2006 Hurricane Guide

11 A.M. I am impressively tan, considering my normal state, in which I could pass for a Da Vinci Code villain. Kate is brown like a nut. I hate Kate. Of course, I don't, and even if I did it wouldn't be because she tans like George Hamilton. It would be because she chose our poolside seats today and the screaming children, it turns out, have some kind of three day weekend. I think the holiday they're being let off for is National Eardrum-Piercing Scream Day. To be fair, she's even more peeved than I am. Her malevolent glare reaches Blue Steel-level intensity and yet the children remain unaffected. They have puffy swim wings of kryptonite or something. We're heartened that we're not alone in our stressful state of we-love-kids-but-just-not-these when another woman gets up and gives the business to the head screamer's parents. "This is the adult pool, she reminds the attendant. We nod vigorously. (Our only exercise of the weekend.) We bond. Our consolation is the pre-check-out bill that was slipped under our door. It's remarkably lower than it has any right to be after so many lobster quesadillas and, um, margaritas. BUDGET TRAVEL, we congratulate ourselves. BUDGET TRAVEL! We are checking out at noon, and then hope to spend some quality time in the spa area before heading home. Betting on the lack of sound-barrier-breaking munchkins at the spa, I duck out early to retrieve my bag and head for the sauna. 7 P.M. The Ritz-Carlton does not have many German employees in Miami, but they clearly brought one out here for the sole purpose of expertly humiliating Kate and me during check out. Please imagine the role of Elsa (a guess) being played by Marlene Dietrich. Kate: Wait, this can't be right. Ana: No, it can't. This is so much more than the bill we got this morning. Kate: Can you review some of these charges? Elsa: But of course. What would you like me to look at? Kate: How about these two charges? They're both for around $50. Could they be duplicates? Elsa: Hmm. [Raises eyebrow.] At 11:30, you ordered margaritas and a lobster quesadilla. At 1 PM, you ordered margaritas and another lobster quesadilla. And French fries. Ana: And what about... Elsa: At 2 PM, you ordered margaritas and a lobster quesadilla. Yesterday, you ordered lobster quesadillas and... Ana: Stop! Here, this mini-bar charge! We didn't actually have that stuff. I just took it out to make room for the... [Elsa's eyebrow is raised so high it meets her hairline.] Ana: ... leftover wine... Elsa: Very well. I will take off the charge for $12.75. Kate and I huddle meekly, ready to surrender our credit cards. At that very moment, our bartender from our final good-bye drink runs to the counter and alleges, wrongly: "You forgot to pay for these!" Elsa does not seem surprised. In the cab on the way back to the airport, our Socratic dialogue with Elsa gains hyperbolic proportions, and we find ourselves giggling through security, shouting apparent non-sequitors to each other -- "YOU HAD NINE THOUSAND LOBSTER QUESADILLAS!" When we're asked if we want our $100 upgrade, we figure that after eleven hundred margaritas, we deserve it. MIDNIGHT On a capacity-filled plane, a $100 upgrade starts to seem like a bargain. We unwind in our spacious seats and continue to giggle about Elsa. Our good mood stands out and is, apparently, contagious. The harried flight attendant, fresh from cleaning up a, uh, "whoopsie" in the coach lavatory, smiles at us as she refills our drinks. She's clearly frazzled, and we ask her to join us. Wisely, prudently, she declines. But we chat throughout the flight and it's clear that being a flight attendant is a career for those of great calm and good humor. On the way out the door, she smiles and hands us a wine bottles wrapped in a napkin: "It's from our European leg," she says, "I think it's good." Budget travel. Back to day one

3 P.M. The children. Something must be done about the children. Kate is reading up on TomKat's plan for a silent childbirth and comes up with a better idea: silent childhood. Where have they come from and why are they here simply to scream? The thing about children is that they do not respond to Kate's and my preferred method of discipline: withering irony and a malevolent glare. Also they like to throw things. They are amusing at times, however. Like the three kids playing in the sand who turned out to be channeling Donald Rumsfeld: "Why won't you help me?" "Because we're not allies." Also the preteen curled up with Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. That one could stay. If anything, we plotted how to slide an Us Weekly her way to prevent her from winding up collecting Precious Moments figurines and playing John Tesh ballads at her wedding. The sun is gorgeous and the tans (and freckles) are coming along nicely, but the periodic shrieks distract from the fourth lobster quesadilla of the trip and the umpteenth margarita. (We decided lobster quesadillas are, in fact, saving us money because we're not ordering anything else.) 10 P.M. Dinner in the hotel restaurant provides another budget travel rationalization. After all, we're saving money by not leaving the hotel. Surely, we're dodging a multi-venue excursion. Dinner also provides another photo session opportunity, but there's one misstep: a rather impressive and costly mistake in our wine order. Budget Travel, I keep telling Kate, Budget Travel. As we drink it, we rationalize that we're consuming, in effect, an additional night's stay in the hotel. It made sense at the time. After dinner, there's another photo session on the lawn of the hotel's grounds, courtesy of hotel employee who's wearing, mysteriously, rubber gloves. We dance barefoot--much cheaper than a club, right?--and hope that tomorrow all the screaming children go back to school. The quiet and cute ones, like the blond kid who convened a marathon magic tournament in the shade, they can stay. Day three: A nasty surprise during checkout

