John won President's Club for his company last year which meant a completely FREE trip to Aruba this past week. I am SO proud of him that he won and SO excited for a trip away with him. We left early last Wednesday morning(like so early it was still dark out!). They had a car come pick us up to take us to the airport. Fancy!
I've never flown first class until now and I think I'm ruined for future coach plane rides:)
Happy faces in first class!
We saw a friend who was on our flight to Atlanta and planned to grab some food between flights. It was great to catch up with him but we almost missed our flight to Aruba! We were those people running through the airport!! When we got to the gate, we could hear them paging us. The door was actually closed when we got to the gate and they did not look happy with us. We made it on the plane at 10:03 and it took off at 10:15. Talk about being flustered!!!!!
Our flight and trip to our hotel was uneventful. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton which is brand new - it just opened in November 2013 - and it was amazing!! We got there and were ushered to the hospitality suite where we got flip flops and keys to our room. In the hospitality suite was every kind of snack and drink you could want and it was open all day. There was no shortage of food on this trip.
View from our room.
As soon as we got to our room, we put on our swimsuits and headed to the beach. We are beach people and this was what I couldn't wait to do - sit on the beach and do nothing! The staff at the hotel was ridiculous! You just raised your flag when you needed something and they came riding up on a Segway to help you. Craziness!
On the first night, there was a welcome dinner on the beach. I didn't get a picture of the set up, but it was amazing! They had tables on the beach and food set up at different stations. It was really good and so nice to eat with your feet in the sand on the beach:)
Before the sun set at dinner time.
His company had gifts in our room every night when we got back. Wednesday night's gift was this. A nice beach bag, two Ritz Carlton beach blankets, a Polaroid camera, sunscreen and t shirts.
The next morning, John had a meeting and I slept until 10:30! I was going to get room service for breakfast but I was ready to get to the beach. I found our chairs and planted myself until John got done at 1:00. We ordered lunch when he got down to the beach and ate out there.
My lunch every day while we were there. I'm a creature of habit and it was so good!
We stayed at the beach as long as possible before we had to get ready for dinner. We went to the Flying Fishbone with another couple from the trip. It was a long, crazy cab ride away. We sat in the sand here, too. And there were even tables in the water. The food was great and we had fun at dinner.
We hung out in the lobby/bar area (one big open area) when we got back and saw another couple from the trip. They had already been to their room and had the gift for the night. Turns out it was this. A Tiffany's pouch for me and $200 in casino chips for John.
John got up the next morning to reserve chairs and then we went back to sleep until 10:00. We had breakfast on the patio of one of the restaurants at the hotel. It was so yummy and this was our view.
We ate a late lunch again on the beach and stayed out until we had to get ready for dinner.
Dinner this night was at the Screaming Eagle. It was the only other work dinner that we had to go to. It was good, but long with so many people there. Plus I wasn't feeling great that night - too much sun, I think.
We came back and went straight to bed. We actually missed our present drop off because our do not disturb sign was on the door. We got it the next morning and it was my favorite gift (they were all great, but this was perfect for me). An Athleta work out jacket, a Fitbit, and a Camelback water bottle. John got the same except his jacket was Under Armour.
The next day, we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant again and went shopping. John's company gave him (us) "fun money" to use for excursions or shopping. Since this was a vacation, not a trip, we chose to lay on the beach every chance we could instead of doing excursions, so we had a nice shopping budget:) They have a lot of high end shops in Aruba (Gucci, Carolina Herrera, Louis Vuitton, etc) and lots of jewelry shops, which were not on our radar, but we were able to find a few things that we liked and probably would not have bought on our own:)
Happy faces in the cab after shopping!
We got back around 2:30 and went back to the beach. We had a late lunch and stayed on the beach until 7:00. We wanted to soak up our last day!
Dark picture but pretty sun setting in the back!
The hotel behind us - this place was gorgeous!
We ate dinner by ourselves at the nice restaurant at the hotel - Le Crustaces. Some other people had told us how good it was and it was nice to not have to take a cab to go anywhere else. It was really good. I had a crab and avocado salad that was SO good!! John liked his tuna starter and I thought it was so pretty so I had to take a picture.
We had a fun night at dinner and then went to use our chips they had given us. They gave us one $100 chip and ten $10 chips. I told John that the $100 chip was not leaving my clutch except to be cashed in:) He played blackjack for a little bit and turned our $100 (that we played) into $120. So we came away with $20, but really we came away with $220 since we cashed in the $100 chip and walked away with the $120. I had fun hanging with a couple of other girls while the husbands played. We are all from the south which was kind of rare on this trip. When we made it back to our room, we saw our last present - a computer travel bag and travel blankets and pillows, as well as a framed picture from the first night.
We slept in on our last morning and had breakfast in our room on the balcony.
Our shuttle left the hotel at 11:30. It did take a little bit of time to get through the airport and customs, but our flight didn't even leave until 3:15, so we got to hang at our gate for almost two hours. And since there was a flight waiting to go out before ours, most of that time was spent waiting on the floor. Boo!
We finally got a seat when the other plane boarded. John attempted to nap:)
For our flight to Atlanta, we did not get first class. We knew when we booked it that there was no more room on first class. And it was on that crowded flight that I kind of wished I never knew how fabulous first class was:). When we got to Atlanta, we had two hours before our flight back to Memphis. We ate dinner, hung out, and got the girls a present. There was nothing in Aruba that they would have cared for, so they each got a Sofia sticker and coloring book from the airport. We finally boarded (I was so worried we wouldn't make it back because of the weather!) and we were back in first class for that 40 minute flight to Memphis!
Happy (and tired) faces back in first class:)
After 12 + hours of traveling and sitting in airports, we made it home around 11:00 pm. We loved our time away, but I couldn't wait to fall asleep so that we could see our girls this morning.
They had lots of fun with all the grandparents, and I wasn't worried about them one second. It's nice to be able to get away and completely relax. We are very thankful for grandparents!! And very thankful for John's company and our amazing trip to Aruba!!
Sweet friends:)
She was not happy when I had to leave!!
