.

Our room was beautiful! If I remember correctly, our room number was 3045. We were in the second building on the second floor, and first room to the left of the stairs. Our room had 2 A/C units, a refrigerator, hot plate, coffee maker, 2 bathrooms, 2 TV’s, small living room and a balcony over looking the C/O beach.

One thing to remember, know or learn how to convert temperature from F to C, since the A/C units are in C. We froze our asses off the first night!! I think I had ours set at 66 F that night.

Thursday night

We had dinner at the Victorian Market. Everything was really good! After dinner we went back to our room. We got a call from the club-house to let us know that there was a bottle of wine coming up to our room. We watched the sun-set off of our balcony. You don’t have the best view of the sun-set there, but we were trying to ease into the au natural thing, since we were first timers. We went to the PJ Party. It was pretty mild that night. We’ve heard from other people that it can be anything from mild to wild. We talked to a couple who we met later in the week and they said that the PJ Party the following week was wild. No details, I’m not one to gossip. We finished our night by swimming in the pool and sitting in the large hot tub by our selves. Again, it was nice to be alone the first time you are nude. It gave us a chance to get comfortable. The nice thing about this place (and I’m sure other c/o places are this way) is that nobody gives a shit about what you look like. Big, small, fat, thin, black, white, etc. It just didn’t matter!

Friday

This day started out to be what our daily routine would be. Coffee in the room, lay out at the c/o beach for a hour or so. Breakfast at the Victorian Market, back to the c/o beach. By 10 or 11 over to the c/o pool. Lunch at Nanny’s Jerk Pit, back to the pool for cocktails, B.S.’ing with new friends and just relaxing. Dinner at the Victorian Market and back to the c/o pool for more cocktailing and B.S.’ing.

Friday night

We went to the Street Dance with some people we met at the pool. All of the restaurants were closed and they moved their food to the Village Circle. The staff had some dance contests and then a street dance after dinner. Then back to the hot tub . . .

Saturday

We met some more couples. These people were the people we wound up hanging out with the rest of the time we were there. They were more down to earth like us. Tracy and I went swimming in the ocean on the c/o side. I got stung in the crack of my ass by a jelly-fish (it’s pretty funny now but it hurt like hell at the time). In the afternoon, Denton and Valecia gave a ‘mix-ology’ class at the c/o bar. Then after that Renard tried to teach us some Jamaican terminology. We also played a few games of nude volleyball, which made for some jokes and laughs! This was a short night for us since we started early with the cocktails.

Sunday

A ‘little’ hug over today. . . today was a slow day. We went swimming in the ocean on the c/o side again. And again I got stung by a jelly-fish (this time on my forearm) and Tracy didn’t, even though we were only a foot or two apart. Needless to say, that was the last time we went into the ocean. We felt good enough to enjoy a little pampering by going to the French restaurant for dinner. Then, met up with our new friends for a drink at the c/o pool to share some jelly-fish stories and quite a few laughs!

Monday and Tuesday

These two days were much of the same thing . . . relaxing, walking, eating, B.S.’ing, etc.

Wednesday

This was the difficult day for us. The day to say good-bye to all of the people (guests and staff) that made our trip so enjoyable. We missed the beach party that night, which we were told was a blast.

The one thing that nobody has mentioned is that you have to pay a tax to get out of the country. It was $21 per person when we left. This is paid at the airport when you check your bags.

The only thing that was bad about our trip was that our plane was delayed one hour. Which gave eight to ten 20-somethings a chance to drink more at the airport bar, apparently they were at the airport bar for a couple hours already. Then we had to listen to these jerks acting stupid and drinking more for 4 hours on the plane to Chicago.

A few of the staff that really made our visit fun were:

Anil Sud - Resort General Manager

Richard Bourke - Assistant General Manager

Valecia - activities coordinator, fitness instructor

Beth - activities coordinator

Renard - activities coordinator

Denton - bartender, c/o pool

Isha - bartender, c/o club house

‘Snoop’ - bartender, c/o club house

Tisha - wait-staff, Victorian Market & bartender, c/o pool

Skinny - c/o pool maintenance

Other people have complained that there were maintenance people all over painting, etc. . . my feeling is that I would rather see those people out doing their job than to see the resort turn into a shit-hole because nobody was keeping it up!

During our visit, the weather seemed to always be the same. 85 - 90 during the day and then between 3:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., there was a 10-15 minute down-pour.

Like I said before, we got out of this vacation everything that we wanted and more. And yes, we would recommend this place to anyone.

If you have any questions, we are not experts but we can give you our opinion, drop us a line at: Rhandy@prodigy.net

Thanks,