Jamaica - Part 1 - Getting there!

Let me start off my saying, my condolences to all you folks stuck at home in the horrendous snow we have been getting there.  Talk about a great week to be away... :) ... To be honest I was not sure we would be getting here.  When I first heard that snow was coming, I was quite nervous as with airports/airlines these days it seems like the slightest snow or rain (amongst other things) cause all sorts of problems felt all around the world. I was continually checking the flight status, but it formally stayed as on time.

I got up suffice to say at 4:30am. Not because I had to but because I could not sleep anymore.  I had over a foot of snow that I needed to clear away before we could even attempt to leave the house.  Clearing it took the better part of an hour, and it had not actually stopped showing. I was hopeful that the plow would come by before we left, as our awesome neighbours had agreed to keep an eye on the drive while we were gone. Sadly it didn't, which means we totally owe them BIGTIME, and that trying to get to the actual airport started off worse than it finished.  The 20min drive took about an hour, and featured pretty much all bad things, blowing snow, falling snow, covered roads, old people, etc.  

I had actually never flown from Hamilton before, but because there was two whole flights leaving that day I started to understand how it could be still on time.  To their credit, we were ready to go by our boarding time and were delayed only by about 15 minutes as the wind had picked up.  I was not happy that we had to cross the Tarmac to actually get to the plane though...longest walk ever. 

After that the flight was quite uneventful....I think my favourite part was when we were getting de-iced and people were complaining something fierce about the fact that they could not see out of the windows.  It never ceases to amaze me what pisses people off...specially something that is all but gone by the time you are in the air.  Food on the plane was also horrible...as is the case with most flights, unless you are in business class.

Once we landed, we were anticipating that we would be a crazy amount of time waiting for customs.  We had heard horror stories about 1.5 hr lineups etc.  So much so that there was an option to pay 80USD per person for expedited service.  We decided against it, as that's a lot of money.  We were not really in any sort of rush at all anyways...plus we had to wait for everyone else coming to our friends wedding anyways.  Turns out there was absolutely no line up because it was a Monday and we were through customs and picking up baggage in less than 10 mins.  All in all we were at the airport for about 30 mins.  Pretty good.

Our hotel was the Holiday Inn SunSpree, which is about a 10 minute drive, if that, from the Airport. Definitely would not have been my first choice, but it truly is the people that make up a vacation anyways. More to come when I have some more time to write! I leave you with the following pic:

/Jonathan