Uneventful flight form ROC to Charlotte and then Provo. Once in Provo the immigration line was out the door (150 on our flight) on the tarmac until the immigration Agents forced us all inside. It was sweltering and we were last in line since we were seated almost in the last row of the aircraft. Finally got thru in 30 minutes or so, picked up out luggage to go thru customs and just walked thru, no questions or anything. Once outside the traffic director pointed us to the Club Med guy and we were in the 3rd van. 15-20 minutes later we were at Club Med, greeting cocktail and orientation while on our way to room. Grabbed a Turks Head lager on way to room and were greeted with the AC on, what a relief! Quik change in swimsuit and out to beach around 4:00 for 1st swim and sunset. Apparently I came out of the gates too fast upon arrival , that 14 year old single barrel bourbon hit me hard, so I had to return to the room for a breather prior to dinner. I rebounded quickly then off to the theme of seafood dinner. I generally do not like to eat anything that used to swim so I stuck to bread and fruit. Finally off to bed.

Had a bit of a rough night, possible due to fore mentioned bourbon, but woke up to sunny and HOT skies. Grace Bay was spectacular, same as it was 8 ½ years ago when we first visited Club Med here. The whole complex did not change at all. The rooms must have been “upgraded” sometime in the past 3-4 years but the rest of the complex was the same if not a bit tired looking. Friends went on the twice daily Club Med free snorkel adventure (they went on first at 10:00) saw a reef shark and other stuff then met us on the beach around 11:30. We walked towards the North (right as you face the water) and discovered that the beach went on and on as opposed to eight years ago when the furthest you could go was to the first point. Saw a bone fish in the shallow water as well as numerous Trumpet fish feasting on the small minnows. Back for lunch and more beach. Had our Hobie Wave lesson at 3:30 and once that was out of the way we were able to sail everyday. Sunset then dinner. We are not night people, we were there for the sun and beach.

Every day was pretty much the same, temp in the 90’s, sunny and hot, hot. Sailed, walked the beach ate, ate, ate, bed and woke up to do it all over again. On the last day we did a ½ day Cay/snorkel/beach tour with Blue Water Divers. We booked this on Friday 10/30 with 11/1 being daylite savings time. Apparenlty we misread the Club Med information which stated that there is now Club Med time and Island time. Club Med did not change their clocks back since it is a beach/water/sports Club and they wanted to maximize the daylite on the back end instead of the front end. This created a bit of confusion since the on site Blue Divers person did not inform us of this thus we showed up for our excursion and hour ahead of time. Since this was an outside activity (even though booked on site) they were on Island time and not Club Med time. This created some confusion later on but we worked around it. The Cay/snorkel/beach tour was nice, it was a bit windy/wavy which prohibited us from anchoring by the “shipwreck” but we survived and also did the Iguana preserve tour. Once back to Club Med we hit lunch and saw all the sad sacks waiting for their ride to the airport to leave, of course that would be us tomorrow.
The final day check out was 11:00, Club Med time, and our flight was 3:35 Island time. Club Med offered a late check out for $50 more or, even better, for free you could reserve a “shower” for ½ hour. This was perfect, we reserved the 1:30 to 2:00, Club Med time, slot. Checked out at 11:00 and took the “walk of shame” with our luggage to the front, then hung out on the beach until lunch at 12:30. Picked up our key to the shower and discovered it was an actual room, We showered and hit the airport all sweet and clean. I would think that instead of offering a shower room that they would just let you check out later since now they have to clean two rooms instead of one, makes sense to me.

Trip home was uneventful, USAir actually let early, like 30 min, and we got to Charlotte around 45 early, go figure! We met a lot of nice people, some from the west coast. This is arguably the nicest beach in the “Caribbean” although technically it is not in the caribbean. Nothing had changed from 8 ½ years earlier other than the showers were better, of course it took me until day 6 to figure out the handle was reversed on the shower which is why I did not get any hot water. The water out of the tap should not be drunk, we figured this out based on the smell of it and also Club Med indicated that you should save the bottle of water from your fridge to re-fill at various locations through out the complex.

They had a problem with their internet service on Monday night due to a power failure earlier in the day so we could not print out our boarding passes, went back the next AM and they said it was up but went down again at 3:00AM (No doubt Club Med time) and was still out. Being the person who I am I went up anyway and it was actually working. Tried to print our boarding passes but the networked printer was not working. The “internet people” came up and “had to get a longer wire” in order to by pass the network and direct connect to one of the 3 machines. Just so happened that after 45 min I figured that Club Med time and Island time confused the two “internet people” and I would have to take things in my own hands. I asked the guy closet to the printer if he could log off and go on the other machine since the cable would reach the one he was one. Strange to me that someone in paradise would spend an hour on Facebook telling his 637 “friends” what a great time he was having instead of meeting a couple of new real friends and actually having a great time, he finally logged off but not without visiting his Yahoo mail and responding to something, probably spam. At any rate I got the printer plugged in and low and behold, tickets printed, cost me an hour of precious beach time though.
As you can see from our webshots sight, we have been to a lot of places and the advantage of Club Med was it was 18 and older, we did not have to spend 4-5 hours a day finding/driving to and experiencing Island Time for our meals to arrive. Good food, great selection and ample quantity.
Provo/Club Med pictures are up at webshots