[kthy66]

Well its been 4 wonderful days on the island. I will be submitting trip reports as I the weeks go by. Here is my first installment.

Flew out of Boston on US Airways 1685 Nov 22. Great flight and arrived early.
Flying first class I was the first off the plane, thru immigration grabbed my bag and away I go! Yippeeee!!
We opted to bank our time share week at the Occidental and I reserved a 3 bedroom condo at Oceania Residences for 6 of us. It ended up costing us $7200 for one month. (great deal @ $600 per couple/per week!)
The rest of my party arrived the week before and had stocked up the condo. YEH! All I had to do was arrive on the 22nd and get into my bathing suit!
The condo is absolutely beautiful. A true “home away from home”.
The pool is wonderful and private with Eagle Beach right across the street. The weather has been cloudier than usual but Im ok with it since it is still better than any day in Boston!
The first full day I spent the morning at the pool. The cloudiness made me careless and I wasn't disciplined enough with my sunscreen. I burned my shoulders quite bad; I think it was all that time spent in the pool leaning on the edge with just the shoulders exposes. We have had the pool to ourselves the whole time!(I counted only 6 of the residences lit up at night in the whole place)
Went to Salt and Pepper that night. The appetizers of Garlic Calamari and Nachos were quite terrible. I had the Bacon Cheeseburger ( I had been craving a burger in Aruba since last year) and it was pretty good but not as good as I have had at other places on the island. Went to the backside to gaze at the stars for a bit. Luckily it had cleared enough that we had a beautiful sky that night.
Last night my hubby and brother in law went for a night dive with red sail sports. The seas were so bad the dive boat couldn't return to the Hyatt dock and had to dock downtown. The guests were left there and told to wait for the bus. Hubby decided after 10 minutes that was ridiculous and hailed a cab for $9 back to the Oceania. After that we went for a late dinner at Smokin Joes. I had the original recipe with the home fries. The ribs were great! and the home fries were totally not what I expected but they were really good!
Today is very overcast. Hubby is diving again and the rest of the crew went into town. Nice time for me to catch up on some reading and catnapping!
Tonight we have reservations at Texas De Brazil.. One of my favorites.
We have also reserved a ready made Thanksgiving dinner from the Hyatt for Thursday. It costs $144 for the meal with includes all the fixings plus a 10 lb ham and a 10 lb turkey. I'll let ya know if its worth it! I really didnt want traditional and had suggested a nice dinner at Madam Janettes.. I got outvoted! LOL Everyone else wanted traditional. Oh well.
I think thats it for now... We are not drinkers and it probably sounds a bit boring but my vacation is usually low key until I start my diving. (My first week I had planned on being as lazy as humanly possible anyway)
Here is a picture I took looking past the foot of our bed yesterday.