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Isabel Cuddy

The Model, the Promoters, and the Americans Go on Spring Break

Spring break chronicles from my trip to Barbados two years ago.


The resort said, "drinks included" - We said, "six please"

Day 1: Welcome to Club Barbados

I bet you’re wondering, why Barbados for spring break? It’s not cheap, close, or popular, so it wasn't the obvious choice.


Well, my father, the infamous Stephen Cuddy, actually secured this trip for us.

Long story short, he won three free trips to Barbados (for this specific resort) at a church auction.


After a lot of begging, I convinced him to give my friends and I a trip.


He was so sweet–drove us to the airport and everything. Of course, I freaked out on the drive over because I had just discovered that my passport was expired…


Everything worked out (somehow) but when we arrived at the resort, it was NOT what we expected.


The other people staying there were soooo old. I’m talking about a grandparents-with-canes kinda situation. Every single person was over the age of 45, but MOST were over 60. We looked so out of place because we were the only guests who didn't have grey hair and receding hairlines...


That's definitely the reason my dad agreed to give us a trip...well played.


So for the first day, we decided to relax, enjoy the weather, and take in all of the old women laying topless.


Day 2: Me and My Machete

just me, my friends, and a machete

We went alllll over Barbados.


The resort set us up with a tour guide, who charged us an obscene amount, but it was so cool to see the island.


Our guide, Rafa, took us to see these amazing cliffs on scenic routes all over the island.


Compliments of Rafa, my favorite song from the drive was:



Then Rafa pulled up to this little stand on the side of the road with fresh fruit and said this was where we could get the best drinks on the island.

The man at the stand handed Tessa a whole coconut, me a machete, and said, "have at it.”


Day 3: The Creepy Fiancé


As I mentioned earlier, the people staying at our resort were soooo old. This meant that my dream of finding a hot, island boyfriend was crushed early on because my dad literally arranged for us to stay at a senior home...


Well on the third day, Tessa, Kait, and I were playing pool volleyball when this weird man approached us.


*Disclaimer: for this story, he will be referred to as Oliver*


Oliver asked to join our game, and we figured it would be better to have four, so we said yes.

There's Oliver in our group pic, second from right

After we played for twenty minutes, Oliver got all excited and proposed that we all go snorkeling.


The only reason we agreed was because I knew the resort offered it for free.


At that point, we knew nothing about him, other than the fact that he was a middle-aged man staying at the resort with... ?


We had no clue who.


As we're floating in the water about to take a picture (per Oliver's request) I asked him if he came to Barbados alone.

Oliver looked at me and smiled, "Oh no! I'm here with my fiancé, she's back at the resort."

Why the fuck would you leave your fiancé at the resort to run off with three twenty-year-olds?


Well I obviously knew the answer and it wasn't good, so after our snorkeling excursion, we stayed far far away from Oliver for the rest of our trip.



Day 4: Street Karaoke


By now, we were more than halfway through our trip and wanted to do something fun.


We heard from Rafa that street karaoke was going on downtown because it was apparently a Wednesday night ritual.


Our choices were either: join shuffleboard with the old folks, or aimlessly walk the streets of Barbados looking for karaoke that may or may not exist.


Naturally, we chose option B.


Very quickly into our walk, a van with tinted windows approached us. The driver rolled down his window and asked where we were headed.

street karaoke crew

I know what you're thinking–haven't I seen any movie where a sketchy man in a sketchy van approaches young girls and kidnaps them? Yes, I have.


I mean, he told us he was a taxi driver, and for whatever reason, I believed him enough to get into the van.

P.S. he really was.


Before we got out, Ricky-the-taxi-driver offered to be our driver for the rest of the week. I accepted, obviously.


Karaoke was definitely a 'locals only' thing, and it was clear we were tourists.


Not like that stopped the three of us from singing a song from the Mama Mia soundtrack.


After we sang (quite poorly), a man approached us. He basically told us that he was a promoter for a bar down the street, and wanted us to check it out. This man, let's call him Calvin, was with two friends. One girl was a model and the other man was another promoter.


It goes without saying that we drank for free for the remainder of our trip, and enjoyed the pool at the model's villa...



Day 5: The Pool Boy


Yes, we were at a senior home.


However, there was one thing my dad couldn't plan for: cute workers.

me - 'Marcus' - Tess - 'Chris' - Kait

From the first moment we arrived, we couldn't help but notice that there were two cute workers.

How could we not notice them??? Everyone else had dentures...

So whenever we were at the resort we hung out with, hmm, let's call them Marcus and Chris.


We could tell they were as entertained with us as we were with them, so the five of us spent a lot of time together. It was honestly great because Marcus (on my right) got paid to play games with us. It was a lot of table tennis, pool volleyball, and avoiding Oliver.


Chris (on Kait's left) was a manager but spent all of his time trying to talk to Kait.


He was definitely saddest to see her leave.

 

Although I only disclosed the PG version of the trip, Barbados was such a fun week.


I 10/10 recommend hitting up every possible church auction until you win a trip.


The only recommendation I have is, if you do win from a church auction, make sure to bring your shuffleboard shoes.

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