CMDTA On Vacation: Secrets Day Three and Four

Sorry but I didn't get a video of the Tepan Edo style dining location.  I didn't even get pictures.  Long story.  Anyways it's a shame I didn't because it blew Tepan Edo out of the water.  It was more exciting and more entertaining. The food was about the same and you still sat with a lot of people you don't know.

We also hit the French restaurant.  The service was very good. Some of the best yet.  The food was good but a couple things were odd.  The onion soup was off.  I don't know what was wrong with it.  I think maybe the cheese wasn't right but I couldn't quite tell.  It was still tasty though.  

For desert we ordered the creme brulee.  It tasted okay but it was warm. That's a little off putting.  You'd expect the custard to be cool like normal creme brulee.

So after days of sitting around and doing next to nothing what do you do?  You go snorkeling! There was a nice spot just off the beach.  normally you don't see much just off of the beach but that's not the case here.  

First of all I'll explain that I do not have a water kit for my DSLR.  I own a little Fuji Film XP camera which is water, drop, dust, and freeze proof.  The photo quality isn't top notch but for what it does I can't complain.

First of all it's school time!  What I am talking about?  Think of Finding Nemo.  Yes we have a sting ray in the house.  Now I don't know if the teacher in Fining Nemo is a sting ray or a manta ray but I know he was a friendly fellow...not to mention big.  This fellow on the right is big.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  I was at least 15 feet above him when I took this.  His wing span is about eight to ten feet. He's huge! If you look closely at his tail you'll notice a brown stripe.  That is his stinger.  It's big, it's barbed and you don't want to get hit with it.  Thankfully sting rays are gentle giants and almost never sting people unless the person is annoying, attacks, steps on, or a similar act.  Sting rays just want nothing to do with people unless you are feeding them.  I do not recommending feeding a wild sting ray.  That has bad news written all over it.  However if you go to Grand Cayman you can feed them at sting ray city.

Next behold the amazing lion fish.  This is one fish you do not want to mess with.  The pack a wallop. those barbs hold a toxin that can rock your world.  If you are allergic to that toxin there is a good chance you will be dead before they can get you to shore.  

Amazingly the lion fish is not native to the Caribbean.  It somehow made there from the Red Sea.  Most likely someone dumped a former pet.

CMDTA on Vacation - Secrets Jamaica Day Two

Day two at Secrets is now over.  It was a decent day.  Mostly the same as day one.  For some people that is the biggest problem with an all inclusive vacation.  It ends up being the same thing day after day.  It's not like Disney where everyday is dramatically different.  It's not even like a cruise which can be very different day to day.  

I mentioned the pools earlier.  Most of them are endless (see the picture above) and most of them are split.  By split I mean half heated and half cooled.  You get to pick what you want.  Some of the pools have swim up bars.  I like the idea of a swim up bar but something bothers me about them.  You see people at the swim up bar all day.  I mean ALL DAY.  They never get out of the pool.  Either their bladder can hold a couple gallons or...

Now the pools have lots of lights in them which is nice.  Even more so at night.  The heated pool is very warm.  If I had to guess I'd say it hovers around 90 degrees.  The cool pool is very cool.  I mean it's colder than the ocean.  I'd place it at 70 degrees.  It's nice to have both because then you can shift gears as the sun goes in and out. When the sun it out you jump in the cool pool to stay cool.  When it's in and the wind is blowing you can jump in the warm one.  The only problem is at night they turn the heat off.  It's mainly to save energy but still it's it's kind of a bummer when you get use to the nice hot water to get into lukewarm water. 

For dinner tonight we hit Portofino which is the Italian dining location.  It was good.  The atmosphere was a little more profound than the Blue Mountain.  They had some nice fake stone work to make it seem more Italian inside.  At least they tried.  Still it was no where near what you find at Disney.  The food was good.  Overall it was very good.  The only problem was the desert.  Their tiramisu was not good. My wife liked it but I honestly thought it was one of the worst tiramisus I have ever had.   It was way too sweet and didn't seem to have any lady fingers.  BLAH.

Tomorrow we are hitting their Tepan Edo style dining location.  I'll grab a video to share with everyone.  Then you can compare it to Tepan Edo in Epcot.

 

CMDTA on Vacation - Secrets St. James - Day One

Who wouldn't want to be here?

I've never been to an all in inclusive resort but my wife (the anti-Disney spouse) wanted to go.  We ended up booking Secrets in Montego Bay Jamaica.  I didn't do much research I mainly just booked it in Montego Bay because there was a non-stop flight from Boston. 

