Palladium report 8/4/-8/11, 2003

Monday 8/4

As is our usual practice, we spent the night before our departure at the Atlanta airport. Several hotels have park and fly packages that allow you to leave your car in their lot while your gone. Given the usual average cost of $8 per day for airport parking, if your staying a week or more the hotel room is almost free. In addition we wanted to avoid any chance of missing our flight due to the horrible Atlanta traffic. We had a harrowing experience a few years ago because of an accident on the connector and have stayed at the airport the night before a trip ever since.

This trip we stayed at the Renaissance Concourse hotel. A great place that looks out over the airports main runways. You can sit in the pool, the bar or south side rooms and watch the planes land and take off. The rooms are soundproof and some of the nicest available at the airport.

We got up late for us (8 AM) and strolled down to the grill for breakfast. We wanted to check out as late as possible so we were in no hurry at all. We dallied over breakfast, slowly packed everything up and checked out right at noon. We hopped on the airport shuttle and headed out.

We arrived at the airport at 12:30 PM expecting to have a short wait for checking in for 2:55 PM flight. Instead we found the check in desks manned and ready. Check in was simple and swift. We had been told by our agent that they were very strict about luggage weight, so we left our snorkel gear at home. To our surprise they didn't even weigh the bags but just passed them through. I now wish I'd packed my gear. We breezed through the security check point and got down to the International Concourse (E) in record time. We then sat around drinking soda and waiting until check in time. We finally made our way down to the gate and boarded a full 30 minutes early. Take off was also early. We had booked through Apple Vacations and were using USA 3000 as a charter service. It was the first time we'd ever flown on or ever heard of the airline. It was a great flight with a lively crew and a comfortable airplane. The plane was a new Airbus. It was clean and had ample room for a charter jet. The ride was very smooth and the flight crew rather entertaining. Our dinner menu consisted of "feather" or "leather". Most people choose the leather. The main steward kept trying to push the chicken dinners on people. At one point he announced that we were not landing until all the extra chicken dinners had been eaten. Even with that threat he couldn't give them away. We landed 25 minutes early at the new terminal.

We got out of the plane and stepped down onto the tarmac. We quickly ran into the terminal and up the ramps to the entryway for immigration. The line was considerable but not as bad as our last two visits in the old terminal. Last year it took 2 hours to go through immigration. This time it was a 40 minute wait. Since the a/c was working, the wait wasn't so bad. We ran over to our bags, picked them out and headed toward customs. Every time my wife pushes the button we get searched so she now insists that I push it. She of course would then blame me if we got a red light. Nervously I approach the button, closed my eyes and push. Bing! Green light. We hurry on outside the terminal looking for the Apple rep. We find one and tell him who we are and what place we're heading for. He directs us to Bus #12, which we would later rename the "Chamber of the Dammed". We loaded onto the Apple bus for our hotel transfer. We had used Funjet on our last few trips to Cancun and had forgotten about the big buses Apple uses. We got in and waited about 15 minutes for a few stragglers. This is when we encountered our first adventure of the trip. We met a very special 5 year old child. He was traveling with his older brother, his parents and his grandparents. They called this child Preston, we called him, "Squeaky: Master of Pain". Squeaky was 5 years old (he would be 6 next week) and had a voice that would make a basset hounds' ears bleed. If it had been one octave higher, human ears would not have been able to pick it up.  Unfortunately it was not an octave higher and we could all hear his high pitched shrieks and squeals of excitement.. Squeaky sat right behind my wife or rather he stood on the seat behind my wife beside his grandmother and played his favorite game, the "bug" game, in which he counted every VW Beetle he saw. In case you're not aware of it, Mexico has a lot of VW Beetles, so Squeaky got to play a lot of the Bug game. Every time he saw a VW he would squeal out "There's one, There's one, there's one, that's number **", while holding onto the headrest of the seat in front of him (with my wife in it). This of course put his mouth right beside my wifes' ears. After 10-12 of these occurrences my wife tried to indicate her displeasure by turning around and glaring at the grandmother, hoping she would control Squeaky. Unfortunately she was oblivious to the damage Squeaky was inflicting on my wife and was in fact encouraging the search. My wife put up with this for almost an hour (over 20 "bugs") until we got to the first stop, the Mandarin. As we rode down the very long entrance road to the hotel we began to pray in earnest that Squeaky would be among the many that were exiting our bus. As we traveled down the road, one of the other passengers said they say a monkey in the tree along the road. Squeaky then went into high gear wanting to see the monkey. We considered jumping out the emergency exit at this point. We pulled into the hotel and were disappointed to find that Squeaky was not among the many drop offs. However, as soon as we pulled out of the hotel my wife and I jumped out of our seats and moved several rows up to get away from the torture. My wife made it obvious to all why we were moving with glares and fun facial expressions. As we settled in our new seats who now decided to move but Squeakys' dad from the back of the bus. He took the seat right behind my wife and turned back asking Squeaky if he wanted to join him. Squeaky couldn't have been more excited as he ran down the aisle and jumped into the seat right behind my wife again, assumed the same position, standing on the seat and shrieking into her ears. To break up the bug game grandma told Squeaky to look for the monkey and asked him what sound the monkey made. So now Squeaky was jumping up and down making monkey noises in my wifes ears. She looked over at me across the aisle and almost cried. We got back on the highway and Squeaky went back to the bug game. After a few more miles my wife jumped up glared at Dad and Squeaky and moved across the aisle to sit beside me. Her dire facial expressions had no effect on any of the family members (they certainly work on me) and they continued to encourage Squeaky and the bug game. By the time we arrived at their stop (the Flamingo at Xcaret) he was up to 41 bugs and my wife was up to a three extra-strength Tylenol headache. As Squeaky and his family got off we both breathed a sigh of relief. I know the old expression that your own kids poop doesn't stink, but to be so self centered and oblivious to the discomfort your obnoxious child is causing is beyond my comprehension. If there is a fair and just God, then Squeaky will make them suffer in his teenage years by becoming a tattoo artist with dozens of piercings in all those special places. I also hope he's still living in their basement when he's 32 with his pregnant 18 year old girlfriend.

