Just an Epic Life
Just an Epic Life
Adventures in Montego Bay: Upgrades, Hurricanes, and Unexpected Thrills
Get ready for a wild ride as we share our encounters with torrential rains with a potential hurricane in Jamaica. This episode is packed with laughter, travel tips, and unforgettable natural phenomena. Whether it's discovering a hidden pool entrance or documenting a hurricane, our content creation never skips a beat. Tune in for a blend of adventure, humor, and practical advice on making the most of your travel experiences.
Welcome back to another podcast of the Just an Epic Life podcast. My name is Nick. I'm one of your co-hosts. I'm standing next to my vacation bride Kessley.
Speaker 2:Hey.
Speaker 1:How you doing.
Speaker 2:Good. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well. This is fun. This is exciting. First ever standing podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, also, first ever with the new equipment, because I I said let's podcast when we're on vacation and we didn't want to bring all the stuff. Remember the episode where Nick was looking for the tiny, itty bitty little card that we thought we lost, and he actually had it.
Speaker 1:That was recording in Puerto Vallarta, mexico. Yes, and that was fun. It was a nice backdrop. But this backdrop is even nicer because we are we are in Jamaica. Montego Bay Mont backdrop, but this backdrop is even nicer because we are. We are in jamaica, montego bay, montego bay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah specifically, we are at the. We are at the hideaway royalton blue waters. It's a marriott bonvoy property. We are not paid by marriott or bon or bonvoy, and anytime they would like to pay us, I'm happy to plug too. Uh, it's a beautiful property, it's an all-inclusive. It has an adult side only, which is the side we're staying on, and then it has a beautiful property, it's an all-inclusive. It has an adult side only, which is the side we're staying on, and then it has a family side as well. So lots of cool things we have. Uh, they can see the pool. Yeah, yeah, so we have a. It's not private, because it's the whole length of the building and yet it's called a swim out room and it's really cool because we don't have to go to the pool. We can just come and hang out here and pardon me while I go in the pool yeah, he's showing off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been quite the adventure, uh, getting to montego bay and and kind of the energy that is happening, the? Um. So I booked this on a whim. I, I sit in at home sometimes and I look and see how cheap we can travel somewhere and uh, we are point hacking and all that other fun stuff. And I found flights to Turks and Caicos for 16,000 points.
Speaker 2:But my darling son, who I love and adore, uh, is also in Orlando at a FBLA conference, and so the Turks and Caicos 16,000 points was during the time he was gone. So that was a can't do it. So I joked and said Nick and I were going to go somewhere. So Liliana, of course, hated this idea and was not happy about it. Um, so I released the Turks and Caicos and then found Montego Bay and, uh, we got here for 20,000 points. So it's um, we flew from Phoenix to Chicago, chicago to Montego Bay, and then we'll fly back the same route. So, yeah, 5,000 points a flight. Here's the cool part we were upgraded on flight number one to first class. It's only a 737, but it's still a nice upgrade.
Speaker 1:Because that was an overnight flight, it was, yeah. So instead of sleeping in my middle seat instead, yeah, a little more recline, a little more room yeah, it was great, it was really great.
Speaker 2:Um, the flight from chicago to montego bay. Uh, we literally were getting ready to board the plane and we had waited because we were in the lounge and we get in line, and I hear them say kessley, and I was like oh yes, we're gonna get an upgrade. And she goes we have one seat available. Well, well, this butthead he's like I'll take the seat no, or?
Speaker 1:you can take the seat. One of us should take the seat First. I said you take the seat.
Speaker 2:And then she said no and I said I'll take the seat. So the woman said that if you're a flight attendant listening, maybe you know something. I don't know because you do that. I don't see that happening so smoothly once we're on the plane. So we said we'd wait. So we waited. We were the last people to board the plane, we got two first class tickets so $5,000 per plane and we got upgraded to first class. So that was super great. So the overnight flight was less than stellar service. I think they were annoyed that we were awake.
Speaker 1:Like just go to sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because, yeah, it was interesting.
Speaker 1:Already delayed. It was like 1 in the morning. Just go to sleep.
Speaker 2:Yes, the next flight. They knew we were heading to vacation and so they took care of us. So it was great. Now we are here on property.
Speaker 1:Hold on Also, we know, for the next flight.
Speaker 2:Oh, we already know that we're going to be upgraded to first class going home, well, at least from Montego Bay to Chicago.
Speaker 1:Chicago to Phoenix Maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 1:And for our listeners and viewers. Why are you so high on the upgrade list?
Speaker 2:Oh man, we got a card with points and then we just spent a crap ton of money on it. We did not overspend.
Speaker 1:So business owners, this is a perk for a business owner.
Speaker 2:You're already spending the money.
Speaker 1:Don't rack up credit card bills for your personal side. No, that's not a healthy relationship with debt. Well, you can, if you're paying them off of course, but most people like we had to spend $200,000.
Speaker 2:$175,000.
Speaker 1:Essentially.
Speaker 2:I think we got a bonus 60,000 points, so we had a head start.
Speaker 1:But as business owners, owners, when that's just part of your normal business operations, yep, you might as well get credit card points that then help you on the personal side 100 so business owners. There's some wonderful resources out there podcasts, youtubers, contents, instagram where you can learn about all the point hacking.
Speaker 2:Well, and I feel like the 175,000 points has paid for this trip. It paid for, uh, uh, uh. Our Epic upgrade from um Phoenix to JFK at Christmas time was 15,000 points per flight, um, so that was 30,000 points to take a $200 flight literally $200 from Phoenix to JFK, um, and make it. It did also cost $150 in fees, but for an extra 30,000 points per person and an extra $150 that now made the flight $350. We got to. We were on a seven, seven, seven. So life, flat seats. So really cool, really cool.
Speaker 1:Uh, another tip if you're going to all four of us kids too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really cool, really cool, uh. Another tip if you're going to all four of us kids too, yeah, all four. So I mean that that paid for itself. Um, best thing we did, uh, was we got the mom Bay club mobile club, mobile club here when we landed. So, um, basically it's like a concierge service that once we land, there is a lady standing with our names on it, and she took us through customs. We were out the door in 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:The best part is, before we arrived, I didn't fill out the online form for us entering the country, so she said, oh, no problem, just go to this website. And literally she was looking over my shoulder.
Speaker 2:She was very tall.
Speaker 1:Yes, she was, and whenever I had a typo and then like she's like okay, where's your passport, you know, and she reads me the passport numbers. She's telling me exactly what to click on. I'm not having to go ooh, are they going to let me in the country with my two apples? I just click that I don't have any produce and I'm like in my backpack there's two apples because we've been stopped by dogs before.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:I think the dog that was for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yeah, dog, that was for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yeah, that was a in cancun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the dog I mean he was probably hungry scared the crap out of liliana because it climbed on liliana's rolling bag.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I expected you know to have to to throw away the apples. And and she said you have two apples. I said yeah. She said, just keep in your backpack. She says if you have a lot of apples you can't bring them. Oh, okay, so like the, the being the one who fills out the forms, being the ones who goes to passport control, being the one like there's it's not nervous energy, but it's more to think about. She was able to allow it to be vacation because someone else was taking control. And uh, we already had private driver service, uh, plans, and the taxi driver had already called you. Uh, and she says, and the taxi driver had already called you. And she says, oh, your driver's waiting for you, I will find him. Yeah, and we went outside and she scanned. She said there's your name, walked us over to the driver. The driver then took us, but there was no stress.
Speaker 2:No stress.
Speaker 1:So we recommend that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even once we got in the private driver's car, I had said to Nick that I wanted to stop and get like authentic jerk chicken and he was like no, we're not going to stop. Like there's, jamaica is one of those places where you know, buyer, beware, just be smart. And he was kind of giving me the no. And we just asked the driver and he was like scoochies, scorchies, scorchies, scorchies, yeah. And I said yeah, that's one of the places. And so he stopped and we got some jerk chicken and it's great. Yeah, come on.
Speaker 1:So she was just referring to just general safety in this country. So just making sure you're not being reckless and making yourself a target.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which, by the way, I think is everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yes, If you're going to act like a stupid person well, I mean, the United States federal government also has recommendations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, understood yes.
Speaker 1:They also recommend if you're walking through Phoenix. I know serious, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so anyways. So now we're here. We've had a great couple of days. When we landed on Sunday, there was no imminent danger.
Speaker 1:There was nothing. Yeah no-transcript, it wasn't a thing.
Speaker 2:No, I woke up actually on Monday morning and I said to Nick I'm like Barbados has had a hurricane called Beryl and he's like whatever, and I showed him some of the wreckage and he's like oh and so by later today's Tuesday, yes, by later yesterday.
Speaker 2:It's all the talk that this guy can do. He's very excited for the potential of getting to experience a hurricane, while the rest of the world is wondering why we're still in Jamaica. And it's fine. The staff we've already had conversations with staff members. They've done this before, so it's very interesting. So we're looking at it as potentially our last actual day that we can do stuff, because tomorrow it's supposed to rain and, I don't know, blow and whatever else all day long.
Speaker 1:It's supposed to. Well, if you have a thunderstorm, it storms, yeah. If you have a hurricane, does it hurricane? Is it a verb form? It's storms. If you have a hurricane, does it hurricane, is it a verb? I don't know. A storm is a noun and a verb.
Speaker 2:Yeah. See, here's the thing. When I think of rain, most of the time I think of Arizona rain, Rain once again a noun and a verb. Right, Well, but in Arizona, even well, you said it yesterday like monsoon season, that it becomes something Like season, that it becomes something like haboobs, google a haboob if you've never seen one, because it is quite something. It was funny to show some non-non-local people a couple months ago when we were hosting an event and they were like what is?
Speaker 2:that what do you do? Do you stay indoors, and, honestly, it's not that bad. It looks worse than it is, um, nonetheless, we've never stay inside for five minutes yeah, and it passes by.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the next like torrential, because that was the word that one of the staff members used. Torrential the only time I can maybe think that I saw a torrential rain for was in kentucky, when we were 18 or 19, and like it was, we were standing on the patio watching sheets, like visibility was not even to the street which, by the way, the street was block and a half, so so three weeks ago, four weeks ago in puerto rico.
Speaker 1:Was that torrential or not? We were playing in it oh so if if's fun, it's not torrential.
Speaker 2:Well, we stopped at this store. No, I don't think it was torrential, I think it was a lot, it was heavy, it was heavy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, I picture, like you're right, I've seen it where it's sheets, sheets.
Speaker 2:Sheets yeah.
Speaker 1:So we'll probably get some of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, super exciting stuff. It's cool to be a.
Speaker 1:The staff is not reacting visibly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, we can't see it.
Speaker 1:Like right now, it's still business as normal.
Speaker 2:And you can, I think you can see behind us. It's pretty much clear skies. We did have some rain yesterday.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, sunday, our first yeah, just a little bit some thunder, no monday monday we had rain for like on and off for just typical tropical yeah july yeah yeah, but this one will be fun or it could also we're at the part of the island that I think it's going to miss completely.
Speaker 2:however, it's probably going to hit the airport, which which is going to affect, you know, traveling home, and I think that's why we've already been upgraded, which is great.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:It is nice to get away with just the two of us. It's the first time we've done it since Puerto Vallarta, which I know is only like. Six months ago Eight months ago, it was October.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're Eight months ago. Yeah, that is nice, it's important.
Speaker 2:Also, this is the first vacation, maybe ever, that I don't have excursions planned. Like we legitimately arrived at the hotel, no excursions planned. We did nothing. Yesterday I didn't even get on the treadmill, even though my stuff is sitting by the door ready to be walked on, walked with. I even bought a new Lululemon, courtesy of my staff getting me a birthday present. No, we hung out at the beach.
Speaker 2:We eat every like three hours but we only eat a little bit because I want to try everything. Yeah, I read thing. Um, yeah, it's I read. I'm not allowing myself to go home until I finish reading this book that I feel like I've been reading for a year. It's a fun book, not a business book. It's great. Yeah, so it's cool.
Speaker 1:We found like a secret entrance. So this pool yeah, there's only one, one room between us and the sand it's a bougie room.
Speaker 2:It's the chairman room.
Speaker 1:It's the two-story room. If you come to this property One day, one day, ooh, got some music bumping, but this pool wraps around that fancy room and then there's a ramp out to the sand. So if we want to go to the sand, we don't have to go through the room around the building, through the pool to the sand.
Speaker 2:no, we just go, that's it's only because we don't have somebody staying there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if there were neighbors there, you know we would be, we'd respect their patio-ness, but so far she's cleaning the patio she's cleaning the patio, so maybe someone is checking in no, they were cleaning it yesterday too, and nobody checked in.
Speaker 2:Or maybe somebody's there and we just don't see them.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:We wanted to do a pre-episode before the hurricane hits.
Speaker 1:I plan to walk the property recording video. That way, if there's a need to do it before and after, then there's some content available.
Speaker 2:He also can't wait to record a podcast during the hurricane tomorrow. Oh yes, he also can't wait to record a podcast during the hurricane tomorrow. Oh yes, so this is going to go up today.
Speaker 1:And I'm good with that. I like that our new gear doesn't require electricity, so that's great. So we can record even if electricity goes out. We can't upload, but we can record. So for preparations, the hotel hasn't told us anything, but I plan to keep getting bottles of water. Today I already grabbed two extra bananas from breakfast that way, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's all going to be fine.
Speaker 1:It is all going to be fine, it's all going to be fine, yeah. The guy turned around the corner to see what was going on oh, it's all good. Yeah, no, it should be fun, so I'll be sure to get this uploaded. I haven't done this from a cell phone, so wish me luck, as I upload this Usually all of our recordings we just do it from the computer, uploads no problem. So I guess I'll do a little extra homework today.
Speaker 2:Here's to you having a vacation, as Epic is ours, and getting caught in a hurricane. Maybe I feel like this will be my first act of God experience.
Speaker 1:I've experienced an earthquake. That was awesome. I don't know if the microphone's picking up the music. I love it. If you can't hear it, sorry, then it means the microphones are great, but if you can hear it, enjoy the music. Our outro music. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to like, subscribe, share.
Speaker 2:And share your favorite vacation spot that you've been to and any natural disasters or acts of God you've been through Until then.
Speaker 1:Enjoy an epic life.