Vacation Follies Part 1 (The Dog Kennel: Pre-Departure)

So our adventure started around 7am on Christmas Day (after me leaving packing until the very last second on Christmas Eve. Which was on the heels of me leaving wrapping ALL of the presents to the last minute before my family Christmas. See a trend? No, me neither).

We sleepily (and for me, coupled with anxiety, begrudgingly) turned off the snooze buttons and alarm clocks and hauled our tired asses out of bed. BF and I hurriedly exchanged gifts knowing that we were under the gun for time, and had yet to take Schultzy to his luxurious little doggy kennel ( --insert heavy/guilty feelings of dread for said activity here-- ).

I am NOT a bad parent pet-owner, I am NOT a bad parent pet-owner...

It went so quickly that it seems a blur (maybe that was all those gross goobery eye crusties I hadn't yet had the time to wipe away... one never really knows these things). I do remember, though, that BF got me a fancy-schmancy red rice cooker (very wild for him, if you ask me, the kitchen has black and silver appliances** - thanks babe!!). And to top it off, he surprised me with this wicked-ass red coat I had drooled over when I was at Winners (during the sad shopping trip mentioned here.) He had talked me out of buying it over the phone, at my request. He actually bought at least 5 or 6 coats to try to find one that would work.

I cried at the thoughtful surprise (the first tears to come of the day).

We loaded up Schultz (and his bed, and his comforter, and his leash, and his muzzle, and his two favourite stuffed animals, and...) to head to the boarding kennel, The Escarpment Pet Retreat, where I had previously talked to the male owner repeatedly to make sure we were good to go, confirm the time we would bring our baby dog, and make sure we could see where he would be staying and the set up of the kennel.

When we got there, the female owner was rude and defensive within the first minute. She refused to let us see where Schultz would be staying. She swore once or twice. I got VERY upset, as I discussed (through tears) that the male owner had said, and I quote "any reputable kennel will allow you to see the premises and have a tour unless they have something to hide."

Hmph. The male owner was not there.

The female owner then refused us entry to the kennel area, insisting we would upset the other dogs, then she told us that we "clearly don't give a shit about animals" if we wanted to go into the kennel area. All the while staff members walked back and forth, in and out, with minimal upset to the dogs. (For those of you living under a rock, I love animals, I adopt animals, I don't eat animals, I am a goddamn bleeding heart for animals, just FYI. I am no saint, but I certainly give a shit!)

I looked at BF and begged/pleaded/asked the impossible question of taking the dog somewhere - anywhere - else, but we both knew we were screwed.

It was 9:30am on Christmas Day, we have a huge sometimes-aggressive Great Dane, and we needed someone to take care of him while we were gone on our trip (which we were scheduled to depart for in 30 minutes). The female owner made it clear that she would be quite fine if we were to leave and go somewhere else. She encouraged it.

The rage bubbled inside.

Our lovely boy, Schultzy Poo

So, through heavy sobbing I had to leave before I said something warranting the female owner to kick us out altogether. I had to bite my tongue. I felt horrible. But we had no friends willing to watch him for that long, and my parents were coming with us. So we were screwed.

I went back in to say goodbye and we had to leave. I cried the whole way home.
I cried at home, gathering and packing my last few trip items.
I cried on the way to the airport.
I cried silently on the first leg of the flight.

I felt like the worst pet owner ever.

YAAAAY! Great start to the vacay!

** - I just found out on Wednesday that this rice cooker was purchased with the intention of only EVER being on the counter when in use, then being hidden away otherwise (since it is red). BF loses "crazy & wild" points on that one.


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Exposed Genitals, Scarred Teens. Also? I Am Getting Old.

So first off, let me explain that the scarred-for-life teens in this post are not related to me (thank gawd for them!).

Let me also explain that this post is a separate entity from my promised vacation posts which I will get back to, if I can remember them.

It all began on December afternoon when I thought up a different type of Christmas present for my niece and nephew, who are both younger than 12 (that's all you get in terms of description or my sister may murder me for exploiting her children on the interwebs). And no, the initial idea had nothing to do with exposed genitals.

OH! And I almost forgot. No children's bizznazz was exposed. You guys know - it was aaaaaaaall me.

So, as a way to spend some quality time with the kids, niece and nephew, I figured I would take them for an overnight stay in Niagara Falls and get a two-day pass to a waterpark there. At Christmas they were like "oh... great." (but I will stick with the concept that the print-out I gave them wasn't enough to relay the FUN we were going to have, and the fact that I also got them out of a day of school!).

The morning we left, I wanted to ensure they had breakfast.

ME:            [redacted name of niece] did you and your brother have a decent breakfast this morning?

NIECE:      Yeah, we did.

ME:            What did you have?

NIECE:      I had chocolate milk and [redacted name of nephew] had a bun (read: small dinner roll).

