MondayWe got another early start on Monday morning because DW had a massage booked for 9:30am. As much as I wanted to get one too, I opted out because I had a pretty bad sunburn and it would’ve been too painful. The hotel has a promotion that if you finish your spa treatment by 11am (basically book a 9:00am or 9:30am appointment), you get a 15% discount (basically an early bird special).
Once we were done eating, the masseuse came to pick up DW from breakfast to take her to the spa (another example of the great service) and I went to speak to Ameez about possibly upgrading for the last night to an OWB. Unfortunately, he told me that over the past few days a lot of reservations came in and they were all booked up (when we arrived, he told us that they only expected to be at about 60% occupancy for the duration of our stay; they were at 90% when we left), and that I wasn’t the only Diamond member that wanted to upgrade for one night (apparently many people only want to upgrade for one night). He did say though that if something opened up, he’d probably be able to upgrade me for free for one night, but unfortunately nothing did. I know, many of you are going to say that it was a missed opportunity to go all the way to MLE and not stay in an OWB. Sure, it would’ve been cool and a very different experience, and while it was a bit frustrating, it didn’t bother us
that much. We really liked our villa and having a private pool was amazing. Hopefully we’ll get to BOB one day and stay in an OWB there. Our trip was still incredible and we’re not going to let one thing ruin it.
After DW was done with her massage (which she said was great), we took it easy and hung out at the main hotel pool (which overlooks the beach and ocean) for a bit and then went kayaking for close to an hour. The hotel has single and double kayaks that are free to use. We kayaked from the beach past the OWBs to the Dawn Jetty and then back to the beach. It felt like we were kayaking in a lake because the water was so calm. I’ve only been kayaking in an ocean one other time and I remember how difficult (read: annoying) it was because of the current, but that definitely wasn’t the case here.
Main Pool:
Another view of the pool:
After kayaking, we went back to the villa for lunch, took it easy for a bit and then went snorkeling off the Dusk Jetty to see some more beautiful fish and coral. Once we were done snorkeling, both jetties have nice sitting areas so we relaxed over there for a bit before heading back to our villa to wash up before happy hour and dinner.
We could've just stared at the water from the jetty for days...
When we went to The Bar for happy hour, we noticed that they had some games there for people to use (not sure how we missed it the other nights) so we played some backgammon while enjoying a drink and watching the sunset. I forgot to mention this in the last installment, but The Bar is located right near the pool (kind of diagonal from The Dining Room) and only a few steps from the beach.
The Bar:
View of the pool from The Bar:
View of the pool and The Dining Room from The Bar:
Although we wanted to have dinner again at The Island Grill, we ate at The Dining Room because there was a special event at The Island Grill (I think it was a BBQ) so we didn’t want to occupy a table that they could otherwise be filling with a guest ordering from the menu (and spending a lot on dinner). We changed it up and had dairy for dinner, splitting a Fettuccini Alfredo. We both really liked it, but I’m not so sure I agree with those who say that POM’s dairy meals are enough to feed two for dinner (perfect to split for lunch though). I don’t know if we would’ve each been able to finish a whole serving ourselves, but we thought that the ideal amount would probably be 3/4 of a serving per person, so I guess we’ll see what we do the next time around.
On the way back from dinner we stopped at the gift shop to pick up a shot glass as a souvenir (a tradition that we decided to start in the Cayman Islands two months ago) and borrowed a DVD from reception. The hotel has a collection of about 30 DVDs that guests can take out (free of charge) to watch in their villa (every villa has a DVD player). The selection wasn’t great, but we decided on Runner Runner, which was nothing more than okay (I think JT should stick to singing and leave acting for the experts). The reception also has a bunch of books in a variety of languages (DW spotted a couple of Hebrew books), though I’m not sure what the selection is like because I didn’t really look to see what they had. We went back to the villa, watched the movie and called it a day.
Our Souvenir:
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