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ST CROIX 2024 DAY 11
Day 10: Will we make it home today?
We were free to sleep in as long as we wanted, but you know us...we just don't do that anymore. The hubby and Karl went down for coffee. Sakari and I got ready and then headed down for breakfast.
They had quite a bit of food to pick from:
There was plenty of places to sit. I guess we were just really early or possibly really late.
Breakfast was yummy and we were full.
The hotel did have a small area that you could purchase drinks and snacks:
We would ask the lady at the front desk about our voucher and she would tell us that it was considered a "one and done" type of voucher. You can only use it once and if there was anything left over, you would lose it. Well then, that's kinda crappy if you ask me. Although I could probably spend $144 on pop, it wasn't going to happen.
We headed back up to the room for a bit and watched tv. Sakari wanted to go swim but I told her we would go down to swim when it was time to check out. They really didn't like the idea of swimming and not being able to come back and take a shower. Oh come on, you'll be ok. It would give us something to do after check out time.
We watched Ghostbusters until 1pm and down to check out we went. Then off to the pool for some swimming were we had planned on hanging out for most of the day.
Sakari and I were the only ones that decided to swim. The guys hung out around the pool in the HEAT! Karl was hungry already again and he decided to walk over to McDonalds across the parking lot in front of the hotel. He came back with food for him and Sakari. We were not hungry yet.
We entertained ourselves by playing ball, swimming, making up games, jumping in and watching the lizards in the area.
Sakari found the pool noodles and took it upon herself to help herself to all of them...all 18 of them I might add. Yes, I counted.
Sakari and I found the Connect 4 life sized game. Only there wasn't enough pieces and the bottom piece was missing. We had to improvise so we took a pool noodle and shoved it underneath it to hold our disks from falling out the bottom.
All of a sudden the sky started getting dark. Oh no! I think a storm was coming. We gathered our things up and decided to head in...just in time.
We sat inside the dining area and this would be where we stayed until it was time to leave for the airport. Our day had been spoiled by the rain. It was FREEZING in there and we were wet. I broke out the blankets from our luggage and attempted to get warm. It just didn't work well enough. I would have to walk outside multiple times just to unfreeze my body.
The hubby and I were starting to get hungry and decided to walk over to McDonalds ourselves. The rain had stopped and off we went. Once we got our food IT WAS POURING now. Oh just great. Well, we would have eat our meal there hoping that it would let up enough to walk back. Once it went to a small drizzle we decided to make a mad dash for it. Of course half way there it would start to pour down! Just our luck. Now I wasn't just cold. I was wet and cold. Wait, why am I suffering? I had my entire wardrobe with me in my suitcase. I was able to grab my long sleeve shirt that I had purchased in St Croix for diving. It was better than nothing and so welcomed by the goosebumps on my arms.
It was now 6pm and time to shuttle over to the airport where we would wait out the rest of our time.
We checked our luggage in and the hubby's was 49.8# WHEW!!!! Thank goodness Spirit increased the luggage to 50# instead of the 40# its has always been in the past. We barely squeezed by that one this time.
The check in worker said there were 14 cancellations so far today because of the storm. We were really hoping we weren't going to be statistic #15 for the day.
We headed to security and even though we have TSA it does not exclude you from being pulled by security for the "extra" check where they swab your hand for the remains of drugs. Yep, the hubby and I were pulled. PASSED!
We hung out for awhile and then remembered we needed to use our voucher still. Karl was game for food of course! We went on the prowl for a place to eat, we had $144 to spend after all. No one seemed to be able to agree on what to eat. Eventually we FINALLY decided on Mexican.
The lady at the register was very patient with us as we gave her our order and told her we had a voucher. She did explain though that others have been able to use the vouchers at multiple different places at the airport. You just had to find out which vendors accepted them. I was pretty leery of doing this since we had been told by several people AND the voucher itself said "one time use" so we tried to spend as much as we possibly could.
Karl ordered a burrito. Sakari had a steak quesadilla. I ordered a chicken quesadilla and an order of Nachos with shredded chicken. The hubby got a shredded chicken salad and nachos. The lady at the register rang everything up and said "What about drinks? You should grab some drinks to spend more of the money". We went over and grabbed a drink each. She said "Get you a couple"...so we did. Our total came to $109.
As we waited on our food, she motioned me over to the register again and started pulling the extra large muffins of different varieties from the display. They were HUGE! She put them in a bag and handed them to me. How nice was that?!
We headed back to our chairs by our gate and started opening up our meals. Oh my goodness they were HUGE! The nachos wasn't at all what I expected them to be. They were an entire meal! There's no way we can eat all of this food!
I really hated that we wasted most of the food. We just couldn't eat it all but I knew that it would not be any good if we hung onto it. The nacho's would be soggy by then.
We still had $35 left on the voucher and the hubby was determined to spend it all. He headed out to one of the stores and purchased some goodies for the kids for the plane (gummy bears and chips) and used the rest on the absolute BEST beef jerky I think I've ever had in my life. It was all natural grass fed beef and so soft and tender. Best free money ever spent.
Well, our flight was now delayed...I hated when we heard those words come over the speaker. There was another plane in our spot and they were actually the delayed plane landing, which caused our plane to have to wait on them to leave. It was finally our turn! It was now 10pm.
Well guess what....we were once again upgraded to the Big Front Seats. I had actually won this bid prior to our trip so I guess they still awarded it even though we were not on the same flight back and a day late. The only issue was that we were somehow split up this time. I was in the front seat, the hubby was behind me and the kids got to sit together. We figured we would just wait until our neighbors came and ask each if they would trade with us so we could sit together.
Well, they closed the doors. No one came for either one of our seats. So, the hubby moved up with me and once again, we managed to be on the wrong side with the blinding light. Then off we went.
I watched 2 episodes of my downloaded shows on my phone and then took a nap. The captain of the plane made an announcement "We are going to take a shortcut and get to your destination earlier than expected"...that never happened. We arrived safely and waited FOREVER for our luggage to finally come out. And just our luck...Karl's luggage was the absolute LAST to come out. Then more waiting would occur for the shuttle to take us to the parking lot. Probably the longest we've ever waited for a shuttle before. We drove home and in bed by 3:30am. FINALLY! 💤💤💤💤💤💤
Final thoughts:
We had a wonderful vacation and St Croix was absolutely gorgeous. We didn't get to do as many things as we had expected and honestly didn't find "as much" to do or places to go as we have on previous land vacations. Their beaches were not quite what I had pictured or like other places we've been to in the past. We loved our time there, but I feel that this island is a one and done place for us to visit. It wasn't added to our list of places we would absolutely visit again during a land vacation (Aruba, Grand Cayman or Isla Mujeres). This is not to deter anyone from going there at all. It's a great place, easy to navigate and beautiful. Just my honest opinion of how I felt about going there. I did make a decision for the future though. At this point, after not one but two instances of being caught in a Tropical Storm, we will go to a place that is normally outside the hurricane belt: Aruba, Bonaire or Curacao if we travel during these months to the Caribbean in the future and if we want to go to an island.
Now what to do? Should we cruise? Should we do another land vacation? We usually plan something for a winter vacation. It's time to do my research.
I hope you all enjoyed the review and videos. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to answer anything that I can. If you have any suggestions of places you'd like to see me go and review, let me know. Until then...happy cruising and vacationing! ❤️
***Meanwhile, I'm going to continue to work on this website. I have finally figured out what I need to do to keep adding to it. I have a lot of things missing from it. So, I will be busy working on that until the next vacation***
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