Home at last!

My phone is dead, but Vince's has a little charge left. We got in around 6:15 and met Mom and Dad outside of customs (which took FOREVER, by the way, thanks to the stunt we pulled for Gabe and Travis) around 7. We then went to Buca di Beppo and ate. We have leftovers for days.

It is late and we are exhausted, but glad to be home.

I could really do without the 35-degree weather, though.

Love to all. Talk to you soon!

Mayan Fire Show

We saw a Mayan Fire Show today at the outdoor theater.  Before they started playing with the fire, they did a lot of dancing and drumming.  It was really cool.  We took some videos and tons of pictures.  

We sat in the front row and one of the guys dropped his fire stick.  GREAT!

More pictures

This is a swim-out suite's pool.  We were walking under a palapa, which covers all of the outdoor hallways in the resort.

Chairs in the fountain (it looks brown because it has reddish brown tile on the bottom)

Lounge chair

One of the fountains at the resort (not really deep enough to be a pool)

Beach

The lifeguard who ignored us!

Vince laying on the beach

To the left of our resort

There were lots of men here diving in wet suits.  We didn't know what was going on.

Vince's sushi from lunch.  He went to eat it, and noticed the things on the rice.  They were grasshoppers!  This was confirmed by the chef.

We didn't get any pictures of the nude beach, (sorry to all of you hoping) but these are still some good ones.

Snorkeling Trip

We went snorkeling today near where the Secrets Silversands resort is (how ironic).  They said that is why the beach is so bad there; because there's a reef.  They didn't want me to take my real camera, so we bought a disposable underwater camera.  

The water was pretty deep, and after almost drowning the other day, I was a little uneasy about it.  Of course, Vince jumped right in and started swimming like a fish.  The current was really rough and I kept getting water in my tube, so I just went back to the boat and watched the others. Vince went back out and took all 27 pictures on the camera in 2 minutes I think.  He said he saw an eel, millions of fish, lots of coral, etc.  A guy on the bus with us said he saw a long manta ray. 

The stuff that I saw was exciting.  They kept telling us that we had to keep swimming, because the water was shallow enough that we could cut ourselves on the reef if we hesitated.  Since I am in awesome shape (hear the sarcasm?), I couldn't hang.  

They did end up taking everyone closer to the reef in the boat, so it was still fun.  We were back in the hotel around 12:30.  As we were coming back, we passed a resort with lots of big beds on the beach.  We looked closer, and noticed that it was a NUDE BEACH!  We couldn't see that far away, but we could definitely tell that the people were naked.  It was funny--they were playing beach volleyball and everything.  

We went back to talk to the concierge to see about extending our trip, and he FINALLY called the US Apple for us.  We talked to a manager, who seemed to be really honest.  Told us that they did not record their phone calls, and she shouldn't tell us this, but if we send all of our info when we get home (and stay persistent), they will refund our entire trip.  She said she has seen it happen many times before, and that we WERE NOT the only ones with the SAME ISSUE (with the same hotel).  They said that there are no charter flights leaving until January 7th, and that they might be able to work something out, but then the lady told Vince that we need to fight to get our money back because any thing they "give" us will lessen the possibility of a refund.

I have always heard about people getting refunds, free trips, etc. from Apple, but I don't know what to believe.  She did tell us that there were many, many notes and phone calls recorded on our account and it sounded like we had a good case for a refund.  She was a supervisor.

She said we could write the report and email it right now, but we figured we would enjoy our time left and send it when we get home.

We are not going to think about it anymore--just enjoy our last day and a half.

We miss you all.  Hopefully if we can get this resolved, we can come back for a stress-free trip. It is a wonderful, beautiful place, but it's hard to forget that all of your money is gone! :)

Love you!

I'll try to post pictures in a second.

One more picture...

Vince wanted me to post this picture of him in a UK Santa hat.  Enjoy!

Sunset from the back of our room

Pool leading to beach

Near sunset

Water

Lobby area

Beach

Frozen Conga--I think it has banana, pineapple, orange, and papaya juice

Beach--from where we sat under the palapa

Mexican orphans from the Salvation Army (the boy on the back right reminds us of a little Mexican Vince)

Kind of blurry, sorry--they kept moving!  They did hand motions and everything for their songs. So cute!

Gingerbread house at the World Cafe where we have breakfast

Chocolate and strawberry crepes with pastries

World Cafe Restaurant

Vince sitting in a hammock

Beach

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas.  We had a good one, laying by the beach.  It was kind of windy and cloudy, but still warm.  It rained briefly for about 20 minutes this morning, but cleared up for the rest of the day.

We've been back and forth again trying to get our stay extended.  We have had fun, but feel like the whole trip has been pretty stressful.  We've maxed out all of our credit cards to switch hotels (to get what we had already paid for), we've wasted most of our time talking to people at a desk, and nobody seems to want to do anything to help us.  We have really tried to enjoy the trip, but it's hard when you have so many people lying to you or just plain refusing to help.  It is a very weird feeling to be in a different country where English is not the native language, and you really have no idea what someone is saying about your situation.  For all we know, these people get on the phone and talk nonsense for 10 minutes and never even try to get the situation resolved.

It seems like the front concierge has been the most helpful, although he hasn't had good answers for us so far.

Enough bitterness--I'm going to try to post some pictures.

Ocean? Not so much...

Today Vince and I had a big scare while we were in the water.  I just want to let you know what happened, not scare you, so don't worry too much.  

We had been in the water earlier and seaweed was blowing in.  It was nice, but not as clear as I remembered from being there before.  As I was laying by the beach, Vince went into the water a little deeper.  He came back and told me that it was really clear and we should go back in.  We noticed the red flag on the shore, but didn't pay much attention because there were tons of other people swimming.

Our first clue should have been the flag.  Second, Vince's glasses got knocked off of his head when a wave hit.  He thought it was fun.  He said he had never seen a bigger wave.

I didn't know that before I went out.  We could tell the waves were bigger, but we're in a Florida beach mindset, where it's still pretty calm, even after the big waves roll in.

We walk out into the water and apparently get sucked into a rip tide (which is exactly WHY the red flag is on the beach).  I won't go into details because it will scare you to death (it did us!).

It was our fault for being in the water, but we didn't take it seriously because others were there and we really didn't know the flag color codes.

From now on, it is sitting on beach or by pool only.  We might get in to our ankles, but that's it. The Caribbean Sea is NOTHING like the ocean at home.

BUT--the good news is that we are fine.  We're not hurt--just drinking water a lot to rehydrate from all of the salt.  We learned our lesson and we are okay.  God is good!

We went to a Christmas Party tonight.  They brought orphans from the "Army Salvation"(that's how they say it) to sing Spanish Christmas carols.  It was really sad, but they were so cute. There was even one little Mexican boy that reminded us of Vince when he was little.  The food was not so good this time, so we are going to order room service in a minute and get into our balcony jacuzzi.  

Hopefully, no more adventures for us! 

Blogger won't let me upload any pictures.  Will try later.

LOVE YOU ALL and FELIZ NAVIDAD!

More pictures

Vince almost falling out of the hammock

Water

Beach near sunset

Freezing in the pool

Vince in the water

Water

Gazebo at the resort

Swim-out suites below us

Balcony

Lobby

Bathroom near one of the restaurants

Lobby area

Lobby area

Garden area near the pools

Another picture of the huge crocodile

This one's for you, Roger!  I need to find out where I can get one of those t-shirts.

More beach--can't get enough

Pool flowing into beach

Blogger keeps acting weird and sending me Spanish error messages, so we're lucky to get these pictures posted.  These are a few of I think four hundred so far!