By the time we got to the Palladium (nearly two hours since our boarding the bus) there was only a small family of Brits still on board. We pulled up to the Colonial side of the hotel.  The lobby was gorgeous with a huge fountain in the middle of the front and a huge courtyard toward the back. We ran up to the check in and got our room Kantenah #4928. Before heading to our room we went over to the reservations desk to make some a la carte meal reservations. I asked for the Mediterranean for the next day (our anniversary) and for the Japanese Show cooking for Thursday. They gave me an early seating for the Med but the first opening they had for the Japanese was Saturday. We took it and held off on what our third dinner would be. We returned to the front of the lobby and asked the bellman to take us and the luggage to our room. We had a delightful young man who explained the basics of the resort and gave us a tour of the room. We had been upgraded to a junior suite and there was a bottle of champagne on the table with a congratulatory card. It was a nice touch. The room was on the second floor and had a great view of the trees, nothing more. It wasn't really a problem as I didn't expect to spend any daylight time in the room. The memory of Squeaky was beginning to fad.

The room was nice but we decided to check it out later. There was still a bit of light so we headed out to take a quick look at the grounds. We took the first cross trail outside our building. It took us to the Spa pool area. It was empty but very nice. The pool had it's own bar area (closed at this time of night) and a jacuzzi sitting area in the center. We continued along the trail and came out to the main building. We turned to the left and headed toward the main pool area. The main pool area was gorgeous. The pool was huge with a number of jacuzzi areas along the side and in the middle to rest in. The pool bar was at the end of the luncheon restaurant and had a large seating area. The pool area was surrounding by three rows of chairs (two with huts) with lots of chairs spread out among them. There were also a number of "chairs" in the pool to sun under. We walked around the pool and headed to the beach for a quick look. The path area that lead from the pool area to the beach has a snack bar and a volleyball area marked off. The beach was good size with a smooth drop off into the water. The water was the same turquoise blue that we had seen at every other Mexican resort we had stayed at. There was a large sandy area directly in front of this area with some coral areas on either side. We noticed a second large clear area around a 100 yards further north up the beach. There were plenty of huts and trees along the entire beach. We decided to investigate the north end tomorrow.

We turned and hurriedly went back to the main building, looking for food. We found ourselves back on the Colonial side and saw the buffet restaurant behind the huge glass walls. We walked along the covered marble walkway looking for a door. We wandered around for 10 minutes until we found the entry. It's a bit confusing the first time, with all the a la carte restaurant entrances coming off the main lobbies and the buffet at the end of the building. The dining room was decorated with an Italian theme and was very nice. They also had ample no smoking seating.

