GL Braco Trip Report
**First I must apologize for this trip report being so
late. I’v enjoyed all the trip
reports so much and they’ve been so helpful, that I really intended to send
this in as soon as we returned. Due
to health problems that didn’t happen, but now I’m finally getting around
to posting this. Our trip was
10/27/00 thru 11/02/00.
We had booked the Super Surprise ++ out of Atlanta thru
Goclassy Tours, everything we had read about Goclassy was true and they were
just great! First let me say, we
both have very stressfull jobs and when we decided to try the Super Surprise,
we were determined to have a great time where ever we were sent and we did.
We found out the week before we were to go that we were going to Braco.
We were thrilled, since we had been to Braco in ’98 for our honeymoon
and this was our anniversary trip. We
arrived at the Atlanta airport, after 2 hrs sleep the night before (we can
never seem to pack til the night before a trip) at 5am, for the 7am Air
Jamaica flight, only to be told that our Flight had been cancelled and we
would be going on the next flight at 9am.
Needless to say, we were not happy about that, mostly because they were
not even slightly apologetic that we had dragged ourselves up there before
dawn ( in order to be on the beach as soon as we could) and now had to wait 4
hrs for our flight. Other than
that Air jamaica was fine. We got
on the 9am flight and landed in Mobay at a little before 11. No
problems getting our bags or going through customs and then on to the
Superclubs desk. Waited about 10
minutes and then on the bus for the ride to Braco.
I’ve heard so many horror stories about the rides to resort, I guess
we’ve just really been lucky, because every trip we’ve had the rides have
not been bad at all, a little hairy, but no problem mon!
Arrival was greated with the usual forms to fill out and
a mimosa (never have gotten the damp cloth ), and meeting Gilbert, who was
just a lot of fun and entertained us many times throughout the trip.
I put on our check in that we were back at Braco for our 2nd
time and this was our anniversary trip and could we please be upgraded if
possible. No problem mon!
We were offered a room / suite if we would go to the A/N side.
Well to have a beach view, sure we go over to that side.
Our room would not be ready for awhile, so we changed into our bathing
suites, which we’d brought in my carry on, along with cosmetics and things
for my contacts, didn’t want to chance losing those.
We headed off to Nanny’s, which is where we ate lunch everyday on our
last trip, found Godfrey to still be waiting tables and ordered our lunch.
I always have the jerk chicken ( without the sauce, which is VERY hot )
and hubby had the same, though he would try other things throughout the week.
We love sitting at Nanny’s, you can see the beach & water and
watch the folks around the pool area. Even
though we knew we were actually there, that is when it seemed real.
What bliss. We hung around
for awhile and then went and sat in front of the Japanese restaurant, which
another beautiful spot to relax. We
then headed for the Spa to make our reservations there ( Note:
when we checked in we made reservations for Piacere, because we knew if
we didn’t they would be hard to get). We
both wanted to try several of the spa services, so we made appts to have
massages on the beach the next day, and took the list of services with us to
decide what else we wanted. Tensilyn
and Doreen were still both there and we’d had massages from them on our last
trip – they are wonderful! Headed
back to the front desk and found out our room was ready. We took a deep breathe and followed our escort over to the
A/N side. We were in the second
building on the 3rd floor, can’t remember the room number, but it
was right in the middle of the building, and it was fantastic! Sure there were things we would not have chosen, 2 reg beds,
instead of a king size, and the room had been made up in a hurry so no pretty
folded towels or flowers, but man, what a view. It was just perfect and we could stand in the middle of the
room and open the front door and look 1 way and see the mountains and look the
other and see the ocean. Sigh….it
was awesome. This room also had a
fridge in it, which was really great to have.
Shortly after arriving, there was a knock and management had sent up
champagne, fruit plate & some chocolate dipped fruit for us!
We stood on the balcony and had our champagne and goodies and all was
right with the world. We were so
tired at that point ( and relaxed from the champagne) that we decided to nap
for a couple of hours so we would make it to the Street Party that night.
When we woke up we had our first experience with the shower that runs hot/ cold in spurts, this was a bit annoying but it never did get better the whole week, however, we were still in Jamaica so, we live with it.
Friday night is the Street Party and our favorite dinner
night, except when we dined at Piacere ( which we managed to do 4 times while
we were there – thanks to Ralston , who was super!). I just love love love the grilled lobster and the rest of it
is fabulous also. I dressed
pretty casual, because 2 yrs earlier that had been the dress, but found that
it was a little nicer than shorts now, with most of the women wearing sun
dresses, though shorts were fine for the fellows.
The place was packed, we stuff ourselves, took lots of pics, watched
the entertainment and turned in, cause we were just beat.
Next day, we’d slept late, and when we got up I turned
on the TV to catch the OU vrs Texas game, and then we headed to Nanny’s for
lunch. After lunch we went into
the Main Bar room to watch the rest of the game.
We then headed back to the A/N side and decided it was now or never, so
we got nekkid and joined a group at the swim up bar for some drinking games.
I must say, our heating bill has been really high this winter, due to
the fact that we now would prefer never wearing clothing again!
