Negril, Jamaica

I am so proud of my mommy. She has been in school for a LONG time and she took a test last week that is essentially the culmination of all her blood, sweat and tears for the past several years. In order to celebrate my daddy and I whisked her off to Jamaica immediately after the test. We stayed at Beaches, an all inclusive resort in Negril. My Aunt and Uncle went to the Beaches in Turks and Caicos and they say its wonderful so thats next on our to do list because we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Beaches in Negril.

The resort arranges transfers to and from the airport in Montego Bay which is about an hour and a half journey from Negril. While at the airport there is a courtesy lounge with refreshments that we munched on while waiting for our shuttle. Once we arrived at the resort we were greeted by cool towels and cold drinks then ushered to our rooms.

My daddy is a workaholic and actually worked from the hotel room during the mornings, made possible by the "free" wifi. While daddy was working, my mommy was relaxing pool side leisurely reading her kindle and I was having a blast in the kids camp under the watchful eye of the resort nannies. The kids camp at Beaches is unique in that they have classes for kids 0-17 years old. Many other resorts my parents looked at only had kids camp for children 4 and older. Since I'm 3 this ruled out those resorts. I'm glad they chose Beaches though because I made so many friends in the kids camp and there were so many fun activities. All the sesame street characters live at the resort so we had many activities planned with them.  Elmo-cise was an intense but fun work out, a tea party with Abby caddaby, drum lessons with Bert and Ernie, Cookie and Cake birthday party with Cookie Monster and the list goes on. The kids camp is open from 9am-9pm and I would have stayed the whole time, but mommy and daddy wanted to spend some time with me too.

Getting our nails done at Kids Camp. The girl in the gray shirt was my bestie for the week!

My mommy pried me out of kids camp one afternoon to go take a walk on the beach and while we were walking we saw Elmo and Zoe. They were jumping on the beach so we decided to join them! The resort photographers did an excellent job capturing the moment. Beaches has a photo shop where you can view your photos and purchase them ala carte.You can also sign up for a personal resort/beach photo session if you desire. It seems like a lot of families did this. My mom wasn't too happy that the photos are $16 PER PICTURE. Yikes. That's a lot of money, but my mommy is a sucker for photos and despite her annoyance with the price she still bought several photos. C'est la vie.

I jumped higher than my mommy. This photo is very deceiving!

In the afternoons when daddy wasn't working we enjoyed the pools and the beach. One afternoon we floated down the lazy river several times. When I grew tired of that I convinced mommy and daddy to go on the slides with me, then we swam around in the pool and when I got thirsty I swam up to the pool bar and ordered pretty drinks. My favorites were the Fairy Princess and Frozen Bob. They looked just like the pretty drinks my mommy had but were child friendly! Another afternoon we spent time on the beach. There were plenty of beach chairs to relax in unlike at some other resorts where the chairs are all taken by early morning. There is also an option to specially reserve cabanas but we didn't find this necessary as there were plenty of covered spaces that were comfortable. Throughout the beach there were several resort officers stationed to prevent hawkers from disturbing the resort guests by hawking their various wares. This made for a stress free experience because my daddy hates it when people try to sell him things he doesn't want or need.

Mommy and me, pretty in pink!

The large bucket and the top of the photo drops a ton of water on anyone sitting in this jumbo chair. I didn't realize that until shortly after mommy snapped this photo and I was NOT amused. I hate getting water on my face, so goggles are my best friends at the pool or beach.

Floating down the lazy river with my mommy and daddy!

The resort offers several water activities including diving, snorkeling, water skiing, boating etc. Word to the wise you need to sign up for these activities the day before because they fill up fast. My mommy wanted to go snorkeling our last day but the excursion was full and she couldn't go. She was very sad about it but we decided to go for a kayak ride instead. My mommy gets nervous on little boats in open water so watching daddy tease her was funny. I enjoyed being out on the open water and got to take a lot of picture with my waterproof camera mommy bought for me at the resort gift shop. She also bought post cards and stamps at the gift shop and mailed them out from the resort front desk to my grandparents, great grandma and one for myself. My mommy has started an album of postcards from all the places I visit. She told daddy it's more authentic to get a stamp from the country we are visiting and mail it to our home from that country's postal system so that it has a weathered look to it once it arrives. Daddy just laughed. My mommy can be quirky sometimes.

The world is my oyster!

In the evenings we went out to dinner at the different resort restaurants. Two of them were reservation only, Kimono the hibachi restaurant and Venetian the Italian restaurant. My favorite was Kimono, because the chef made our dinner right in front of us. He was funny and made the food do funny things. He turned the vegetables into a choo choo train and steam came out of the 'engine', he made the rice into a heart and tossed a carrot straight into my mouth!

I was captivated by the hibachi chef.

After dinner every night there was lots of entertainment. My favorite was the Sesame Street Carnival Parade. All the characters were there, a marching band, Carnival queens, stilt walkers, clowns and us guests made the tail end of the parade. We started at the front of the resort and ended up on the beach for a beach party! Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, Oscar the grouch, Zoe and Cookie Monster can DANCE. They were impressive doing all the latest dance moves. My mommy thought it was hilarious.

Contortionists.

This guy juggled and did a balancing act that was pretty cool.

I loved the carnival queen's outfit. I didn't want her to put me down. She was so pretty!

Some other evening resort entertainment included: jugglers, contortionists, fire dancers, caribbean bands, live music and game shows. For the late night crew there was an adult only party at the resorts Club Liquid. Mommies and daddies can go to this and if needed there is the option to hire resort nannies to watch the kiddos including putting them to bed for an extra fee. Also for an extra fee Sesame Street characters can tuck kids into bed or have a special breakfast with kids.

Our trip was the second week in October which is the rainiest month in Jamaica. It honestly wasn't bad. The majority of the day was sunshine with no rain. It rained heavily for about an hour every afternoon around 3-4pm. This was nap time for us so it worked perfectly. By the time naptime was over the rain was gone and it was back to fun in the sun. The staff at the resort are very welcoming, kind and fun loving. They all remembered my name and everywhere I went people were saying "Hello, Abigail!" I felt like a princess and can't wait for my next adventure!