We both reviewed the food and we very impressed, though not very hungry. We had a couple of desserts and called it a meal. We did succumb to the strawberry ice cream. It was delicious. The best soft serve ice cream we'd ever had. We somehow managed to fit in at least one ice cream sundae into our meal plans each day. We wandered back to the pool and then back to the room to crash and take more Preston aspirin. We never made it to any show.
 

Tuesday 8/5

We woke up at our usual time (7 AM) and headed out quickly to get some breakfast and grab some chairs under a hut by the pool. We had brought our own towels and took them and a float or two with us to mark some chairs. We arrived at 7:15 and to our surprise, a number of chairs had already been reserved. We grabbed a couple in the last row of the north side. We then walked over for feeding time. On our way to the breakfast buffet we passed the "Croc pen". Inside the enclosure they had several salt water crocs, some large some small. Not fun creatures. Feeding time was noon. We decided we didn't really want to see that.

We entered the buffet restaurant and found a huge assortment of great food stuffs. There is no way anyone could not find something to their liking. They had a large selection of fresh fruit, lots of cold cereals, an omelette station, several breakfast meats, etc etc. Knowing we would be there for a week, we decided to"rotate" our breakfast meals. We would change our main meal selection each day. This system has always worked great for us and we never got tired of the food. The only thing I had several times was one of my favorites, Mueslix mixed with Yogurt. Great stuff. Over breakfast we had a long discussion about Squeaky. We decided to put money ($50) aside to take a taxi to the airport instead of taking a chance of meeting the demon seed again. We ate, belched and went to the room to change and lather up. We loaded up our collapsible cooler with several bottles of drinks from the frig, filled it with ice and were off. We preferred this method to going back and forth to the bars with Walmart mugs for soft drinks. It ended up being the perfect thing for us to enjoy the northern end of the beach since the snack bar was a good distance away.

When we arrived at our chairs, around 8:30-9 (no clocks in room), the majority of the chairs under the huts around the pool had stuff on them. We made sure we got ours each day before we went to breakfast. We rested a few and jumped in the pool. The water was warm and refreshing. It was also deep in places. Being 6"3', I had no problems, but my 5"6' wife was glad I brought along a float for her. We enjoyed the huge pool for a few hours and decided we needed to get out of the sun for awhile. We are both white Irish potatoes so even though we wear 50 SPF block and t-shirts we try not to be in the direct sun to long. We decided to head to the beach and find a shady spot. We followed along the pool to the snack bar area. There was a beach volleyball court directly in front of the snack bar, however in the 90 degree heat, no one seemed interested in playing at this time. We sat down at the patio and had a cold drink then headed up the beach to explore the nice area we had seen the previous night. The beach area near the snack bar was pretty crowded but began to thin out as you left the central area. All along the beach there were huts and a variety of foliage to get shade under. Most were filled until we got to the second clear beach area. There we found an empty couple of chairs under a hut and sat down to enjoy the view, the breeze and the peace. It was great. We laid there for almost an hour before jumping in the water ourselves. The beach had a line of rock coral that had washed up but as soon as you got past that it was clean and silky. This northern area great. A lot quieter and less crowded than the main beach area. Be warned though that there are a lot of topless woman of all ages along the beach area but particularly in the northern beach area. This didn't bother either of us so we just enjoyed the water. We got out, dripped and decided to have lunch at the snack bar. The patio was comfortable with a nice ocean breeze and great people watching, however the food (burgers, dogs, chicken nuggets, etc.) were not very hot, a major requirement for my wife. The cheese for the nachos was also rather bland. This was the only so-so meal we had during our stay. We decided to try the main lunch restaurant b y the main pool the next day.

The rest of the day we just wandered back and forth between our pool chairs and the northern beach area. A pattern we followed all week long. We never reserved anything at the beach but were always able to find a shady place though not always under a hut.

We headed up early to get ready for dinner. This was our 25^th wedding anniversary day and I wanted a nice meal. Based on the recommendations I got from several people I had made reservations at the Mediterranean restaurant (Kantenah side). I was not disappointed. The food was excellent and the service outstanding. We got there on time and were seated fairly quickly. I had the tenderloin in the porta bella sauce (excellent!) and my wife had the pork and fettuccini in a tomato sauce (good but a little dry). They allow you to either have a soup appetizer, a salad appetizer or a trip to the salad bar. I had seen the prawns on the bar when we came in so I jumped on that. We were given some complementary champagne as well. The place was very nice and again I cannot say enough about the service. It was quite possibly the best service I've ever gotten in any restaurant I've ever eaten in (except maybe a Denny's in Des Moines in the summer of 76, but that's another story). The setting was very romantic and after dinner we exchanged our surprise gifts (we had both said no gifts, we both lie). It was a very good experience.