Of course, YOU ALL WERE RIGHT! There
is nothing like it and after a few minutes it was completely natural. The people are friendlier, we made some of the greatest
friends (going back with some in July) and we just had the most awesome
vacation that we ever imagined. We
thought our first trip to Braco was a really great vacation, but this one was
so much more. We did all the fun
stuff, Did Toga night (which was Halloween and our friends Santa and the
Naughty Elf got beat out at the last minute by some Hershey Kisses for best
costume), had afternoon
volleyball games (Norm!), went to PJ night.
Hubby won the PJ night and I got second, which was totally a jip, I had
a real PJ outfit ( brought the one from my wedding night, all black and
fantastic) and this bride-to-be in a FILA t-shirt beat me out, due to the fact
that the whole wedding party was in there cheering for her….haha….we had a
great time though.
Everyday from then on was the same, started ordering room
service for breakfast, which was great and then down to the beach for awhile,
on to Nanny’s for lunch or lamb chops by the pool ( finally tried them and
they are delicious). I got
nicknamed Miss Kitty, because I would take everyone’s leftovers (and more if
I could beg it from the staff) and feed all the little kitty cats around the
resort. They should have been
fairly well fed while we were there! Lay
around the pool, play some volleyball, have our spa treatments (more about
those later) and then on to dinner and the entertainment and back to the pool
to laze around til we had to turn in. We
never saw any extra curricular activities, though some of our friends did, but
very little.
We loved Piacere, service was fantastic and the food
always wonderful. I loved the
quail appetizer and the rack of lamb or the Angus beef entrées. We felt like the Italian place, La Pasta, had greatly
improved from 2 yrs earlier. This
time we tried the Japanese Restaurant which was a neat experience, just not my
favorite type of food. Room
service was always very prompt and good and
we’ve never had any less than great food from Nanny’s.
The Spa is a little slice of heaven, when you are already
in paradise. We had 2 massages on
the beach ( it turned out to be 3, because of a fall that hubby had the second
day we were there) and that is just fantastic.
You have to ask for them to be on the beach, or they will just set up
to do them inside in the spa area. Those
massages are nice also, but on the beach is the best! I had a facial and we both had body wraps.
I always had Tensilyn, who is terrific!
I have fibromyalgia (which is a muscle disease) and have actually had
some massage at home that has caused me pain, Tensilyn was just perfect, very
firm but she never hurt me or caused me any tenderness after.
I can’t remember which body wrap I had but it was wonderful, but I
know that hubby had the milk & honey body wrap, which he said was
fantastic, but after they are through with you they directed you to the shower
area ( which is an outside shower ) and as he stepped out into the shower area
( where I was already rinsing off ) his feet went out from under him and he
fell hard on his tail bone and back and he tried to stop his fall with his
hand and they had these coral things and rocks in this one area and he cut his
hand up on those. I tried to grab
him (silly) and so did Doreen and I fell also, though nowhere near as hard. Of course, they all rushed in and were very concerned, they
called the Nurse, Karlene, who was great.
We had to go fill out an incident report and hubby had to go and visit
her everyday, and she would check his injuries and put some medicine on his
hand. I want to strongly say that
we felt this was in no way anyone’s fault at the Spa. The resort does need to put something down to make that
area less slippery. The spa ladies (which we came to be good friends with )
were all really concerned and called us daily to make sure my husband was
doing ok. And they did throw in
another massage for us. Of
course, he was really sore and it kind of ruined the rest of that day for us,
but we had gone on this vacation with the idea that we were going to have a
great time no matter what and we did. All
the treatments were excellent and Charisse, Tensilyn, Doreen, Caroline and
Coletta were all just terrific. The
only negative feeling that we had through out and after our trip, was that we
never even heard from any one in upper management.
I mean this was a pretty bad fall and even some attempt by management
to just apologize would have made us feel better.
That said, because we set our minds to, we had a fabulous vacation, and
particularly loved our Spa friends.
We had just great people around us all the time.
Charmaine and the girls at the front desk were great.
Godfrey always had a big smile for us at Nanny’s.
Chester, Annette & Denton at the A/N bar were so much fun. Tamika and Gilbert were always entertaining and worked so
hard the whole time we were there. We
met some of the folks in the office and the 2 Michelle’s were particularly
nice. I talked with Ralston the
first night that we went to Piacere and told him I wanted this to be a really
special vacation and so wanted to dine as much as we could at Piacere, and we
managed to get in 4 times! I
think with the people there it is like anywhere, if you are friendly and
respectful then they will be that way also.
I won’t go into the details of leaving because it is just a sad day when you have to go. I want to say that we love our new friends from OK, NJ and Canada ( hey there billy the kid and Kare Bare, how you doing , eh?). We’re sad that those guys or our friends ( Love Ya E & J ) from OK won’t be with us in July, but we know that Bando and Bubble Butt (her chosen name not ours) will be as much fun this time as last, So Socko and Miss Kitty will have some drinks at sunset, on the beach, with fond thoughts of our new friends that are there and those that are not, 90 days til July 4th!