SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21ST
We slept like babies as we usually do here, we were out like lights and didn`t hear a single sound all night, there is a doorbell outside of the door of suites and in the past we have had someone cheekily ring it and run like blazes, but it is rare and again with the door closed I doubt we`d hear it. They did tell us the first time we stayed in one of their suites they can disable the door bell if we wanted, but it`s never been an issue.
I open the bedroom drapes and go through to the sitting area and open the drapes I had closed over last night, there are two large windows in the sitting room and we tend to leave one open and I`m not quite sure why, but we do.
Showered and dressed I checked how Kyle had done in his race this morning, being 5 hours behind all the results are in and he did so well, he was doing a half marathon tomorrow too, he`s far too healthy at times, but they love it. Then we headed over to the Club Lounge for breakfast and we always enjoy that walk to and from RP each morning, it kinda wakes us up and invigorates us before we eat.
There was a new lady working this morning, a little older than one would expect in this job, but she was lovely and was very good with guests, however we both said we didn`t think she would still be here by the time we left, just a feeling, but it was so nice to meet her.
We sat at our usual table and had just started eating when in walked two of our Canadian friends, Dawn and Dinardo who we knew had booked an extra night and fortunately they had managed to get Club again, so we whooped a little when we saw them and we were happy they sat down with us for breakfast, such an unexpected surprise!!
Rather funny to us, the miserable family were in, looking miserable and rather weirdly there was another perosn who looked miserable too, completely unrelated to each other, it was just odd.
So, breakfast was a lot of fun and they both had to leave fairly soon as their flight was around midday so we had another goodbye but they left and we wished them a safe flight, it had been so nice though, lovely folks!
We finished up and headed back over to Sapphire, this was a laundry morning for us. I don`t mind the laundry room in RP, but it`s quite small with only 3 washers and 3 dryers, so I wanted to wait till we were at Sapphire as their laundry rooms are so much larger, lighter and many more machines. I don`t think I have ever went down to the Sapphire laundry room and there haven`t been any machines free, there are always plenty available.
Back in the room we facetime Kyle, he`s home from his race and made me laugh when he said he was cleaning the bathrooms, I`m glad he is almost as tidy as I am but we had a good old catch up, he had organised their office yearly golf day yesterday where advisors and clients get together for a wonderful charity and he had done most of the organising this year and it had been a huge success. His bosses were thrilled with him and he was pleased too how it turned out, we saw a load of pictures and it did look good.
So we had a lot to catch up with today and had a lovely chat, we wished him good luck for the half marathon tomorrow, not that he needs it but we love to hear how he does on all of these marathons and races. We say we`ll try and chat next Saturday too if he is free, but it was so good to see him even if it is online.
Laundry time now and Tom comes down with me as we have two bags to wash, the laundry room is down in the bowels of the hotel and it is not the nicest of areas being honest. There are a lot of animals down there, so many signs on the doors saying there are animals in the rooms and yes, you can hear them as you pass on occasion.
As is usual you need your room key to access the laundry rooms and it is deserted today so we have our choice of machines. First we pop the dollars in to get change for the machines which is around $3.25 a load in the washers and dryers and the machine has always worked anytime we have used it but the front desk can swap you for a roll of quarters if need be.
You can buy detergent and dryer sheets from the machine, I think they`re a dollar each and someone told me it is cheaper to buy them here than in the hotel stores which I can believe, a dollar is nothing really.
I think the wash time is around 40 minutes, I should have paid more attention, it could be 35 minutes, but we head back up to civilisation and daylight and have a wander around till the loads are finished.
The elevator areas are the complete opposite of RP they have a huge amount of space between them and those elevators in this hotel as super duper fast in comparison to RP.
The pool is central to this hotel, it is the largest pool and although it is very shallow, it does have a slide and there is something really lovely about it, we always enjoy our time having a splash here.