After the meal we decided to check the place out a bit and strolled around the main building to see what the other restaurants looked like as well as the entertainment areas. The place is huge and we decided to change out of our dress clothes (particularly my long pants) and head down to the beach area to enjoy the breeze. I also wanted to check out the hermit crabs that so many people had mentioned. We changed quickly and I grabbed a small flashlight I'd brought and headed to the beach. As we passed the pool area we heard music coming from the pool restaurant area. There was a live singer there that sounded great. We decided to delay our beach trip and sat down to enjoy the music. She was singing her heart out and sounded pretty good. However, just as she was starting "Every Breath You Take" by the Police I turned to my wife and said this not a song for a woman to sing (it is an homage to a stalker. I've never understood why any woman would like this song). 30 seconds into the song, the power goes out. There are some emergency lights that go on so we're weren't in total darkness but they stayed out for good while. The power flicked on and off maybe 6 or 7 times before it came on and stayed on. The power flicked on and off several times over the next four days. It was never out for more than a few minutes and didn't interfere with anything too much. We decided then to head to the beach. We again sat on the patio and enjoyed a cold drink while basking in the ocean breeze. Suddenly I saw a small black ball ran across the sand. Then another one and another one. I took my flashlight and went to investigate. There were hundreds and hundreds of hermit crabs all over the place. There were even several "piles" of them in several areas of the beach. It was amazing watching then run around. I've seen a lot of interesting animal sights but that many crabs in one small area is one of the strangest.

We headed back to the room around 10, just in time to miss the show.
 

Wednesday 8/6
The day was like the previous one except we had lunch at the pool restaurant instead of the snack bar. The food was excellent and we decided to have the rest of our lunches there. They always had a great salad bar, several hot grill meat selections, pizza, hit dogs and burgers. The view of the pool wasn't as beautiful as the ocean, however the food was much better. They always had a selection of grilled meats, a choice of national dishes and usually something a little special (BBQ ribs, marinated steak). Most important they had an ice cream machine and all the fixins for a hot fudge sundae.

The day was spent going back and forth between the beach and the pool. The only excitement was shortly after lunch. My wife settled down in the huge jacuzzi for a relaxing bubble treatment and I went off to our chairs. I was walking back to join her when she came running up to me screaming "Is it still there, is it still there?" There was a brownish white spot on the top of her forehead and I told her so. She screamed and ran to the shower putting it on full blast. After she had rinsed herself I went over and asked her what happened. It turned out a bird had used her head for a "landing zone" while she sat in the jacuzzi. I almost fell over laughing. I only wish I had been there to see the drop and get a picture. That would have been a great Christmas card photo :-).

After dinner we decided to go the "game" room on the Kentanah side. It was an air conditioned smoke free lounge (with bar) with several game tables. We spent several nights there playing cards. Tonight we had a little more entertainment that just the card game. We met Chris & Julie from Calgary. They had just gotten married and were there with their entire wedding party and parents (all still in their gowns and tuxs). We saw them sitting in the corner for awhile when suddenly the best man started moving furniture near us and sticking stuff up on the wall. They were getting ready to play a kind of Jeopardy game where the men and the women in the party answered questions about the newlyweds in order to demonstrate who knew them the best. They had a number of categories with several questions under each ranked by difficulty. The categories was highlighted on the wall of the room with post it notes. Some of the categories were Travel, Sex life, Occupations, etc. We got to learn a lot about the couple ourselves including the fact that Julie had recently has a 13 hour trip from Calgary to Spokane, their first kiss, which side of the bed each sleeps on, Chris's recent certification, etc.. We also learned that Julie likes to cheat (in the game, not on Chris). She was constantly trying to mouth the correct answer to each question to the female side of the room. We couldn't help ourselves and ratted her out to the guy side. We eventually became the cheering section and were very disappointed when the game had to end for dinner before the "bonus" round. We never did learn who won but the guys were ahead 3300 to 3100 when they left for dinner. They all looked very happy and it was kind of a reminder of what we went through 25 years earlier (though in Massachusetts, not Mexico).
 

Thursday 8/7

This morning began as the same as the others. We jumped into the pool and expected to relax for an hour or two before heading for the beach. As we floated along, the activity desk opened and turned on the music (as usual). This time however, I think the programmer was in a masochistic mood. The first "song" was an Indian sounding tune with a female vocal that screeched like Yoko Ono with PMS. It was horrible! Several people got out of the pool and evacuated to a non auditory station (got away from the noise). The song finely ended only to be replaced with a techno rave tune that actually featured a squeak toy noise that went with the beat. I now understand why young people today take ecstacy at raves. They have to warp their senses to deal with this crap. Why do people like John Lennon get shot and the producer of this crap is allowed to live? I have a lot of questions for the Almighty when the time comes. I think my ears actually started to bleed on the inside. Several people went up to the booth and the song ended soon after. I am happy to report that I never heard either of those two "tunes" again.

There are a number of activities held at the pool. We heard several times on Wednesday that there was going to be a "white dolphin" show around noon that day. We missed it but they said the same thing this morning and I told Mary we ought to see what they are talking about. Well we hung out by the pool most of the morning to see the dolphin show. Around 11 they began to get teams together for the daily water polo game. The employees attempt to get more interest in the game by pitting two or more countries against each other. Today it was Spain against the USA, Canada and Britain. I watched as the game was organized while my wife kept saying go play go play. Ultimately Spain was a couple of players short so I volunteered to play for Spain (good country). I really should have paid more attention to the other players in making a choice. The Spanish players were mostly men in their 30's or older who were just on vacation. The USA team (as it became known) was very heavily balanced toward males 18-25 who seemed to think this game was something very serious and needed to be won no matter what the costs. I never knew that combat training was a necessary prerequisite for water polo but apparently it is. The game was taken very seriously by the USA team and things got a bit physical (nothing out of hand but tackle polo is a new one on me). Needless to say the outcome was predetermined. After we (Spain) had been sufficiently trounced by the testosterone laden USA team, the referee (hotel activity organizer) said that our team now had to pay the penalty for losing. I figgered what, we had to salute them, bow to them or sing their national anthem, WRONG. He had us all line up side by side along the activity pool with the water around chest or neck level and then he called out to everyone around the pool to come over for the "white dolphin" show. I was getting very confused along with my Spanish teammates at to what was going on. The instructor then told us that we had to pull down the backside of our suits and one by one do a jump or fall over into the water. The idea was for our white cheeks to go along the top of the water and curl in like a pair of dolphins. As I was standing beside an attractive female member of our team, I thought, this might not be too bad. However, just before our penalty was to start the instructor said that the females were exempted (obviously not an equals rights amendment supporter) from the activity. This was very disappointing, at least for me. I was now in a hurry to get this over with as I saw my wife running back to the chair to get the camera. I yelled at everyone to get started and one by one we showed our cheeks. Luckily for me I was quicker than my wife, so no pictures are available (I think). I may check the Animal Planet web site later.

We left the main pool area early and stopped off at the Spa on the way to the room. We decided that we wanted a nice soak in the hot tub to top off the day. They have two soaking pools in the spa, one on the womens side and one on the mens side. You go through the locker room to get to each, but can go around to get into each. The one on the mens side was not heated but the womans pool was heated to a warm perfect temperature. We climbed in and soaked for almost an hour. We had the pool to ourselves the whole time. The best thing is there's a big sign over the tub that says "silence please". I loved the quiet solitude. We had to get out or we would have missed our reservation.

Tonight we had dinner at the Steak house. The restaurant is very good, but not quite up to the Mediterranean. Is also was not as romantic. My wife had the NY steak and I had the steak & prawns skewer. Both were very good but not as good as Outback. The service was excellent. We again changed and went to the lounge to look for more honeymooners and play cards. We didn't see any more wedding parties and called it a night.
 

Friday 8/8

We went through our usual routine and marked our places by the pool.

We sat under a hut on the beach for several hours that afternoon and took note of the Hobi Cat sailers going by. My wife had never been on one and I haven't really sailed one since by Boy Scout days (a long time ago). For some reason my wife decided that we needed to try sailing. For some crazy reason we left perfectly comfortable lounge chairs in the shade to go out in a sail boat. I did not have a good feeling about this, but of course, being a stupid man, I couldn't tell my wife that I really didn't know how to sail. We approached the activity desk and asked about taking out one of the sail boats. Much to my bitter disappointment :-) they informed us that we had to reserve the boats a day in advance. I turned and told her the bad news. She didn't take the hint. She went up and asked if they had any opening for tomorrow. Of course, they did :-(. The gentleman behind the desk was very helpful and she reserved a boat for 11:00 the next day. What fun. After reserving the boat he said we had to go to the main office (just behind the snack bar) and sign a release form before we could go out the next day. We wandered over to the desk and asked about a release form. The woman at this desk torn off two sheets from a bunch of preprinted forms and handed each of us one. I took Contracts while in law school and gave the thing a quick review. It basically said that if they intentionally gave us a boat that had dozens of razor blades infected with HIV sticking out if it and an explosive device under the rudder with a timing device set to explode 10 minutes after we left shore, we could not sue them. Nice simple contract.