$24 Flip-flops In 1493, after seeing clouds atop Mt. Nevis, Christopher Columbus named the island Nuestra Senora de Las Nieves, or Our Lady of the Snows (later shortened to Nevis). He must've traded winter boots for sandals when he realized his goof. Nevis Craft House, Pinney's Industrial Site, Charlestown, 869/469-5505. $12 Map In the 18th and 19th centuries, ships carried Caribbean sugar to the rest of the world; at one point, Nevis exported more goods than New York City. French and British cartographers created dozens of wall-worthy sea charts. Today, shops on the island sell artists' renditions of the originals. Knick Knacks, Henville Building, Charlestown, 869/469-5784. $6 Honey Nevis began producing sugar commercially in 1640, 12 years after the start of British colonization. During the industry's heyday, there were more than 100 plantations on the island, all of them worked by slaves. Production ended in the 1970s, and plantation houses have since been turned into resorts. So if you want to taste some locally made sweet stuff, it'll have to be honey. Caribco Gifts, Main St., Charlestown, 869/469-1432. $10 Doll Carnival, the Caribbean Mardi Gras, harkens back to the region's colonial history: It was the one time of year slaves were allowed to play drums publicly, dance, wear traditional clothing and masks--and, by donning clown constumes like the one on this rag doll, secretly make fun of their masters. Though Nevisians do celebrate Carnival, the island's biggest party is the annual Culturama Festival, which celebrates Emancipation Day with roughly two weeks of parades, music, and revelry (July 28--Aug. 8, 2006). Craft House, Cotton Ginnery Mall, Charlestown. $20 Bird Feeder With more than 125 avian species--including social bananaquits, finches, and white egrets--the island is a bird watcher's paradise. Peter Pan, an artisan who carves kissing birds from coconut shells, sells his wares at Sunshine's, a popular beach shack restaurant. Pinney's Beach, 869/469-5817. $22 Vase Cheryl Liburd uses Nevisian red clay to mold her colorful pots, plates, and jugs. So when someone spots a backhoe breaking ground, they call her, and she then goes out in search of a fresh vein, which she mixes with white clay. Bocane Ceramics, Stoney Grove, 869/469-5437. $6 Earrings Ting, a ubiquitous grapefruit-flavored soda, is the West Indian answer to Coca-Cola. Legend has it that the drink got its name when a local, looking at stacked crates of the newly bottled beverage, asked the soda's inventor, "What you gonna call dis ting, mon?" Craft House, Cotton Ginnery Mall, Charlestown.

6:50 A.M. When the alarm went off at 5 A.M., the husband and the dog were still asleep. I reminded self that the ungodly hour is saving Kate and me money, and maximizing the three days we're spending in sunny Miami. Debated showering and decided not to. First text message from Kate: "Ugh." We arranged to meet at the American Airlines ticket counter, where we were presented with a difficult choice: First-class upgrade? Commit to budget travel? It was only a hundred dollars. We're worth it, right? I swiped the card. On the plane, we discover that, together, we have packed: Five sunscreens (ranging from SPF 8 to 45; the might-as-well-wear-a-burka variety is for me, the chalky redhead with multiple birthmarks) Seven different types of moisturizers (including aloe in gel and cream form, a sunless tanner, and shea butter) 15 magazines, none with a reading level above eighth grade (Vogue may cater to expensive tastes, but the syllable count is still pretty low), most with a reading level of about "Jessica Simpson." (She's in a lot of them, too.) Four hairbrushes Five pairs of shoes (a new low!) Seven bathing suits (they're pretty much the only thing we plan on wearing) 10:30 A.M. A long, muggy ride from the airport deposits us at the Key Biscayne Ritz-Carlton. I dispatch Kate to work her amazing upgrade karma at the front desk while I try to ignore the dozens and dozens of children in the lobby. Marble is pretty but shrieks echo. The idea of waiting until 11--just 30 more minutes--for oceanfront drink service to commence becomes increasingly unlikely. It appears we have arrived smackdab in the middle of some kind of Very Loud Children Weekend. Kate returns with room keys--no upgrade, but checking in at 10:30 seems to validate her good luck. Until we get to the room. The room faces the street, and there's no view of the ocean, which is the very thing we have come to see. This alone would not be so bad but for the room's other, exponentially more depressing feature: a kitchenette. First with the screaming children, now a kitchenette. We go on vacation to escape these things. Kate hits the mark: "We don't cook at home! Why would we cook here?" We spend five minutes imagining the retiree couple that would enjoy the room. We photograph it and agree it looks even more depressing in the photos. Then we call the front desk. Or, rather, Kate does. I have faith. Faith and $95 more dollars a night gets us a pleasant, ocean-view room. Budget travel is all about the rationalizations; that's $95 a night we won't spend in search of a better view. We're on the beach with drinks by 11 A.M. 7 P.M. I think the first delicious lobster quesadilla came at noon, along with the second round of margaritas. Things become a little blurry after that, but we do meet a charming hotel employee named Brian who conducts our first of many photo sessions. It's amazing how many photos a man will take if requested by two women in bathing suits surrounded by margarita glasses. I call my husband from the room--our glorious, non-old-person room--and he asks how the drinking is going. "Oh," I say, embarrassed, "I think we had about seven..." Husband: "Not each, though, right?" Me: "Uhm, yeah. Of course not! Not each." 9 A.M. Dinner was room service with a bottle of wine, and we both wake up early with nearly full glasses on the night stand. In the interest of a budget travel conservation mindset, I take a bunch of things out of the minibar that I know we won't want--energy drinks, juice, regular Coke--and precariously balance the half-full wine bottle on what's left. Oh, and then there was our early wake-up. The one around 3 A.M., during which we sent photos, including one of me and the old-person room's microwave, to friends with no context offered. The paper is flipped through but not read. This trip was not designed to expand our intellects. Kate calls her husband, and he too asks for a drinking report. Kate: "Seven." Husband: "One an hour? Not bad." We love our husbands very much. Day two: More lobster quesedillas