Password

We met just before six and after a couple of photos, we were escorted over to the dinner. It was quite a nice 'do'. After cocktails and canapes we went in to the dining room and were greeted formally by the General Manager. He introduced all of his senior staff and talked about Sandals and, in particular, the Sandals Foundation which supports the community, the kids, and the environment. They showed a little video of some of the projects to which they contributed. It was really quite impressive.

The dinner itself was delicious and gave us a chance to chat with other guests and one of the managers. It was clear that Royal Plantation guests are very loyal and rarely visit any of the other resorts once they have been to SRP. We even managed to get an appraisal of one of the other resorts that we had been wondering about.

The dinner broke up by half eight and we decided to go across to the Sandals Ochi  Hillside resort. They have a Speakeasy called The Rabbit Hole which is highly recommended. We approached the bid circular door and the doorman demanded a password before he would grant us entry. Fortunately we were well briefed and whispered the magic word. Inside it was a bit smaller that we had expected and was already filling up. We managed to find a vantage point up on the balcony and settled down with some drinks while awaiting 'Big Mama' to start her set.

Soon after ten Big Mama sashayed onto the floor and started to sing. A several things came to mind: a) the sound balance was poor for the recorded backing tracks; b) she was a lot younger than the Gorse Fox had expected; c) if there was a flood, she would surely float - indeed we could all use her as a floatation device.

Her set lasted for about an hour. The Gorse Fox had been expecting some blues, but what we got was 1960s classics. He has no problem with this, but it seemed a bit incongruous in the setting.

When she finished her set, soon after eleven, we headed for the door and took a stroll around the gardens and pools before heading for the 'Hop'. This shuttle is designed to carry Ochi guests around the huge resort, but after eleven you can request that it diverts to SRP, and so we were home and in bed before midnight. Dirty stop outs.

The Gorse Fox allowed himself to sleep in this morning. There has been no trip to gym as yet. We'll see how the morning progresses. He knows that Mulder wants a further sailing lesson at some point.