ME:            Dude, that is not a decent breakfast. Please have some toast or something.

NIECE:      Nooooo, I'm not hungry and neither is [redacted name of nephew]!

Let me first explain that:

• Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and is totally a huge preventer of pre-lunch child crankiness.
• Changing, packing clothes, hauling ass to a pool of any kind, continuing to play and having fun is much easier if entire party does not have to haul ass back to hotel to change and get in car to go somewhere to eat.
• These kids navigate towards snack booths and vending machines like magnets to a fridge. (Like their Aunt Steph) they would prefer sugar and/or salty snacks with soda pop over anything nutritious if the opportunity presents itself. I believe they will hold out for it. Grandparenting has encouraged this behaviour. Love = snack booth shopping spree with one grandparent.
• Niagara Falls is a ginormous, insanely-scaled tourist trap, anywhere within a few kilometers of the falls. For example, fries at the waterpark were $10. Fries. $10. *choking on my own cheapness frugal instincts*.

Anyway... after peanut butter toast was force-fed and nephew ate a plain dry piece of white bread at his own insistence (how my sister does this at 3 meal times per day baffles my mind), we were off.

We headed out for the busiest two days of my life ever. I think I did less on safari in Tanzania and Kenya in two days, less than packing last minute before I moved. These KIDS.CAN.GO.FOREVER. My nephew gains speed/volume/unruliness/strength/determination and energy the more tired he gets. It baffles the mind. If he could find a way to bottle and market that shizz, he'd put Red Bull out of business in an instant.

So we went. And we played. And we had a blast. And Aunt Steph hauled double inner-tubes up flights and flights of stairs. We went down multiple slides, we went in the wave pool, the kids sat under the massive tipping bucket.

My delicate ladyparts were ravaged by the level of chlorine and chemicals in those bodies of water. Ravaged.

But... the traumatizing of the teens was on day one. You see, I washed my bathing suits after our most recent vacation. Apparently, the elastic in my black bikini bottoms decided that only half would be functioning and present for the next wearing of said bottoms. I did not know this until I was changed and in the waterpark. And there was no way we were turning back (see first bullet point).

So I approached the inner tube, to ride down with nephew. What's that you say, teen waterpark tube run employee? I need to straddle the tube and put my legs on either side of nephew's body? Oh, okay, but my butt goes into the back space, and he sits in the front? Okay. SO... just drop and straddle?

1. DROPPING COMMENCES.
2. BATHING SUIT BOTTOMS DIVERGE.
3. ELASTIC FAILS.
4. BIKINI BOTTOMS ATTEMPT TO HIDE IN ANY AND ALL OF MY LOWER REGION CREVASSES.
5. GENITALS ARE ACCIDENTALLY AND HELPLESSLY EXPOSED. 
6. HUMILIATION COMMENCES.
7. SLIDE BEGINS. I TUG AT BOTTOMS FEVERISHLY.
8. STOP RIDE.
9. ATTEMPT TO ADJUST BOTTOMS ONCE MORE BEFORE STANDING AT BOTTOM OF SLIDE. ASSURE CHILD I AM GETTING UP AND DOING SO AS FAST AS POSSIBLE while extracting my double wedgie. Yes, double.
10. REPEAT STEPS 1 THROUGH 9.

Now, I did all I could after this to hang on to my bottoms when I "straddled and dropped", but it was pretty impossible. Blissfully unaware, niece and nephew never saw or came within a foot of this exposure due to the double seat of the inner tube. How terribly embarrassing. Just those poor waterpark employees who happened to catch a glimpse before we went down the tubes.

All while straddling the width of this thing. Loveable niece and nephew blocked out for privacy's sake. Who the hell would want to be associated with a post like this, anyway???

BF joined us on day two, and the kids loved it. Also making an appearance was a bathing suit bottom for me that stayed in place. Thankfully I packed another suit.

Also? I am old because, at 30, before we left the Falls, after non-stop going from 9am until 11pm on day one, having a horrendous sleep at the Skyline Inn, and going from about 9am until about 7:30pm on day 2, I was in tears on a bench in the "Adventure City" arcade, because I was so tired, had a raging headache, and was so physically fatigued. My body hurt EVERYWHERE. It still does today. I don't know how many times I climbed those stairs, but let me say it was more than my body can handle.

I am bruised and battered. Physically SPENT, even after another night of sleep. I feel so sick and rotten, but I am glad I got to spend the time with the kids.
Wanted to go tobogganing today but knew I wouldn't last more than one run.
So glad to have spent the time with the kids, but so sore. And so pH-unbalanced. You know what I mean.

Did I mention we didn't even get a chance to see the Falls?

I am getting old, and I am clearly painfully out of shape. I am surprised I lasted as long as I did.

