Flashback to Jamaica

Ahhh, Jamaica! One of my favorite places in the world to visit. It is an island in the Caribbean and is part of the Greater Antilles. When you fly into Sangster Airport, you land right on the beach on the North Coast.  So, as your plane descends, you feel like you are incredibly close to the water.  I remember being overwhelmed with the stunning blue colors of the sea.  I had never seen such beautiful hues.

This past winter, we headed down for a week of R and R. Since this wasn’t our first trip to Jamaica, or the second, or the third (have I mentioned it’s one of my favorite places?) we knew exactly what we did and didn’t want to do this time.  For this trip, we wanted to stay in Montego Bay, close to the airport, so I found a sale for the RIU Montego Bay on Apple Vacations.  If you’ve never shopped for a vacation on Apple Vacations, you’ve been missing out.  It’s one of the travel sites I watch regularly and they run some great sales on trips.  While we’d never stayed at this particular RIU resort before, I am a fan of the RIU brand, so this was an easy decision.In Montego Bay, I knew we would be close enough to see our friend, Paul (see post Everyone Should Meet a Paul).  I also wanted to take my husband Sonny to eat at Scotchie’s, which is known for their jerk chicken and pork.  I also love breadfruit, which I was hoping was in season.  Scotchie’s serves the majority of their dishes in tin foil or on paper plates, and with gravy (think hot sauce) made from scotch bonnet peppers.  Also on the itinerary, was a trip to Luminous Lagoon, which I’ve wanted to check out for a while.  The tour starts at sunset and takes you through the lagoon, which is home to phosphorescent micro-organisms that glow in the dark when agitated.

As the saying goes, ” the best-laid plans of mice and men, often go awry”, so did ours.  We had some transportation issues and didn’t get to go to Scotchie’s for jerk and due to a small monsoon (flash-flooding, thunderstorm) our trip to the Luminous Lagoon was cancelled.

What we did get to do was hang out at our resort, meet new friends, and visit with old friends.  Paul was able to come visit our resort on a day pass and he brought his wife, Tansia,  and daughter, Talia, along.  He also brought us a bottle of Sangster’s Chocolate Rum Cream.  If you’ve never tried rum cream, you must–it’s what every good dirty banana is made from.  I knew it came in flavors, but this was the first time I had had Chocolate. And since I can’t order it online back home, I was very grateful for Paul’s gift!

Paul, who is a jack-of-all-trades, entrepreneur, and a lifeguard, took us out for a quick sail around Mahee Bay in a small catamaran.  We also walked up the beach to watch a wedding with Talia and our new friends Don and Stephanie.  We sampled numerous frozen drinks “Jamaican style” compliments of a friend of Paul’s who was the bar supervisor.  It was so nice to visit with Paul and his family for the day.  Next time we hope to go visit the villa he is building just outside of the town of Lucea.The following day we got to take a snorkeling excursion/sunset cruise.  We loaded up on a big catamaran, cruised west down the coast a bit, went snorkeling, and ended up at Margaritaville in Montego Bay.

We did a little shopping on the Hip Strip before heading back for a cocktail at Margaritaville, and then headed back to the resort for dinner which was right on time.I’ve never eaten so many seafood dinners as I have at RIU Resorts.  It turned out this night was seafood night at the buffet restaurant and they had lobster tail available.  My husband ate nothing but lobster and I think he topped out at 8 tails.  I partook of the incredibly good lobster, but also enjoyed the shrimp and fish.

The next day was departure day.  We got to the airport early, which is great because Sangster Airport has excellent duty-free shopping and we love to shop there.  We picked up some souvenirs, and a little jewelry, and then finished waiting for our flight at Margaritaville with lunch and a beer!

Until next time Jamaica.  Soon come back!

Grand Palladium, Riviera Maya Dining

 
Ha! We got off the plane in Cancun, Mexico and what were we greeted by at the airport? Margaritaville! If you’ve read any of my earlier posts Margaritaville Island or Smoky Mountain Getaway you’ll know that hubby and I are HUGE fans. I’m still wanting to get my hands on that frozen concoction maker!  Maybe Santa will bring me one for Christmas.