We signed the waivers and had our wristbands punched signifying that we had signed our lives away. Feeling really good now, we went to our room to change for dinner. Tonight was "Gala" night or as we renamed it "Creature Feature". It was also BBQ night on the beach but we gave that a pass because we had heard that the food, though good, was not hot. My wife insists on hot food. To be honest we were both getting a bit full of the delicious food by now. We entered the buffet and found an "interesting" assortment of selections. They had rabbit, duck, roasted pig and several other "special" items. They also had the regular pasta selections and a few more traditional items. We'd tried all of the exotic choices on the buffet at one time or another but they really weren't to our liking. We decided tonight would be a good salad night (of course followed by a sundae). We both made huge plates of salad and polished them off. We still some how managed to still put down a couple of desserts and went home happy.
 

Saturday 8/9

Well today was boat day. What fun. Can't wait. We went down to pick up our boat at 11. Unfortunately it was ready and waiting. I really did not have good vibes about this. We loaded on the boat, my wife as a passenger looking back at me, her captain, as I had my firm hand on the rudder. She was in for a disappointment. The breeze was blowing directly in (surprise) and I had forgotten how to properly manipulate the sail in order to tack against the wind. We floated out about 40 feet and started to drift toward the swimming area. I did my best to try to get the boat to go in the correct direction but to no avail. We drifted further toward the swim area. I decided to take things into my own hands and reached over, grabbing the rope that marked the swim area. I then pulled the boat further off shore by the rope. My wife of course added to the fun atmosphere by telling me "I don't think that's how you supposed to do that". Unfortunately the rope ran out and we were left to drift some more. We now began to head toward a moored motorboat. Sure enough we slammed into the engine on the back. My wife now began to question my ability to captain the ship (it took her this long??). I offered to take us back in (by jumping out and swimming back if necessary) but she said no. She wanted a boat ride. I did my best to try to fill the sail with some wind but it just wouldn't work. We now drifted into the snorkeling area. I apologized to the snorkelers and promised I'd leave as soon as possible. My wife offered her usual suggestions for solving the problem "Maybe your sitting in the wrong place". I gently requested that she take the helm but she refused. I even offered to help place it for her. Suddenly the sail filled and we began to move along in the snorkeling area. Just as we got to the edge, the activity crew showed up in a motor boat waving at us. They told us we weren't supposed to be in that area (duh??). I said thanks and luckily caught a good breeze that took us out. Now that I had the wind to the side I was able to get a full sail and move along the coast. My wife now wanted to know why I hadn't done this earlier ( I do love that girl). Now that I had control, I let it out and cruised out to the end of the sail zone. The waves were getting a bit rough. Another boat was in front of us and they capsized when a wave swell flipped the boat. I went by and made sure everyone was OK and the activity crew was there shortly afterwards. This may have been a good thing because it apparently made Mary a bit nervous and we cut short our delightful cruise after two passes through the sailing area. along the coast. I guided the boat back to the shore and happily jumped out.

After surviving the sailboat my wife decided we needed to risk death in some other way. The whole week we had been watching people rent jet skis at the northern end of the beach. They went well of shore. So far that we could hardly see them. These jet skis seemed bigger and faster than the ones the hotel had. She went over and asked how much the rental fee was, $50 for 30 minutes for two people. She really wanted to give it a try. We'd never ridden one before but I figure it's basically the same as a motorcycle (which I do drive) so I felt far more comfortable with this idea than the sailboat. The only problem is money. I didn't bring that much cash since we usually don't do any shopping. I only brought enough for tips and some food at the airport. I went through the money and told her that if we used $50 for the jet ski we would have to take the bus ride back to the airport and take our chances on seeing Squeaky again. This was now a major decision. She decided she needed to think about it some more. While we played cards that night in the lounge we talked about the Squeaky/Jet ski problem. She really wanted to try the jet ski so I agreed and promised that I would help her stuff Squeaky (or really his parents) in the luggage compartment of the bus if he got on.