But now, I really see why they need all that chlorine in the water.
For accidental pervs like me.

Oh, and all the kid pee.
That too.

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The Background - Vacation Planning & Booking - Part 1

So... turns out our usual plans of spending Christmas with BF's family and my family got switched around, and we headed out to see his brood the weekend before Christmas (hence, my joy of air travel musings).

This meant that it might be possible for the majority of our families to potentially vacation away together for Christmas, which seemed like an awesome idea to me. Not so awesome for my sister and fam, who declined, mostly due to a 3-day hockey tournament in town. I can't deny I was disappointed, but not surprised. (And in hindsight, they won the tournament! Yay kids!).

That left me and BF, his parents, and my parents. I made a spreadsheet up with what was desirable for everyone. I spent hours and hours and hours and hours (and... get the picture? Obsessively researched this mofo) looking for suitable locales.

1. It had to have a nice beach (first and foremost, or else why bother going away?!?!)
2. It had to be a reasonable flight for all parties involved (yeah - our party chose poorly, I'll get to that later).
3. It had to be NICE accommodations, because some of our parents wouldn't be happy with the giant-spider-filled places in Cuba and the like that I have become accustomed to. Fair enough. (Plus, in the end, Christmas travel prices were so inflated EVERYWHERE, that the difference between 3 and 5 star was not that severe.)
4. I wanted mainly non-smoking.
5. A bunch of other things that you don't really care about so I will stop writing. (Or maybe that was it. Who knows for sure? I deleted the spreadsheet by accident.)

So, armed with all this info, and nothing particularly fitting the bill, I scoured Jamaica for a good price, because BF and I went there before I got sick, and we absolutely loved the place. Neither of our folks had been there, so it would be a new experience for them. We reviewed weather stats and saw averages around 26 to 28 degrees C. And, there were lots of nice (READ: Expensive) resorts that we could try to find a decent price on.

I reviewed all the sites, www.itravel2000.com, www.redtagvacations.com, www.belairtravel.com, www.westjetvacations.com, and, surprisingly, ended up on the Air Canada Vacations website.

BF picked the place. It was a 5 star in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Website made it look all purdy and white sand and crystal waters and *drooooool*. We asked everyone what they thought. It seemed to be a winner (If I do recall, despite the barrage of links, reviews and photos of the place I sent to my parents, their response was "just book whatever everyone wants" or something like that).

Now, in terms of Canadian airlines, I believe that Air Canada has a general reputation of being less-than-helpful in most instances. Westjet has a better general public perception in my books. But you know what? The package was cheaper on Air Canada Vacations (which floored me). And we all know, if it comes down to quality/service over price with me.... well....

So I called them to make sure there was availability for all 6 of us, before we made the dire mistake of booking one and finding out there wasn't anything left. (The original place I wanted to go sold out before we could book).

[< BLOGGER "STRESS" FONT >]**
ME: *dialing Air Canada Vacations toll free number*
ME: *waiting*
ME: *waiting for 10 minutes on hold with their annoying ads on loop*
ME: *waiting another 20 minutes and getting antsy*
BF: *calling father on cell phone to see if he was able to book/did book/ensure availability*
ME: *waiting another 30 minutes then starting to book two packages online - one in Firefox, one in explorer to ensure availability*
ME: *still waiting after 72 minutes! Finally clicked submit payment in both windows. About to hang up.*

AIR CANADA VACATIONS CALL CENTRE REP:  "Hello, bonjour, how can I assist you today?"

ME: "Uh... I was hoping to find out if there is availability at a resort, but I was able to book online."

So yeah, I can recite Air Canada Vacations advertisements on loop now. It's a great party trick. Not really.

We had to still make sure that BF's parents could fly in from their location, and back to another location. Air Canada Vacations won't allow that, so in the end, they booked their flight separately through Westjet, and the hotel direct.

[< BLOGGER "SARCASM" FONT >]
Oh... did I mention? We saved just over $500 per person if we took a flight that wasn't direct. Now, I know I may not be a great flier. I may HATE flying. And making a vacation start and end with two flights might not be the best idea for a cranky whiny bitchy girl like me.
[< /BLOGGER "SARCASM" FONT >]

But we were paying waaaaaay  more than BF wanted to spend, certainly more than I could reasonably afford, but people - WE WERE HAVING A FAMILY VACATION!! The last one of those I had was in 1992, if I do recall.

So our party of 4 agreed the savings was the way to go. Toronto - Ottawa - Montego Bay. Coming home just reverse that. Oh.... and add a 6 hour layover overnight in the Ottawa airport.With a closed lounge. What? Did I say something there? Nope, nothing.. move along now...

NEXT UP: What you see is NOT what you get... in Part 2... stay tuned (assuming you hung in this long).


** Notice the stress font has not yet ended.
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