Happy Holidays from Puerto Rico

LIFELINES: Happy Holidays from Puerto Rico!
My mother has had a lot of good ideas in her life, but it would be hard to beat her latest good idea: taking the family for Puerto Rico for Christmas. This idea went beyond being good to being genius.
She had been talking about it for awhile. And, as much as we all love our Callicoon Christmas, having our family celebration in a tropical resort sounded mighty appealing. None of us needed much convincing.
And so it came to pass that on December 20, all twenty-nine of us boarded jets and made our way to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The families living in the Northeast had to dodge two snowstorms to get out of town, but we did it, by gum! As our Jet Blue aircraft lifted into the sky, we thanked our lucky stars for our fortuitous timing and settled in for the relatively short (3 hour) flight to sunshine.
One thing to remember when traveling in a group is that things take a little longer than you might expect. And by the time we landed, got our luggage (nothing lost!), got some rental cars, found our way to our Marriott Stellaris Resort and Casino, checked in and got to our beautiful rooms with views of the ocean, it was almost time for us to get ready for dinner!
Our resort was wonderful, chosen by my very smart daughter (the doctor!) and it had everything! There were pools, a swim-up bar, a water slide, a beach bar, a hot tub and a great beach, with real waves! Inside the resort there was a real, live casino, the requisite gift shop, a great live band on Saturday and Sunday night, several restaurants and great room service! On top of that, everyone we met went out of their way to be of assistance to us, so it was pretty much perfect!
We had booked the rooms early in September, when my daughter found a deal online. Yet, when I called and emailed the week before we left to find out about our rooms, I received a call from a lovely woman in group sales saying that since we had thirteen rooms books, she would reduce our rate even more! How many places do you know who would do that? And will we go back? Hopefully, yes!
Our dinner the first night was at the Ristorante Tuscany at the hotel, an award-winning restaurant specializing in Italian cuisine. The entire crew of 29 had our own party room for this dinner, which was wonderful. Of course, after having some interesting happenings on earlier trips (like a dinner we had planned that our London hotel had no knowledge of!), we know to ask for email confirmations and to check on the arrangements ahead of time. But they were ready for us and everything went off without a hitch. It was wonderful to see the whole family again, especially Chris and Beth Finch’s little angels, Emily and Peyton. What fun!
Our first day of travel, good food, and family adventure had begun, and after dinner, some of us decided to check out the hot tub, while the boys headed off to the casino! Good times!