The only critical disappointment I’ve suffered at this hotel is that I am reminded again and again that I am not 21 years old! Naturally this is no fault of the hotel.  For example I have always mistrusted valet parking. I am just too obsessed with my cars. Today after I ignored the attendant at the lobby entrance sufficiently to signify my contempt for valet service, and after the bags had been dislodged from the trunk, I circled around the entrance and headed to the parking areas past those marked “valet parking “. It wasn’t a great distance but I nonetheless soon discovered that, although the parking wasn’t far from where I parked last time we were here, the walk back to the entrance with my stick up the hill was killing!

After we reached the room – about another 5,000 miles away – I was on the edge of exhaustion. Then the crawl to the pool and having to address the chaise longue which was so low to the ground it may as well have been a grass mat.  And this doesn’t begin to address the subsequent discomfort of having to scratch my way upright to get to the pool where, as I began my perilous descent down the stairs into the Roman-style pool, a chap who had materialized next to me uttered, “Take it easy, fella!”  I didn’t have the strength to look at him! I would as soon have struck him!

I interrupted my later struggle down the steps (with no handrails) into the sea after my swim in the pool with a relieving hot tub submersion which honestly appeared to help my aching limbs.

These painful accounts speak to my overall lack of athleticism.  I am increasingly having to confront the indisputable reality of decrepitude (which by the way was how I described myself when responding to the bubbly stewards upon collecting a beach towel today).

Things did however improve when we dined at the elevated open air restaurant overlooking the bay and the setting sun.  The meal was superb – fresh and local fish.  And Key Lime pie which I take as a matter of course here!  Nor was I disappointed in my custom.