They have a lovely Fire Pit and the pool bar restaurant is very, very nice, we`ve had several lovely food items over the years and the cocktails as with most pool bars are very nice.
The view out of the other side of the elevator area is the lagoon and it`s such a shame the water wheel hasn`t worked a long time, it looks so good when it works.
We went back down and popped the clothes in the dryer which will run for an hour if you need it and when we go down everything is dry around 40 minutes so we take them back up and hang up what doesn`t need ironed and I do iron a few things, yes, I am a champion of ironing!
Once we were finished with the laundry we headed over for a slightly earlier lunch than we would usually eat, but we had early dinner plans, so we walked over the very short distance to Aventura to have a look at their food court.
It literally is just right across the street from Sapphire and takes two minutes to walk there for us.
I don`t think I`ve made any secret of the fact I dislike this hotel a lot, for me, it is a cold looking and feeling hotel as soon as you walk in, it was supposed to be a hotel for techy people, but it never took off for that kind of demographic. It is mainly couples and folks travelling with adult family members and friends, there are a few families of course too, but I`m being general here.
I always feel as though I am walking into either a hospital or a nice office block, it is very minimalistic and their contribution to a Halloween display was rubbish!!! Aliens????? Not impressed at all.
I do think this little bar in the lobby is underrated compared to Bar17 on the roof, for such a small bar they do a very good job of coming up with some lovely drinks and the bar staff have always been lovely, and we`ve only visited a couple of times.
Bar17 for us is not as good as it should be, the views are the only thing we ever go up there for, the cocktails and food have never impressed us and it doesn`t have that warm welcoming feeling it should have and it`s such a shame as it could be so much better.
The food court is not appealing visually, but it does get some decent reviews and a couple of my friends and relatives have enjoyed a few decent dishes from here on occasion, it is functional though and does have some nice options for most people.
The Wok counter and the roast counter both have some nice looking dishes and the wok counter had a long line but it wasn`t as appealing to me as I thought it would be and today we didn`t really know what we wanted to sample.
We decided to share a pizza for lunch, it had been a few years since we`d had one from here and weren`t sure what to expect, so we ordered it and I went to sit down at the window while Tom brought over a red and white wine.
The place was deserted really, and we were the only ones ordering pizza, they give you a buzzer and you go pick it up when it`s ready, but we waited one heck of a long time for what was a simple pizza.
Not the most inspiring view from the food area but it`s a nice enough day to be sitting at the window enjoying the sunshine.
I`ve had a few glasses of wine in my time of varying sizes and even Tom laughed when he saw what the wine was when she handed it over, no I didn`t expect high end wine, but.......I could hear him laugh as he walked over as he knew what my expression would be like!!
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Well, we won`t need to worry about getting tipsy here!!!
We sat another 15 minutes or so waiting for the buzzer to go off to let us know the pizza was ready and when it did I think we were both ready to eat a little.
We had a BBQ chicken pizza and added jalapenos and it did look kinda nice and it was hot so it was freshly cooked but goodness knows what she was doing the previous 20 minutes!
The pizza itself was just ok, there was nothing really wrong with it, it just wasn`t as good as it used to be, it had a very generic almost frozen texture whereas it used to taste very fresh, so I don`t know what changed but it did fill a hole. I doubt we`d get another and overall Aventura is not really for us, we may pop back up for the view once or twice but that`s it.
We head back out to go back home and there is a very pretty little area between the hotels, it`s only a small little water feature but it is cute.
It was hotter than Hades again this afternoon and we decided we`d go down to the pool for a couple of hours, it looked so good and this was very unusual for us to sit round the pool twice in one trip during the day, but we got a couple of umbrellas and covered ourself from the sun that way, but it was nice.
We had a few waters and even had a dip in the pool albeit briefly and then headed back up to our room as we had very early dinner plans tonight in Strong Water that we were looking forward to.
More coming right up 
But it works well for us and it is a nice sized space and plenty of storage for all his toiletries. 
along KatieCharlotte