We went to the Japanese restaurant for supper this evening. We had a 5:30 reservation and arrived exactly on time. We were told that we had to wait for the other 8 people and that it would be another 10 minutes. We sat in the lobby with our tummies growling. 12 minutes later a family of three (from Vancouver) showed up. They were asked to join us in waiting and that it would just be 10 minutes. Another 15 minutes later they came out and asked us to follow them into the restaurant, no one else ever showed up. We were seated along the cooking table and prepared for the meal. We both got the chicken and steak combo with teriyaki. The appetizer was a mixed plate of sushi. In Georgia we call this bait. Neither of us had ever tried the stuff and we were both a bit reluctant. We asked the cook if any of the stuff was cooked at all. He informed us that two of the four sample items were cooked. I decided to throw caution to the wind and gobbled one of each down. One had avocado and one had some crab meat in it (I hope it was crab). I didn't gag but it wasn't a taste bonanza either. It will go on a hook next time. The meal was good and the cook very entertaining. I would consider it to be comparable to most Japanese show cooking meals in the US.
 

Sunday 8/10

We went down to the jet ski tent fairly early this morning (10:30). No one was there yet. We figured they were opening late because it was Sunday. We hung out by the beach for the next two hours waiting for the jet ski guys. They never showed up. We went off to lunch and returned expecting to find the jet ski rental site open. It wasn't and never did open. Sunday is there off day. Well at least we had the funds to avoid Squeaky now.

We spent our last full day going back and forth between the pool and the beach. I even entered another water polo game. The majority of players were middle age Brits so the game was a lot less intense and more enjoyable. It ended in a tie so there were no white dolphins on view. Gee, and I had waxed the night before :-).

Every day they also played "Crazy Tequila Volleyball" around 4:00. In this game whomever screws up has to drink a 5 second shot of tequila (it usually went beyond 5 seconds). We had watched several of these games during the week and they were kind of interesting (at least as a spectator sport). In the beginning of the game the participants were all intense and really trying to play. After the first bottle of tequila was gone the play became far more relaxed. Many of the players seemed to be almost intentionally messing up. Though their glazed eyes may have indicated an inability to play. We watched the game and made plans for the evening. We decided to have an early dinner and then change and go down to the spa pool for a night swim on our last evening. It was also a good opportunity to drink our champagne.

We went to dinner, it was Mexican night. The food was some of the best we had during the week, go figure they knew how to fix good Mexican food. We ate quickly and rushed back to change into our suits. We grabbed our champagne and headed down to the spa pool. It was quiet and relaxing. There were three other couples enjoying the pool. I popped the cork and poured each of us a plastic cup of energy. We plunged in and sat in the jacuzzi enjoying the entire experience. Unfortunately it only lasted a short time. After about 20 minutes (half a bottle of champagne) all heck broke loose. An Italian family suddenly appeared from nowhere and invaded the solitude of our (and the other couples) evening. There were two teenage boys who dove into the pool and began racing back and forth across the middle against each other (it is a small pool). The father and mother joined them shortly. The father was more of a kid than the kids (he looked like he was in his late 40's, early 50's). He was doing flips and handstands in the pool. Then the two aunts showed up. They climbed in and began talking real loud. By now all of the other couples decided to leave. It didn't bother us so much since we kind of considered it a show. The family was really enjoying themselves. They only stayed about 20 minutes and took off themselves. We then had the pool to ourselves until we were asked to leave by security (around 8:15). We called it a night since we had to get up early the next day to catch our transportation. We discussed the Squeaky issue when we got back to the room and decided that we should take a chance on the ride home and save the $50. We guessed that we would be the first group picked up and formed a plan to develop a Squeaky barrier for my wife. We would take two rows of seats as close to the front as possible, my wife sitting ahead of me. We would then place our carry-ons beside us so there would be no room for anyone else. Content with our plan we called it a night.
 

Monday 8/11

The Apple bus pick up was for 6:30 so we set a 5 AM wake up call. We wanted to have time to clean up and get down to the lobby by 6. Given that the restaurants did not open for breakfast until 7, we were not looking forward to a long bus ride on empty stomachs, however we had heard that they serve a small continental breakfast in the lobby for early departures and we made sure we were there to get some coffee in us. The breakfast was available in the Colonial lobby, where the pick up was scheduled to take place. It was limited to coffee, tea and some rolls but was better than nothing and enough to get us to the airport.

