Day 11- Travel to St. Kitts...REALLY??

Kevin and I had planned on redeeming some of the thousands of Marriott points he had accumulated over the years while traveling for the White House by taking a luxurious vacation somewhere tropical and beachy.  After months of discussion and research, we decided to go to St. Kitts.  For those of you not familiar, it is a small island located in the Carribean - somewhere in between Puerto Rico and Barbados (see map above) - where the rest of the sainted islands are found.   We chose it because the Marriott had a great all-inclusive package that we could take advantage of, and because Kevin has not spent much time in the Carribean.  We justified the splurge as a post-White House reward to ourselves for all of our hard work and long hours away.  Everyone loves a beach vacay, and we were jumping out of our pasty white skin with excitement.  As a point of history, our travels together are typically plagued with flight cancellations, bag losses, illness and late arrivals.  From our first vacation together to our honeymoon, we are consistent if nothing else. 

On the morning of Tuesday, May 12th we were scheduled to leave New York's La Guardia airport on a 6:30am flight through Miami and then to St. Kitts.  I hate getting up early for flights, but Kevin kept reassuring me that this plan would get us to the hotel by 2pm, leaving plenty of time for us to hit the beach on our first day.  The early flight meant a 4:00am alarm.  As we were getting ready that morning, I noticed Kevin's cell phone ringing and that American Airlines was on the caller ID.  Thinking it was just a confirmation call, I picked it up.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a cancellation call where the automated voice told me that our flights had been cancelled and that we were scheduled on much later flights that would get us into St. Kitts the next morning.  Kevin immediately called a real human being and negotiated to get us on another EARLIER flight out of JFK - which is a little farther than LaGuardia from Peekskill.  This was the only other flight that could get us to St. Kitts that day. A high-speed chase ensued in Kevin's mom's Rav 4 and we arrived at the airport about 15 minutes later than the minimum 45 minute check-in time.  After being told that the check-in for that flight was closed, we put on our best pouty faces and persuaded someone to check us in at the first-class counter.  She obliged, but made no promises about our bags.  We should have known then.  

We made it to Puerto Rico on time with a few hours to spare and took the scariest propeller plane from there to St. Kitts in a tropical rainstorm.   I have flown into a lot of scary airports in my day, but this one was one of the most remote I have ever seen.  Kevin still has marks on his arms from my nails. Going through immigration actually took a long time for a plane with only 20 people on it - I am guessing due to the interrogation that we all had to go through about our health and whether or not we had the swine flu.  

Sure enough, our bags never made it.  Not only that, but there was only one flight into St. Kitts a day, and there was no hope on getting our bags until AT LEAST 5pm the next day.  I had luckily packed a bathing suit in my carry-on, but Kevin had nothing.  We spent the afternoon hitting the overpriced gift shops where Kevin got new trunks, a t-shirt and some flip-flops.   Good times.  

The St. Kitts Marriott Hotel and Casino is nice and the staff is very helpful.  They upgraded us to an Executive Suite that is bigger than our house in Alexandria and have stayed on top of the baggage situation for us with the airlines.  We are going to repay them by losing our money at the casino and frequenting the gift shops for sundries.