Dust off Those Passports: First (almost) Post-COVID Trip

When we returned home from our winter getaway in early March of 2020, we could see the handwriting on the wall. With our medical backgrounds (Art’s forty-five years as a family physician helped), it was clear that the impending pandemic would put a damper on international travel for some time to come. We immediately cancelled our planned and booked Northern European adventure and settled in to ride out the travel restrictions. It never occurred to us at the time that it would be a full two years before we left the country again! But it finally happened.

In mid-2021, in a burst of optimism, we booked a two-week Caribbean cruise on Seabourn’s Odyssey, including three days before it in Barbados and three days after the cruise in St. Martin, then a few days in Florida to round it out. We had our flight to Barbados scheduled for early February 2022 booked and paid for. By October, when the final payment for the (expensive) cruise was due, we looked at the international situation and considered our options. Then reality struck―and it had nothing to do with COVID.

Facebook might have its shortcomings, but occasionally, you can stumble on a valuable piece of information. Patty trolls the cruise groups from time to time and happened to join a Seabourn group. One of the members posted about cancelling their cruise because they wouldn’t be permitted off the ship in many ports or only in a Seabourn shore excursion group. Well, that wasn’t going to happen for us. The thought of being stuck on a small ship―or even a larger ship―for two weeks (regardless of the high-quality service) or worse, stuck with disembarking only with other people was a non-starter for us. For us, a Caribbean cruise means taking a luxurious ship as transportation between islands where we like to meander off the ship in our own time and explore―alone. With the spectre of a group thing for weeks on end (never mind that COVID was still raging), we called our travel agent and cancelled. But we asked her not to do anything with the flights as yet. There were many moving pieces, but there was still hope.

First, we extended our three-day stay in Barbados to a week and booked a fully refundable ticket to St. Lucia (refundable because we had an idea for a personal charter―we’ll get to that in a later post). And why St. Lucia, you might ask? As it happens, we had spent our honeymoon thirty-five years ago in St. Lucia and hadn’t been back except for a few day trips off a ship. There is also a resort we wanted to discover, so we booked a week at the BodyHoliday, changed our original flight from St. Martin to Miami to St. Lucia-Miami, and extended our stay in Florida so we could leave our return flight as is. So, how did it go?

Marvellously! Notwithstanding the COVID hoops we had to jump through every time we changed locales, things could not have gone better.

That first moment when we walked off the Air Canada flight in Bridgetown, Barbados, into the sultry heat of the Caribbean sun, we knew we had made the right decision not to put off our travels any longer. We had learned another tidbit of information from a FB site: Enterprising Barbados businesses were offering a “fast-track” service through Grantley-Adams airport. So, we booked the Five Star Fast Track service, paid in advance and were met before even entering the immigration hall by a lovely and personable, bright-pink-and black-clad woman who led us directly to another door where our QR codes indicating we had uploaded all our health documents (vaccination and PCR test results) to the Barbados government app were scanned. We then proceeded to the immigration desk, where there was no line and then through to pick up our bags. Our escort accompanied us the entire way to the waiting sedan we had also booked through fast-track services.

A half-hour ride up the coast to St. James Parish took us to The House, where we planned to stay for a week. It had been nine years since we last stayed at The House for a few days before a cruise.

We chose this property first and foremost because it is adults-only. It also has only thirty-four all-suite accommodation. The icing on the cake was that it is now owned by Marriott, where we enjoy Lifetime Platinum status, and this stay would award us points (although to date, we have not received them. Yet another story.)

The House has an interesting concept. There is no reception lobby, no concierge desk. There is a massive “living room” open to the air at both the front and the back, which also houses the dining area.

We are greeted by an “ambassador” who plies us with rum punch (or anything else we want) and tells us what we can expect.

We take our key cards to our oceanfront suite on the main floor with its lanai just off the hot tub and find our luggage already there. You might wonder―as did we―whether it was a good idea to be on the main floor so close to “the action.” We had little to fear. Given the age and decorum of the guests (primarily British, thank heavens), there was no “action” to be found, only a Zen-like atmosphere and loads of relaxation.

Unlike on our last visit when we sampled the many options for fine dining on this part of the Barbadian coast, The House had become one of Marriott’s very first all-inclusive resorts. It seems that when they acquired Elegant Hotels a few years back, with its several Barbados properties, they added this amenity. Was it worth it? Well, it’s not a place for foodies, but we found the dining options very enjoyable.

Not much else has changed in the nine years since we first stayed there. The suites are still exactly the same as were the bathrooms, which need a serious upgrade. There is much to love about The House, and we will go back―after they do a renovation! We’ll tell you more when we compare the two resorts we visited on this trip in a near-future post.