While we had been dropped off with only a small family of Brits the previous week, there were now several families from France, England and the US for the ride back. We knew we would have to be aggressive and jumped up as soon as the bus pulled in the driveway. We started to board the bus before the door had even fully opened and quickly implemented "Operation anti-Squeak". We plopped down in the second and third rows, taking up both seats with our bags. We got a few glances by some of the other passengers but we had to ignore them, this was a question of survival. I did remind my wife however that if Squeaky did get on and we had to kill him, I could now use the extra $50 to bribe the cops. We pulled out and headed down the road. I have to be honest, we both were getting a bit tense as we approached the Xcaret area, We were only hoping that Squeaky and his keepers had taken another bus. As we looked out the window, the sign for the Flamingo came up and we whizzed by it. We both let out a small cheer. We got a few strange looks again but we were too happy to care. We continued on to the Mandarin where we picked up a large number of people and headed to the airport.

We were the first off the bus and headed in. Most of the passengers on our bus were catching a 10 AM flight to St. Louis (I think) and we were the first in line for the 10:55 Atlanta flight. We got Row 1 seats A & B. The extra leg room would be appreciated. We headed up to the terminal and found Dominos Pizza. We scarfed down some pizza and cheesy sticks and waited for the boarding call. Boarding began early, around 10:10 or so. Boarding as a bit unusual in that you went out to the tarmac and entered the front of the plane (rows 1-10) or the rear of the plane (rows 11+). We again were one of the first on board and sat down. After 10-12 minutes it seemed everyone was on board and settling in. Suddenly the hair on the back of our necks stood straight up and a knot began to develop in our stomachs. That shrill voice of the demon seed was behind us and coming closer and closer. I closed my eyes and prayed that this was all a dream, but no, Squeaky was approaching! He was coming down the aisle with his father and sat in the third row behind us on the opposite side of the plane. He was in full wound up squeaky mode, jumping around chattering non stop. My wife and I looked at each other in horror. We had to act quickly or we would become a movie of the week special. I looked up to the stewardess and asked if the plane was full. She could see the pain expression on my face and said no, it wasn't but that we couldn't move until everyone had boarded. Anxiously we waited for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly a family of four boarded the plane, youngish parents with two 6-7 year old daughters. They showed the stewardess their boarding passes and she motioned them to the third row. Squeaky's Dad apologized and attempt to move to the empty fourth row, but no they said, those seats were theirs too. That bastard wasn't even in his assigned seat. Now I knew Squeaky was stalking us. This could be a justifiable homicide. Thinking that they would now be banished to the rear of the plane we let out a huge sigh of relief, however it was short lived. Squeaky and his Dad merely moved over and each took an aisle seat one and two rows behind us. The demon was now in the attack mode. Pleadingly we looked up at the stewardess and again asked if we could move. You could tell by the expression on her face that she understood our pain. She too wanted to thwart the plans of the dark one. She held up a finger, smiled and said one minute more. She grabbed the microphone and announce they were closing the hatch doors, she then nodded to us. You never saw two people move as fast as we did. We jumped out of our seats and ran down the aisle to the first fully unoccupied row. We jumped in and buckled up. We could still hear Squeaky's horrid voice but it was far more faint and being in front of us instead of behind, could now be tolerated. We would not have to kill him. We settled in for the flight. The meal this time was chicken and pasta. Neither were very good. Again he couldn't give away the chicken dinners. The flight went well, as Squeaky pretty much stayed in front of us. He did run up and down the aisle a couple of times (I had to really restrain myself from tripping him) but at least he was not constantly in our ears. The flight was early getting in and we were anxious to beat the traffic. Got through INS & Customs quickly but had a long wait for our luggage in the main terminal. For those of you not familiar with ATL airport they have a very stupid system for handling international luggage. You come in on the end terminal (E), go through immigration and go downstairs to pick up your luggage. You then take your luggage through Customs and RECHECK your luggage. You then go all the way down to the main terminal to wait for you luggage again. This process usually takes more than 70-80 minutes. It's the one thing I really hate about ATL airport. Other than that issue it's a great airport. Enough whining. To conclude the story we where standing around waiting for our luggage for over 40 minutes at the main terminal and getting a bit tense. I turned to my wife and said, "Well, at least Squeaky isn't around". No sooner had the words left my lips than who comes up beside us, SQUEAKY! My wife glares at me, like I had intentionally conjured up Satan's assistant. I really was beginning to think this kid was stalking us. We quickly moved to another area of the baggage claim area. A short time later our luggage arrived and we headed out, just beating the ATL traffic. Overall it was a great trip.