Anyhoo, we actually bypassed Margaritaville this time.  I would have had to order a frozen concoction or a beer and I didn’t think that was a wise idea since I hadn’t eaten anything yet that day and we still had an hour commute to the resort. I didn’t want to be that passenger to stop our bus because I had to use the restroom.
We arrived at the resort in time for late lunch. We headed over to one of the buffet restaurants where I had the most delish cream of asparagus soup and some chicken wings. During the next couple of days we determined that the buffet restaurants seemed to repeat the same items for each meal. They didn’t really knock our socks off with a ton of seafood and we found what worked best for breakfast and lunch.  However, some of the displays were really neat to look at.

We decided that the a la carte restaurants had the best dinners at the resort.  Two of them–Sumtuori, the teppanyaki grill restaurant and the Fish & Rice Resturant were the only ones that required reservations. The rest were first come-first serve.
Here’s my quick rundown in case you are headed to the Grand Palladium in Riviera Maya:
Sumtuori (Teppanyaki grill)–the food was pretty good, but I think our chef was pretty new. He didn’t say a word throughout the show (in Spanish or English and our table was made up of both), and a number of our orders were mixed up. So, we didn’t really get the “show” but his cooking skills were good!
Chang Thai (Thai)–this restaurant was incredible and delicious! I started with the chicken soup and then had chicken for my entrée as well. The interior of the restaurant was very unique in décor as well.

Ribs & More (Ribs/Steaks)–my food was awesome!  I had a rib-eye (cooked perfectly to order) and baked potato.  I do think the food seemed even better because of the company we were with, the Beards.

Portofino (Mediterranean/Italian)–this was my favorite dinner at the a la carte restaurants. I had salad and lasagna that was incredible!

La Adelita (Mexican)–I had the steak fajitas, which were very good.  I loved the plates and décor of the restaurant and the menus were especially gorgeous!

Lola (Spanish tapas)–last but not least, the Spanish restaurant was good, but I had expected more of the Brazilian steakhouse. We had a lot of tapas (the salad bar was mostly tapas and our entrees were tapas) that were very yummo. Beyond that, the décor was beautiful and there was live entertainment which made the dinner very romantic.

I do have to mention some additional food and beverage options that added to the gastro experience at the Palladium. The beverage options were not only endless, but they were always presented beautifully, even when we ordered drinks to go, which were served in plastic cups.

And, one late afternoon, we had the “Chocolate Bar”. One of the indoor bars actually set up a display of nothing but chocolate. There were chocolate drinks, a chocolate fountain, white chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate cupcakes and many other goodies. Some of the goodies were also decorated with artisan chocolates which were my favorites. I really just wanted to take all the chocolate decorations off the desserts for myself.

So, if you are headed to the Grand Palladium, I would definitely recommend you eat at the a la carte restaurants, you will not have a bad meal at any of them. Be sure to try the unique selections and seek out the chocolate bar. You won’t regret it!

Travel Music Tuesday–Jimmy Buffett

Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett

Classic 5 o’clock somewhere, state-of-mind song!

 
Download the song by clicking below:

Margaritaville Island

For four days in the Smoky Mountains, Margaritaville Island in Pigeon Forge, TN was our home.  More specifically, the Margaritaville Island Hotel–you know, one of Jimmy Buffett‘s places.  If you’ve never checked out a Jimmy Buffett place:  Margaritaville Cafe, Margaritaville Hotel, Margaritaville Casino, or Cheeseburger in Paradise, you should.  He can really put you in that 5 o’clock-somewhere-frame-of-mind.  My husband has even bought a pair of Margaritaville Boat Shoes and I hear Jimmy Buffett may be opening retirement homes next.  I’ll need to check that out!

