Another resort day

Hello everyone,

We enjoyed another day at the resort today, not doing much at all. It's crazy how fast the day can fly by when all you are doing is sitting by a pool, swimming and reading (...and caring for a baby!).

We all swam in the pool for a fair while, and Eliza has been an absolute champ with it on this holiday. When we did some baby swimming lessons in January, February and March, she would get tired after 20-30 minutes and be so tired and hungry we would hardly make it out of the carpark. Whilst here, she's been in the pool 1-2 hours at a time on the days we've hung out at the resort. She absolutely loves it, and then sleeps really well when she eventually tires. I wish the same could be said overnight, but the poor thing still has a bit of a lingering cough that's quite bad at night at the moment and wakes her up. I ended up sleeping on the second bed in our room with her last night from 4am as she just couldn't get comfortable in her portacot. She ended up rolling onto her tummy to sleep, leaving me with about 20-30 cm of bed space to sleep in. Somehow I still got a bit of sleep!!

After breakfast today, we swam, lazed by the pool, kayaked a bit more, Mum and I read our books and we just generally rested. The resort has such a lovely outlook at the pool and beach, but we are getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of service here. We aren't people that complain about trivial stuff in hotel reviews like you often see others doing, but for how much they usually charge here, the service is terrible. Our whole package including flights, transfers, accommodation, breakfast, a few dinners, massages and $800 total resort credit was $2400 each which was fantastic value, but the regular price only including breakfast for the resort is $450 AUD a night. If we had paid that, I would be very disappointed. Every time you order a drink or anything to eat, a high chair, anything, you have to chase it up at least once. It really makes it hard to relax when you are having to mentally keep track of what you've ordered and put on your room tab that hasn't arrived. To a degree you can use "island time" as an excuse, but when it's literally every time you order something it's a bit ridiculous. I've found it particularly tricky because I am breastfeeding, so if an alcoholic drink takes too long to arrive for me, I can't drink it because I will need to feed Eliza again soon, and I need to leave it two hours after I've had a drink. We are making the best of it and still having a great time, but I am very glad we are not paying $450 per night.

After Eliza's long afternoon nap (two hours!) Rob and I took her for a walk around the island. We were lucky that the weather was dry and calm again today, which meant it was very enjoyable being outside. She loved the swing again that Mum and Dad took her on yesterday.

Tonight we had dinner in the main restaurant, and it was managers' night so they had free drinks on as well as meet and greets with the various managers of different departments. The main manager is Australian and was really lovely. Interestingly our food and drinks came really quickly tonight while the managers were there for the first time!

We have an included day trip as part of our package tomorrow. I'm telling myself there'll be no car seat included ahead of time despite us requesting one, so I am not disappointed. Lucky my arms have gotten strong from breastfeeding....!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox