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Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Let us pull back the curtain and show you how you can maximize money you're already spending to earn enough credit card points and miles to travel with your family for nearly free.
We've used credit card points and miles to take our family of 5 on trips to places like Costa Rica, San Diego, Disneyland, Oceanside, NYC, Washington DC, Hawaii, and next year we have already booked Paris, Spain and Japan!
Using credit card points and miles (often called travel hacking) doesn't have to be overwhelming or take a ton of time, and we can show you how.
Can you earn a lot of points and miles without opening up multiple credit cards? Only if you have a really high amount of spend each month. For people with larger families, opening new cards is the easiest and fastest way to earn enough points and miles to take a couple of really low cost (but not low budget) family vacations every year!
If you want to learn ways to help you and your family travel more affordably using credit card points, this show is for you.
Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Kimpton Seafire: Couples Trip to Grand Cayman using Points!
For all the cards we recommend beyond Chase, those are linked here INCLUDING THE IHG CARD WE USED TO BOOK THE KIMPTON SEAFIRE! It's the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card, but any IHG card would work.
For meals, the resort has several restaurants, including two fine dining options, Ave and Avecita. We enjoyed our breakfasts and dinners at Ave, with its fantastic food. The pool bar and beachfront bar, Coccoloba, offered delicious casual dining.
The staff at the Kimpton Seafire were exceptional, making us feel like VIPs. They greeted us by name, acknowledged my birthday
In today's episode, we are sharing all the details of our kid-free getaway to the Grand Caymans, including our stay at the Kempton Seafire Hotel, which, spoiler alert, was maybe the nicest hotel that we have ever stayed at. We'll be sharing exactly how we booked it, how much money we saved and what our plan is to bring our entire family back here in the future. Tune in. Hi, I'm Rhea.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dwayne.
Speaker 1:And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.
Speaker 2:We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.
Speaker 1:So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.
Speaker 2:So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.
Speaker 1:Hello friends, welcome back to Travel. Party of five we are fresh off of our recent kid free couples getaway. We try to do at least once a year, and this year we went to the grand caymans that's your, your yearly birthday trip yes, we try to do it around my birthday, which is actually at the time of recording tomorrow. So happy le Leo season to all my Leos. How was the trip?
Speaker 2:I mean, it was great Grand Cayman Islands. Cayman Islands is a must. If you haven't been, it's probably one of the nicest places we've ever been to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I have been to the Grand Caymans once, and by the way we don't know. Is it Cayman, caymon, cayman? We have no idea, so I'm going to say it how I've always said it, until someone who actually knows can correct me, because we heard it pronounced so many different ways when we were there.
Speaker 2:Cayman, I think it is One guy even called it K-Woman.
Speaker 1:So I had been there once before on a cruise, and this was probably 15-ish years ago, and you know, it was just one of those ones where you stop for the day and we did a stingray like excursion thing, and that was it. And we did a stingray like excursion thing, and that was it. I don't really remember much about it, other than they hold the stingray up and they take a picture of you, so it looks like the stingray is smiling, but I also remember there just being a lot of people, and so I mean, yeah, I don't know, our experience this time was much different. It was, I mean, trip of a lifetime for sure.
Speaker 1:It was just so beautiful, and so this is a family-friendly hotel that we stayed at, but we didn't like we weren't bothered by the kids no because we, you know, we were there, obviously on a couple's getaway, so you know you don't want a bunch of kids running around and screaming, but it wasn't like that at all. So I mean, I didn't feel bothered at all. So I think it would be great for a couple's retreat or a family getaway, don't you?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I think this hotel caters to families. Yeah for sure, it's definitely a family.
Speaker 1:Yes, so this was the first high hotel that we have stayed at all year. That's not hyatt. How like were you nervous going into it? Because, like with hyatt, I feel like we know what to expect no, I wasn't nervous. Excuse me, um, I know what to expect, but I wasn't nervous well, yeah, I mean, maybe nervous was the wrong word, but so let's, I guess let's talk about how we booked it, how we got there, and then we can talk about the hotel. I guess I'll talk about how I booked it.
Speaker 2:I have no idea how we booked it.
Speaker 1:So about a year ago there was a elevated offer on one of the IHG cards. Ok, so it is the IHG Premier Rewards card. I'm pretty sure the bonus when I signed up was an elevated offer of like 180,000 points, and at the time I didn't realize that these elevated offers come around usually a couple times a year and I was having FOMO. We had just started getting into travel hacking. So I think this was like maybe the third card that I opened and it is a personal card, so it does count towards 524. And the points had just been sitting there for almost a year without really any plan, and so when we had decided to change our trip from New York City again to somewhere more relaxing, the Kempton Seafire had been on my radar and I knew that we had almost all the points we needed. The other benefit of having this card and, I think, most IHG cards is that when you book on points, you get the fourth night free if you hold the card. So you have to hold the card, you sign into your account and it'll show you like I think it was 70,000 points a night to book this room, but it knocked it down to like 52,000 if I booked four nights because I'm a card holder. So all in all, we ended up needing 210,000 points to book it, and I had around 185,000 points, so I needed 25,000 more.
Speaker 1:And this is one of those instances where it makes sense to buy points. It doesn't make sense to just buy points willy nilly, but in this case, where you just need to top off your points stash to make a specific booking, it makes sense, and IHG often has bonuses. So, for example, when I bought points for this day, they had an 80% bonus. So basically, if I would buy 10,000 points, I would receive an extra 800 for free. So I ended up buying 14,000 points and I got another 11,000 something, and so that that's how I got my extra 25,000. And that was immediately added to my points balance and then I was immediately able to book the room. So 210,000 points for four nights. So 210,000 points for four nights ocean view king room is what I booked, and it was great, totally worth it.
Speaker 1:Totally worth it Now. So $161 is what it cost me to buy those points. I can't remember if I said that. And then the other kind of caveat or catch maybe with IHG is that their resort fees are not covered on points bookings. So you still have to pay the resort fee out of pocket, and the resort fee at the Kempton Seafire is $80 a day. So all in all we paid $80 a day times four, so $320 plus $160 to buy the points, so $480 cash for four nights at a resort that would have cost us over $5,000 to book if we booked in cash. And that's for the same exact room type on the same exact dates that we booked.
Speaker 2:And I'd like to add the resort fee covered non-motorized activities at the beach. There were plenty of seats, umbrellas, um. You can rent a paddleboard, a pedal boat any, not a bike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, things you could like rent for free, yes, they had canoes.
Speaker 2:They had like a little sailboat thing I don't know if you had to pay for that, but it was not motorized um. They also had jet skis those were not free.
Speaker 1:Those were not free.
Speaker 2:Not included in the resort fee but they had a happy hour every day, uh, where they set up in the lobby, gave you wine for free from five to six yeah, they have a ton of amenities and we used quite a few of them, and so we can talk all about that when we get to the hotel piece.
Speaker 1:Um, do you want to first share how we got there? I feel like it's the same.
Speaker 2:We say the same thing every time, which is we used our companion pass yep, so we've gone southwest, yes, um so we flew from here to, from phoenix to orlando. Uh, we stayed at the hyatt regency airport in orlando, which is literally in the airport, which was very convenient for us because we flew in around like it was like 1 am.
Speaker 1:When we got there. Yeah, yep, we landed after midnight.
Speaker 1:So we just got our bags, went straight to the hotel never even had to step foot outside nope so convenient yeah, we just like got our bags and like just walked to the registration desk and they were like here's your room. It was super easy and duane was kind of blown away. That like the like literally the airport is the hotel. Like the doors of the hotel look out into the atrium of the airport and like the tsa security yeah, like I don't know if they built the airport around this hotel.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I just I didn't get it.
Speaker 1:But yes, literally the airport we had questions but we don't have answers, so I don't know um. And then we woke up the next day and we there's only one flight on southwest to the Grand Caymans from Orlando every day, and so it left at, I think, 11, and so we took that flight. It's worth noting that when you look on southwest to fly from Phoenix to Grand Cayman, it's's going to tell you like, oh sorry, we don't fly that route. And so it's silly, because I mean they do right, you just have to kind of compile your itinerary together, or, if you're not experienced and feel nervous, you can call Southwest and they will do it for you over the phone. But I prefer not to make a phone call.
Speaker 1:And I knew I knew what to do. So I just knew we had to fly to Orlando. I figured that out by using Google flights. I just was looking for what, like how does Southwest get to the Grand Caymans and from where? And their main departure city is Orlando, at least in the south. And so I knew, okay, we just need to fly to Orlando and then we can book Orlando to the Grand Caymans. And so the way that I booked this was basically four one-way tickets. So Phoenix to Orlando, then Orlando to Grand Cayman and then same way on the way back. Okay, enough of the boring stuff, let's talk about the fun stuff. Let's talk about the hotel.
Speaker 2:The Kempton Seafire Resort definitely probably one of the nicest places we've ever stayed at.
Speaker 1:It was so beautiful. Um, oh, you know what it's probably worth noting to get from the airport to the hotel, it's about 15 minutes and your best bet, and cheapest bet, is to take a taxi yeah, 40 yeah, it's 40 dollars.
Speaker 1:The other option that the hotel gave me was a private transfer, but it was like $140 for literally 15 minutes. So take the taxi. It was super easy. They also drive on the left side of the road here, which was one of the reasons I didn't want to run a car. Also, we didn't have that much planned and we didn't need a car because we just wanted to relax. But when I said that to Dwayne, he looked at me like I was insane. And why is that?
Speaker 2:Because I grew up driving on the left side and the steering wheel on the right. Yeah, so I easily. Could have driven there.
Speaker 1:I think that's something that I knew but forgot, and so it's always fun to learn new things about your partner after so many years of marriage. Okay, so we arrive at the hotel, we check in and we are immediately greeted with like a sparkling rosé cocktail and little chocolate squares.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Very nice touch.
Speaker 1:Yes, super nice, super nice lobby. Yep, our room wasn't ready because we were there pretty early, like one, and so they stored our luggage and we went and grabbed lunch at the bar. That's like on the beach.
Speaker 2:Coco Loba.
Speaker 1:Coco Loba it was called. Food was really good, but we walked. Food was fantastic, we walked up, yeah, and you are 15 feet from. Literally on the beach, the most beautiful turquoise clear water.
Speaker 2:Crystal clear. I've just.
Speaker 1:Ever seen.
Speaker 2:Stunning setting.
Speaker 1:We were.
Speaker 2:We were floored.
Speaker 1:We were texting everyone that we know, like pictures, like oh my God, look at this Pictures and videos to everyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, yeah, just so beautiful. So our room wasn't ready for a couple of hours. So we, after we ate which, by the way, food was very good I had a shrimp roll that we ended up ordering almost every single day we were there. That's how good. It was Super good, it was delicious. But room wasn't ready, so we ended up hanging out in the lobby because it was very hot and the lobby was air conditioned and so they have like games and a pool table, and we were there for a couple of hours. We made a dinner reservation with the concierge and the concierge actually brought us another round of drinks while we were waiting. So that was a nice little touch.
Speaker 2:And then we got checked into our room, stunning ocean view room, like I had go ahead yeah, I was just gonna say, as soon as you walk through the door, you're just wowed, yeah immediately.
Speaker 1:You can see the ocean from the door, like as soon as you open the door. Um, I had kind of hoped that we might get upgraded, because one of the things that the ihg card that I have gives us is platinum elite status, which is the second highest status level, and if there's a upgrade available on your day of check-in, you will get it. However, a couple days before I had checked on the app to see if there were any suites available for our entire stay and there was not Saturday night all the suites were booked, so I knew that that meant we probably would not get upgraded, and we did not, so a little bit of a bummer, but our room was perfect for just the two of us and it was still great, so no complaints.
Speaker 2:No none.
Speaker 1:We spent most of our time at the hotel. We didn't really leave much, so we can talk about the restaurants a little bit and the beach and all the amenities that you kind of mentioned some of them before.
Speaker 2:But and then we did one activity where we left the property yes we took a boat to starfish point yep um to see a bunch of sea stars as they're called. Yes, apparently they're not really called starfish which I don't know why they don't call it sea star point. But anyway, we took a boat there, saw some sea stars and then from there we proceeded to what was the bay called.
Speaker 1:It's a bioluminescence bay.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that what they call the bay?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so yeah.
Speaker 2:And this is where it's a man-made bay surrounded by all these beautiful homes but, the water there has. What is it? Bacteria, some kind of bacteria? Yeah, it's some kind of bacteria, that in the water, that if you agitate it it turns blue. So this was at night you have to go when it's dark like pitch black yeah, and you get in the water and you swim around and you agitate this bacteria and the water turns blue. Yeah, so it almost looks like it's glowing.
Speaker 1:Crazy, it was really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, really really cool.
Speaker 1:But it's a little bit freaky because you're literally swimming in the ocean. Basically, it's completely dark.
Speaker 2:You're in a bay. It's only like four feet, five feet.
Speaker 1:But they tell you not to touch the bottom because that's where the jellyfish live at night. Yeah, and a couple people on our boat got stung, including me. Dwayne doesn't believe I got stung by a jellyfish. You think I got stung by something, right?
Speaker 2:Well, the tour guide said that there's something in the water that might agitate your skin, to make it feel like you got stung.
Speaker 1:Something stung my hand, yeah. And then I was in a little bit of a panic, like because you can't see and I didn't. I enjoyed myself a little less after that she was definitely panicking.
Speaker 2:She like got back on the boat.
Speaker 1:Listen, I was inwardly panicking. I wasn't outwardly panicking. Like got back on the boat, I was inwardly panicking, I wasn't outwardly panicking. What's funny is there was like a I don't know nine or ten year old boy there with his parents and his two older sisters, and he was in the water too, and he goes. At one point he was like to his parents. He was like I just want you to know that I am fully terrified right now well, because his mom got stung by jellyfish at starfish point right before that, and then his sister also got stung and I got stung.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it wasn't super pleasant that part, but the the bioluminescence was it was cool yeah so so, yeah, that was the only thing we had on our our itinerary. Yep, and we spent the rest of the time lounging on beach chairs.
Speaker 2:Lounging, going in the water Drinking pina coladas with my pinky up.
Speaker 1:Yep, so the hotel has a bunch of restaurants. They have two like fine dining which are called Ave and Ave Sita. Ave does both dinner and breakfast. Ave Sita, I think, is just dinner. It's kind of weird because they're like in the same room but they're completely different menus so you have to tell when you make a reservation which one you're going to. Yeah, which one. We enjoyed Ave a lot more than Ave Sita and we ate there for breakfast every day and for dinner twice. We did in room dining once. We ate at the Coco Loba, which is like the casual beachfront kind of restaurant bar. Yeah, and you went to the pool bar once when I was at the spa yes, and the pool bar had really great food.
Speaker 2:I didn't order, but totally different menu than everywhere else yeah, so it's nice to have variety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will say, though the food is not cheap.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:It's very good, but it's not cheap.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So we have plans to actually bring our kids back here in a year or two, and that's one of our biggest concerns is how much it's going to cost to feed everyone. So we have some ideas on how we're going to uh, mediate that, but just be aware that it's not the food is not cheap. Um, let's see. Should I talk about the spa? Yeah, so I splurged and treated myself to a 90 minute massage. So I splurged and treated myself to a 90 minute massage, the. When you buy a treatment, you can use the facilities for an hour prior. So I went an hour prior.
Speaker 2:Well, we were going to do a couple's massage.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I mean, it would cost us like 600 bucks.
Speaker 1:Like more than that, because they automatically added 20 percent gratuity also.
Speaker 2:Oh, so we were like oh, I was, I just said, you know what you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and you did the jet ski.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I did the jet ski.
Speaker 1:So we each got to do a little something. The spa is beautiful, the massage was great, the facilities are stunning, are stunning. I mean they have like a steam room and a quiet room and like a hot tub greenery room. That was beautiful and so it was very relaxing and I really enjoyed it. So I would do it again. It was expensive but I would do it again, and then they gave you tea afterwards like it was a great experience. So definitely, uh, much needed with our crazy schedules and stuff that we have.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you want to talk about the jet ski, uh I mean not much to talk about the jet ski.
Speaker 2:It was for one person to ride a jet ski for half an hour. It was like 98 dollars. Um, I did check to see how much it costs would cost for both of us to ride on one and that would have cost 120 dollars, um. But I mean, like I said, we were on vacation, it was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. So we splurged, I did it. I wasn't going to do it because I thought it was a little expensive, but I said f it and I did it and it was, it was a great time well, and you were kind of like 30 minutes, like that's nothing, but it felt like enough time, oh yeah it definitely felt yeah, I mean I have could have been out there for I mean a lot longer.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean I thought it was gonna go super quick, but it didn yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was a good time I was lounging on my beach chair.
Speaker 2:Oh, we also did paddle boards.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Dwayne kind of mentioned this earlier. So the resort fee that you pay, like it kind of sucks that you have to pay it because, like with hotels like Hyatt, that's included in the points cost, but you do get a lot for that fee. So we did snorkeling one day, we rented or borrowed the gear free, we did stand-up paddleboarding free. Uh, we rode bikes free like everything was included, and so I think that makes it feel a little bit more like you're getting your money's worth. And we could. We only did it one, like the snorkeling and the paddle boarding, but we could have gone every day if we wanted to. Yeah, um, they have like floaties and rafts that you can borrow. So I mean there's, there's a lot to do and like, if you're coming with kids, like you don't have to worry about packing either yeah, and if the beach isn't for you, the pool is literally right there as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we actually never went in the pool, never but it was.
Speaker 1:I mean, we would have if we had our kids with us for sure, because they can only handle the beach for so much. Um, it is worth noting, though, that the beach is this what you're going to say is really calm yes, I was going to say that it's basically like a swimming pool yeah, so like our daughter would have been fine.
Speaker 1:She's so tiny and I get really worried about her with big waves, but there there were no big waves. She would have been fine with just a life jacket. So, um, yeah, what else? Food, oh food, oh. The other thing we need to talk about is all the little touches that we received to that made our stay feel that much more luxurious. Like it. Tell me if I'm crazy, but it almost felt like we were famous people staying at this resort. They called us by name almost everywhere.
Speaker 2:Almost, I mean everywhere.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, yeah, they knew that it was my birthday because we had let them know beforehand.
Speaker 2:They knew we were their kid free.
Speaker 1:Yep, and they referenced that all the time, so it felt like they really knew us. And they brought me like four different birthday desserts and there was like a birthday treat waiting in our room when we got there yeah, a bunch of chocolates and yeah, and so I mean it's just like at one point they brought me out at breakfast two desserts like an oreo cheesecake and something else, and it said happy birthday and I can't remember if I mentioned this earlier.
Speaker 1:I think I did, but the staff here was, I mean, top notch oh, they were incredible incredible you met someone like one of the pool attendants right and oh yeah yeah, you introduced yourself and he remembered your name the rest of the time.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, mr rowell was his name, yeah, and he, every time he saw me, he was like hey, hey, dwayne, how are you today? Yeah, just incredible.
Speaker 1:And then they also, and like I think it's worth noting, like we're not special. Every time he saw me he was like hey, Dwayne, how are you today? Yeah, just incredible. And then they also, and I think it's worth noting, we're not special.
Speaker 1:So, I think that's how they treat everyone. But it felt to us like, wow, we are seen here, which I think is a really valued skill that hotels don't get right a lot. The other thing is they come around during the day with treats, so they have frozen sugared grapes that they walk around in these little triangular little paper things feels very fancy. Uh, one day they brought us popsicles, and not just us like everyone, they're just walking around saying, hey, would would you like some grapes? Hey, would you like a popsicle? Like, yes, I would like a popsicle. It's 85 degrees out. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they walked around the pool, they walked around the beach. Yeah, handing these out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you mentioned this earlier. But they have a happy hour, so every day from five to six, like a red wine, a white wine and then some type of light appetizer, and they also have for kids juice boxes and little like. When we were there it was like fruit snacks and so and like it's free Completely free Five to six we.
Speaker 2:I mean one day we went and I probably have like five glasses of wine.
Speaker 1:It's worth noting that they're small glasses of wine, like they're not pouring heavy, but like we were like, oh, this is how we're gonna save money by not buying wine at dinner. We're just gonna have all the wine we want now and then we won't buy wine at dinner. And so we did, and it was great, it was great the wine was good like I had no complaints.
Speaker 2:We still bought wine and whiskey at dinner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's smart on their part, right, because they get y'all liquored up right and then you have less inhibitions and you're more likely to like order the steak or whatever, so get the last glass of wine. So I mean, I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's beneficial for them, but they go through a lot of wine and I mean pete, there are people all over the lobby taking advantage of this. So for sure, yeah, but it was a really nice little perk if you're trying to save some money so kempton seafire if you have a chance, you have to go for sure so I asked oh, let's talk about the hiccup.
Speaker 1:We didn't talk about that, okay. So second to last night, we we're there, okay, we're sleeping soundly. 2.45 in the morning, an incredibly loud alarm is all of a sudden going off, not only in our room but in the entire hotel and it is saying, like ladies and gentlemen, this is an emergency something.
Speaker 2:What was it saying? Please stand by the speaker for further instructions, or something like that.
Speaker 1:And it is just repeating that over and over and, over and over again. And when we sleep in hotels, I sleep with an eye mask and earplugs because I'm a light sleeper and I don't expect other people in hotels to be quiet, like I think if you travel a lot, you should know that. And I always am telling Dwayne, like I always make sure he knows, like hey, I have my earplugs in so in case there's an emergency, like he knows that he has to like wake me up. Nope, heard this loud and clear through the earplugs. Like I mean, it was so loud that I at one point thought I was going to lose my mind because it was just repeating over and over again and was not stopping 2.45 in the morning.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it went on for at least five minutes.
Speaker 1:It seemed like eternity, but yes, and then it turned off and nothing was ever said about it. They didn't come on and say like, sorry about like nothing, no explanation, nothing. So then I am going down a rabbit hole of anxiety. Okay, because now I'm awake and I was awake for a solid two hours after this, which is frustrating because part of the reason we were there was to we want to sleep, rest. I am Googling, like tsunami warnings. Okay, because I'm thinking like what could be wrong here? And I know there's no hurricanes because I had I checked. So I'm like a tsunami? Okay, we're on an Island, so what could it be? A tsunami? Sure, I look it up. Nope, fortunately there's none. Okay, thank God. But now my anxiety is just spiraling and I'm thinking what if something happens to us while we're away from the kids, like, or, or even worse, what if something happens to the kids and we're not there? And I finally had to just tell myself you need to take some deep breaths.
Speaker 2:Yes, I just went on Facebook and Instagram until I went back to sleep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's worth noting. This is all happening silently. Dwayne is unaware this is happening in my brain, but it was happening and so finally I talked myself off a ledge and like two hours later, maybe I was able to go back to sleep. Okay, so then the next day we don't, we don't say anything about it, but we do hear other people talking about it, like at breakfast and stuff. Like oh, that alarm was crazy. So then they, the hotel calls our room yeah, our phone rings in the room in the middle of the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, middle of the day, Ray is in the shower and I'm like this is weird. So I pick up the phone and the lady on the phone is like hi, mr St Augustine, this is, I forget her name. But she's like yeah, I checked you in. I was the one that checked you in. Hope your stay is going well, you know. Ask if there's anything she could do to make our state better. I'm like no, and she just says, oh, and, by the way, sorry about the alarm last night, we are going to credit you $100 back for that. And I was like, oh, awesome, you know, we didn't say anything about it. We weren't going to say anything about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So they credited us $100 for that.
Speaker 1:So, without us asking, they did that, and so I thought that was real like incredible and Dwayne was joking like oh, hope it goes off again tonight and I was like I hope it doesn't, but then it did go off for the second night in a row this
Speaker 1:time at like 11 45 the first time was like 11, because it went off three times. It was 11 and then it went off probably again five minutes and I was like, oh man, this is so frustrating. And then I think they must have learned from the night before, because then they came on and gave us like ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the interruption.
Speaker 2:Well, people probably complained from the night before like, hey, this alarm went off and then you didn't even freaking, tell us like everything's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and so they did, because they did say that. After that it went off the first like the second night, okay, but then it went off two more times like within the next hour, and the second time again it was a few minutes and I was like, oh my god, this is so frustrating. And then it stopped. And then it went off one more time, but it was a few minutes and I was like, oh my God, this is so frustrating. And then it stopped. And then it went off one more time, but it was just like a like maybe five seconds. It went off for five seconds and then someone must have just been like nope and like just killed it, and it never went off again.
Speaker 2:There were some pissed off people though the next morning For sure.
Speaker 1:And that was our. That was the day we were checking out, yeah, so at checkout they gave us an another hundred dollars off, so they took two hundred dollars off of our bill for that. So obviously it's not ideal. Right, it was definitely an interruption, especially the first night because we were already sleeping. The second night we were awake, but it was frustrating. But I think they handled it really well.
Speaker 1:They didn't have to give us money off, but they were proactive and did it anyways um, you did hear that there someone else was checking out and they only had their resort fee yeah, they only had their resort fee refunded, which was 80 a day, which I thought was weird.
Speaker 1:But so I'm not sure how they decided. Maybe it was by status level, because again, we do have the platinum elite status with that card. So I have no idea how, how they decided what they would give, because it doesn't seem like it was the same across the board. But the fact that they were proactive about it without us ever having to ask, I think says a lot, because know things are going to go wrong. It's not the first time we've been in a hotel where the alarm has gone off, and so I just think you know five star, five diamond hotel.
Speaker 1:Yes, so for like the third or fourth year in a row they said and I mean the property was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was fantastic. So here is how. So we would like to bring our kids back here. I think our kids would love it. And here's how.
Speaker 1:I have a couple of different ideas of how we can make that happen. So, number one we could book two rooms. Because here's the tricky part when you search for points, there's a maximum of four to a room and once you hit five, there's no points rooms available. So you have a couple of options. One you can book two rooms and then ask for them to be connecting, which I don't know if they can guarantee that or not, maybe. Or I asked when we checked out and you could book a regular two queen room and then pay the cash price to upgrade it to a premium queen. I think is what she said. We'll sleep five and they can bring in a rollaway bed. I don't know what the difference would be Like. I don't know how much it would cost to pay to upgrade from the regular queen room. You can book on points to the premium room, and she couldn't tell me because I'm sure it varies by season and availability.
Speaker 1:But I think one of those two ways is how we'll do it. The third way is trying to convince my parents and my sister to come on this trip, which would mean we could technically, on paper, stick a kid in their room and then we would have four and four and then we would just need to book one room. So those are the options, not quite sure which one we'll do, yet I do think it's fairly easy to earn IHG points, so, like you and I could each open a business card and we would have plenty of points for, you know, like a four night stay there. The other thing we learned on this trip that one of the servers at the hotel actually told us is that there is a Hyatt opening up on Grand Cayman sometime next year. So we had talked about, maybe once that's open, trying to split our stay between Hyatt and the Seafire and kind of comparing and contrasting the two. So if we wanted to go longer than four days, that's probably how we would do it.
Speaker 2:I forgot to mention this place also has a splash pad for kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, they do.
Speaker 2:yes, we didn't go because obviously we didn't have the kids with us. It was pretty big. I mean it was pretty big. They had chairs. There was a water slide. It looked kids would have fun there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, I'm sure, yeah. So all in all, despite the little fire alarm hiccup, we still give it 10 out of 10.
Speaker 2:11 out of 10.
Speaker 1:Yes, would 100% return. We are still talking about it and we've been home for a week now, or almost a week, and so I think, if that has been on your list, would 100% recommend it yeah, and if it's not on your list, you should put it on your list for sure yep, I hope this was helpful.
Speaker 1:As always, if you have questions, you can find us on instagram at travel party five. Give us a follow and if podcast was helpful, we would love it if you would rate us on Spotify or review us on iTunes or wherever you're listening, and we appreciate you very much.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you, we'll catch you on the next one. Have a good one, bye.