The Margaritaville Island Hotel was awesome.  Our room was tastefully decorated and had a comfy king-sized bed, fireplace, hot tub, and frozen concoction maker.  The front desk actually had concoction mixes and recipes available for sale .  We didn’t actually get around to making any concoctions, but the recipes looked good, like the Blackberry Moonshine Margarita.  Each room also has a copy of Jimmy Buffett’s book, “Tales From Margaritaville“, which I made a dent in reading while relaxing in our hot tub.  Our balcony overlooked the Little Pigeon River and came complete with a blue heron who hung out there every evening.Outside of the hotel, there were a lot of options for eating, shopping and entertainment. We really didn’t need to leave the Island for anything.  Aside from Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen, we stopped in at Dick’s Last Resort which is where your food is served with an attitude and they are known for their “crappy hour”.  The atmosphere was hilarious, and came with free, insulting hats made by the servers.

Other restaurants that we didn’t have time to try but will be a priority on our next visit there include Timberwood Grill, and Paula Deen’s The Bag Lady.

We ventured in to Bootleggers Winery because of the sign below the bar that says,  “High Class My Ass”.  They were hosting tastings of their wines which had names like Mountain Muscat and Scuppernong.  It sounded like a place with a sense of humor.  After sampling 10 varieties, we took a bottle of tasty Strawberry Wine back to our room.  If you are a fan of sweet wines, this one is for you.

Right next door was the Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery which is where we then sampled the shines.  The first flavor was Ole Smoky White Lightnin’ Moonshine which almost convinced me I could grow hair on my chest.  I know where they get the name White Lightnin’–it was burning hot on the way down.  We had other flavors like Blackberry and Raspberry (this is about the time I decided the Island was a really fun place!), and my favorite wound up being Snow Cream Moonshine which would have been incredible poured over vanilla ice cream or in coffee.  Our server also gave us some pretty novel ideas of how to incorporate shine into our everyday life!

Whew!  After all that moonshine, we intended to take a break from the sampling and do some shopping around for a while.  We came across a store called the Village Idiot which was a MUST SEE on my list just because of the name.  They had really unique gift ideas (did a little Christmas shopping) and some cute clothing.  Next, we discovered what would become our favorite shop on the Island, The Beef Jerky Outlet.

If you have ever met my husband, you know he LOVES beef jerky.  This shop let us sample any flavor we wanted to try, which was right on time after all the wine and moonshine samples.  We tried some Slap Ya Mama, Teriyaki Smoked Beef, Blazin’ Cajun (which WAS Blazin’), and Prime Rib.  We ended up buying 2 lbs of the Prime Rib and getting another 1/2 lb free of Blazin’ Cajun, which we took hiking with us the next day.  We also picked up a Wild Game Sample Pack which has jerky made from 9 different animals including Alligator, Ostrich, and Kangaroo.  I wonder what special occasion we’ll break those out for?

Beyond the eating, shopping, and sampling, there are other activities too.  You can take a ride on the Great Smoky Mountain Wheel, which is an incredibly large ferris wheel with gondola seats, or there’s the Island Ropes Course, which had ziplines.  You could also go in a Mirror Maze, Bungee Jump, or pan for Gems at the Island Miner’s Gems, which really looked pretty fun.  The Miner’s Gems hostess assured us EVERYONE finds a gem, so I’ll be giving that a whirl next trip.

We also spent a few hours at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum, which was very entertaining and educational.  We did the VIP tour, which gained us access to the interactive exhibits, audio tour, and participation in “The Heist” (which we solved). The museum features a tour through American crime history beginning in the pirate days, includes mobster times, and continues through modern day crime and crime scene investigation.  They had a huge collection of crime related artifacts (think OJ Simpson’s white bronco and Ted Bundy’s VW Beetle) and lots of other fun, interactive activities.  I learned there that I am a very accurate aim with a machine gun.

After all the activity of the Island, you can always find a rocking chair to sit in to watch the Dancing Fountains, or you can find a chair, poolside and have a frozen concoction.  Regardless of your age or idea of fun, there’s a little something of everything for everyone at Margaritaville Island!