Monday, 13 Feb 2017 Montego Bay to Regina

Beautiful morning today. Sunny and warm with much lighter wind. High temperature has been about 30 degrees C every day, but with a breeze to keep it comfortable. The last two days were quite windy – enough to shut down the water sports rental.

We woke up about 7:30, showered, and were even able to pack, except for a couple of last minute items, before breakfast. Breakfast was nostalgic with everyone sadly partaking in their last chance at their favourite items. We again checked the binder at the front desk that has all the flight information. No delays for us, but we saw a substantial one for London/Ottawa. Then someone in the elevator told us that they were expecting up to 40 cm of snow in Toronto. That is why we are very leery of taking winter vacation flights that are not direct out of Regina. If the Regina weather forces delays, you are subject to those no matter what you do. But, if you add in an interim stop, you then have to contend with winter weather in two places.

The girls made another stop in the gift shop. Celeste picked up another t-shirt for one of the twins. We thought we bought two at our first shopping stop. There was only one in the right size of the one we wanted on the shelf. The fellow said he would have an assistant get another one for us from the back, but, when it came, it was not the one we wanted. We would have accepted the lighter colour, but it also had a different design. He said he would send the assistant again. We were finished and ready to go at that point, so we left it in his hands to complete the order to be picked up on our return. When we did return, he had our stuff packaged in a plastic bag and off we went. Mistake! It was pretty busy and he had forgotten to get the second t-shirt. Although a little voice told me to check, I didn’t listen. As we were packing this morning, the missing t-shirt became apparent and Celeste was able to find a suitable replacement on the resort.

Meanwhile, I went to the beach to take some pictures of the resort from that viewpoint. I also found the entertainment crew tie-dyeing t-shirts on the beach.

We had a last lunch and caught our bus to the airport at 1. There we met a mob of humanity at the Sunwing counter. They had six departures scheduled from 3:35 to 3:50 to Winnipeg, Halifax, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Regina, and Toronto. Fortunately, the Halifax flight was delayed until evening or it would have been even worse. (It turned out that the Ottawa flight was on time and Halifax was delayed. The storm we had heard about had already passed through Ontario and was now in the Maritimes.) The line doubled back on itself about eight times in front of the counter, then extended for some distance down a hallway to another open area where it doubled back several times again. It moved fairly quickly though, with ten open stations. We were through in about an hour. We did not pay for seat pre-selection and ended up sitting in consecutive rows on the aisle near the front. Ron and Cheryl ended up in consecutive window seats near the back.

From there we quickly passed through security to the Duty Free shopping. As we suspected, liquor prices were better there, but three of the five bottles we had purchased earlier were not available there. It is a crap shoot when you are shopping to guess whether you will find what you want there.

We departed on time at 4 PM on our six hour flight arriving at about 9 PM Regina time. We ‘fessed up at Customs that we were over our liquor limit. The fellow in the store told us that the limit was 1.5 litres per person. I knew that it had been 1.14 litres, but I had not checked before we left, so maybe it had changed. Anyway, at 1.14 litres we were allowed three 750 ml bottles, so we would only be over by one. We had wanted one more liqueur that Carla had asked for, but the manager phoned around and could not find it, so we thought we were done. However, we later found it at the mall by our resort, giving us five bottles and putting us over by two. Who knew that the tax and duty on two 750 ml bottles would be $32.44?!

Nathan picked us up and we were home by 10.


I mentioned a few times that we would read while lounging around the pool. I read a memoir by an old Air Traffic Controller friend. He was quite an adventurer and had lots of stories. Sadly, the last chapter was about his health struggles over the last couple of years and his fairly recent ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) diagnosis. Unfortunately, he may only have a few months remaining.