From what I've been told there is a huge range of all inclusive resorts.  You have the real rat trap, bottom shelf resorts that serve the cheapest booze known to man and have downright scary rooms.  On the other end of the spectrum you have the ultra luxury resorts that cost more than a nice car to stay at.  About a third of the way down from the ultra resorts you get Secrets.

To give a quick standards breakdown I'll do my normal comparison.  The tried and true VS Disney test.

Food - about the same as a signature dining location.

Rooms - better than a Disney Suite at one of the deluxe resorts. 

Atmosphere - about the same as a moderate resort.

Service - amazingly better than Disney...by a good portion.

These are just first impressions but I should explain the "Service" item.  The service you get at Secrets is the service that Disney used to offer.  It's the service you expected when you went to Disney back in the mid to late 90s.

The location of Secrets in Montego Bay allows for some nice sunsets.  Montego Bay is on the north west side of the island. While you don't get to see the sun dip below the water you still get a great view.

There are a number of places you can watch the sunset.  The resort stretches in a long line down the beach.  Dotted along this line are pools, bars, and restaurants.  Not dining locations but actual restaurants.  They have a large offering from French to Jamaican.  You can go do a different one everyday if you want.

On day one we went to the Blue Mountain which was the Jamaican restaurant.  It was surprisingly good...for the most part.  The service was top notch.  The first round was excellent.  The main course was mixed.  The problem was I ordered the Jamaican Stew.  It was salty.  I mean saltier than beef jerky.  It was nuts.  It turned out just the beef was salty so if you mixed it with everything else it was bad. 


The atmosphere is broken up.   You have the St. James side which is more colonial and you have the wild orchid side which is more Asian. Don't let this fool you.  Both look almost the same.  There are only slight differences.  Don't expect one side to look like the Poly and the other side to look like the Yacht Club.  They don't go that crazy.  Both sides look like you are in your average upscale Caribbean resort.  The real star is what is around the resort.  Like this shot to the right.  You get a nice tropical, mountainous landscape.

The pools are nice.  Some of them include swim up bars.  Most are endless pools which means the dump into an overflow.  At night they all light up with LED lights that change colors every few seconds.

All around the resort there are a lot of trees and vegetation.  It's not quite what you find at the Poly but it's still very nice.

The bars a nice. The fact that you can get anything you want, including top shelf, for free helps.  Even considering that the service is very good.

As you can expect you can find some people who have no self control.  People who are do pie eyed that they have hardly stand up.  Maybe I'll snap a few of them and upload them to Park Wrecks.

I'm not sure if I'll do a post everyday but I will at least a few more times so keep checking back.

Strawberry Banke's Fallfest

In the northeast there are a lot of fairs and events that take place in the fall.  You have the Rochester Fair which is...well...a white trash festival.   You have the Deerfield fair which is an old school country fair.  You also have a bunch of fairs in Maine where are for the redneck in all of us.

Fallfest is the anti-fair.  It's not really a fair.  It's a combo of the normal Strawberry Banke experience, a chili festival, and farming  / craft demos.

Who wants to shear a sheep?

First up are the demos.  For anyone who didn't grow up on a farm these are enjoyable.  There are a number of different demos.  Fireplace cooking, sheep shearing, and basket making are just a few examples of what you get to see.

Looking to the right; would you want to cook using only what you see?  In the upper left is your oven.  It's just a hole.  You can put an iron pot over the fire  or use the dutch oven in the bottom left.  Now do this with a huge dress on.  Have fun!


Now here is another fun thing I bet you never thought about.  How did they make those baskets back before they had the tools we have today?

1. Fine a nice log.

2. Grab yourself a hammer.

3. Beat the log over and over until the wood starts to fluff off in strips.

I cannot imagine how much effort it takes to make a basket like this.   You can see on the ground that this lady has some strips but not enough to make the basket.  She's also been doing this for about thirty minutes.


Next comes the chili fest. This is the main draw of the festival.  Restaurants from all over the Portsmouth, NH area come out and offer up their best chili.  For a flat price you can eat as much chili as you can hold.  You also get to vote on which one was your favorite.  This is a great deal.  You can eat until you bust and even if you don't like chili you'll find something you'll like. That's because the chili ranges from what you think as chili to more like stewed beef.  There is also vegetarian chili, lamb chili,  and curry chili.

One thing that stands out about this event is the gardens.  In New England you normally think about the changing trees not gardens this time of year.  However the Gardens at Strawberry display a vast number of late season flowers that can be found in New England.

Just one example of the late seasons flowers you'll find at Strawberry Banke.

Overall Fallfest is a great event.  It's not on the level of Vintage and Vine but it is a better event for families.   While it's more expensive than a normal fair it doesn't have the negative elements of a normal fair.  On the downside the normal fair is days long while Fallfest is only one day.  Don't miss it!