ABOUT BONJOUR....

Initially, some friends and I were going to Bonjour just to see what it was all about.  We liked the idea of partying on an island because it seems that the soca community had outgrown the majority of venues on the mainland.  Then boom, the team gets an official invitation to attend.  How can we NOT go?

So yeah.... This is me publicly saying that I am a proud member of the SocaDemons but that in itself is another blog.

The big day gets here. The plan was on getting down to the docks for 1 am.  This was when the shuttles were to start shuttling people over to the island.  Knowing my people the way I do, I agreed to 1am expecting it to be 2am.  As expected, we got to the shuttle line at exactly 1:43. The amount of people waiting to get a shuttle ride was ridiculous. After asking security, I found out why.  The shuttle held 12 people at a time. There were over 200 people waiting and the line just wasn't moving.  The panic set in when we started to see that we were sinking.  The water started to come on the platform that we were on and everyone started to make noise and move closer toward the middle.  Just after this we made it to the front but then heard an announcement at 2:17am.  The announcement was that if you had a a physical or electronic ticket, we could get our tickets scanned and walk over. After leaving that line and reaching to the front, we were then told (at 2:19) that we had a cabana and those in cabanas were actually NOT allowed to walk over and had to get back in the line that we just left.

TALK BOUT PISSED!

At this point, the people who have now moved up would not want to hear that a team of our size were now coming to skip them, so it was to the back of the line we had to go.  Now, some of the team weren't registered as being in the cabana, so they elected to walk as it would be a 10 minute walk.  We made it back to the front of the line where we got drinking cups, meal chits and cabana wristbands.  The time was now 2:23.

We got on the boat FINALLY and I happened to watch the time.  It was now 3:10am.  So in total, we waited approximately an hour and a half to get into this party.  The saving grace at this point was that the party was not going to be over at the normal 4am and we still had a significant amount of time to enjoy ourselves.

So, after making it to the island, we found the rest of the team, got the cabana and bottles.  This was done fairly easy and quickly.  The part of our team who walked over saw our drinking cups and wanted to know where we got them. Appararently those who didn't wait, never got cups or meal chits when they entered the party which I didn't find to be fair at all.  Although they didn't wait as long as we, they still paid their money but that was not my position so I continued to mind my business.

I won't get into the how's or why's but I had about 8 meal chits.  All of you ( friends and loyal readers) know that I'm always about my belly so the second order of business was to get food.  I asked which booth honored the meal chit and I was directed to Soca Ranch.  When you got to Soca Ranch's booth, there was a menu that I forgot to take a picture of.  There was bake, buljol, tomato choka, bhaji, eggs, turkey bacon and ham. Again, because I think of only my belly at times I didn't think to capture photos until we were already eating but everything tasted great.  I appreciate that the eggs weren't just scrambled but had sweet peppers in it just as if you'd make at home.  It made me feel like they actually cared about what they were giving people to eat and not just giving food to us to say they fed us.  The turkey sausage was actually the only thing I didn't care for and that's just a personal preference.

Since we're on the food, I can say that I went back multiple times. No questions asked.  Once I gave my chit, I got how much ever I wanted. When I went for my last sets of food (I wasn't only feeding myself, others who walked over were able to eat off those meal chits. I'm not THAT greedy) I noticed the time.  It was around 6:30am.  On the way, I rememer thinking that nah.....the food would be finished but no.  They still had food serving.  They were properly prepared for the amount of people coming, the staff changed a little with each visit but Camilla and her huband Jerrod were always there.  They served with smiles and had slight humor.  It was a pleasure.

I can't speak on each DJ separately as the blog would be too long but the music was good and I enjoyed every bit of that fete.  As promised, the fete finished well after the sun raised and I want to believe it was around 8am.  What more could a party pyoung want? I think they did an amazing job.

Click HERE for one of my live videos.

The ONLY changes I would make would be to get at least 3 shuttles.  The amount of people waiting for that shuttle service was overbearing and I may add not pleasant to we short people who's noses are right at people's armpits.  In the future, something should be put in place on the island for cabana ticketed people and have the same things distributed to those who choose to walk ie: drinking cups and meal chits.  The crowd was a little younger than I'm used to partying with BUT it worked (for me) because there was enough space for everyone to have their own space (excluding the cabana areas) and once your team is ready to fete, how can you not have a good time.

How good of a time do you think we had? A pair of shoes were lost. Not a shoe was lost. Not a shoe got broken or destroyed but A PAIR OF SHOES were lost.  Would I do this party again. HELL YES!

And a special shout out to Sinistar for inviting us. I will be back!

It would be even MORE AMAZING if you gave me a call.  I THINK YOU FOUND MY KEYS!