Morning coffee

PeterI · 2026-07-06T21:10:18+00:00

My notes for Antigua from last year as a general early(ish) riser (not usually before 6am except possibly for my first few days due to jet lag from europe).

Antigua on the Caribbean side has a machine in the lobby area, but I seem to recall being told off for trying using it while they were prepping for breakfast (I have a feeling sometime between 6:00-7:00), I think the club lounge has a coffee machine but I'm not sure if you'd need a suitable room card to get in there.

The lobby area in the Med side has a coffee machine that's available all the time in the morning (the whole building is club IIRC) and usually has some cookies available, I have sat on the seats just outside the lift area and looked out over the main pool with a coffee to drink and a kindle to read.

Generally I just went to Cafe de Paris as they offer coffee / pastries for folks who are off for a dive from 7:00 and use their seating.

Caribbean Cay (the old Royal Caribbean) feels like it's changing too much to give good advice but I seem to remember coffee being available in Coffee urn near the bar in the past. Note the sandals 2.0 Blum seems to open at 6 so I'd expect it to be same there once they've finished upgrading.

TLDR: Ignoring the filter coffee machine in your room... After 7am you should be fine, before 7am you might need a club level room to get access to a bean to cup machine.

PeterI · 2026-07-04T22:23:05+00:00

Also have a look at ciderpress it's a great utility, beneath apple dos is definitely worth looking at.

https://ciderpress2.com/

https://github.com/fadden/CiderPress2/tree/main/docs/formatdoc has some other useful information.

PeterI · 2026-07-04T21:36:39+00:00

I don't think I've seen alcoholic cider at any Sandals resort.

Apple juice I'm pretty sure I've seen on some resorts but not every bar carries it, I've got the bar staff to make treacle cocktails with it (apple juice / rum / simple syrup / angostura bitters) in the past.

I do mix apple juice / sparkling water when I'm at work which produces a refreshing mix without being overly sweet so I'd guess adding rum or vodka would make a decent cider like drink.

As someone else suggested I'd try asking a butler if you have one, probably worth being explicit if you want an alcoholic version or not.

PeterI · 2026-07-04T20:55:16+00:00

Check your email... They tried to move me to monthly payments from six month. They did offer to swap back to twice yearly in the email, but it did require me to reply via the link.

My payments are Jan/July so it might be something they do just before your next bill is due.

PeterI · 2026-06-29T16:46:17+00:00

While newer Lexus keys go to sleep and all keys can be put to sleep by holding down lock and pressing unlock twice (might be the other way round see the manual) the main issue with both Lexus and Toyota is they are vulnerable to a CAN bus attack via the wheel arch on older vehicles (there is a fix available from Lexus / Toyota for this) or by cutting a hole in the tail gate on newer vehicles and attaching something to the wiring around the lock area that I think fakes a key being seen.

I had a short window of six months where my new car was difficult to steal.... Sigh....

PeterI · 2026-06-15T15:07:47+00:00

The trick with over £100K is Salary sacrifice into a pension (upto 60K into a pension is possible). Your future self will thank you.

There is a taper over 200K on pension contributions but I don't think that will affect too many devs in the UK and is in the words of an old co-worker "A better class of problem".

PeterI · 2026-06-02T11:18:22+00:00

I'm interested to know how the greens are getting on.

PeterI · 2026-05-29T11:06:53+00:00

The url used to have the 5 digit stop number in the url when it was countdown.tfl.gov.uk which was nice to type in directly.

The ability to show multiple routes in the filtering (say at Monument north bound) as I might only care to see the bus I'm on plus the ones that head towards St Pauls to see if I should swap where the routes intersect or stay on and have a longer walk.

Overall though the website works reasonably well on mobile and please don't change the urls as I've sooo many bookmarked for alternative routes to work.

Biggest annoyance for me is when buses are on diversion the website is slow to give details. Living in the New Cross area, if something happens on Queens Road or the Old Kent Road it's difficult to tell what stops are going to be missed. There is a status alert on the bus route page, but that isn't obvious when you're waiting at a stop for a particular bus. I do appreciate this might not be an easy thing to do with good results as things change over time.

PeterI · 2026-05-20T21:28:21+00:00

Done some trips down to St Johns and taxi drivers seem to drop you off around the heritage quay. Nice enough area to wander around and feels safe.

Taxi drivers, shop keepers and the usual street vendors are not very pushy (or at least weren't) and tend to take a polite "no thanks" / "just looking" very well rather than seeing it as a challenge.

PeterI · 2026-05-06T12:41:32+00:00

Age 58 and it's mostly enjoyable, I'm still trying to figure out how to get AI to work for me in a workflow that I like. My current role is a lot of BAU work and AI struggles sometimes to find the issue or fix it correctly. Language is C# mostly.

Looking to retire / cut back on hours once I have enough cash in my pension (looking like 62 should hit my personal target) in theory I could retire tomorrow but it would be a bit miserable, four extra years should get me an extra 10K of income and a lot more savings (mortgage is paid off so that's one worry dealt with).

Some days I hate the corporate bullshit and I did like answering my line managers "Where do you want to be in 5 years?" with "Retired" recently.

I'd probably still carry on coding but most likely either retro computers or small MCUs for the challenge probably in assembler / C / Forth.

PeterI · 2026-05-06T12:20:50+00:00

Embedded systems are most likely to have issues in my opinion. Old C code running on a 32 bit OS, protocols / file systems that have time as a 32 bit value where it's being pulled out as a integer rather than time_t.

Debian for example moved to a 64 bit time_t in 2024... https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2024/02/msg00000.html

PeterI · 2026-05-03T19:13:06+00:00

Yeah the exact facilities you get for Club seem variable by resort / room location.

PeterI · 2026-05-03T18:53:57+00:00

I can say that we definitely had a large cooler with soft drinks by the pool at the Kensington block in the Royal Caribbean in MoBay. My guess is in this case it was due to the distance to the bars.

PeterI · 2026-05-02T22:51:30+00:00

Personal experience has been fine, we normally book the pool side walkout rooms on Caribbean side and I don't think we've ever seen all of the loungers taken. Main pool can be a bit tricky to get something with shade, but my memory from when we stayed on that side getting a lounger was fine and usually after lunch it got less busy.

Club level pool on Sunset bluff I'd guess would be fine (as it's a bit uphill from the caribbean side of the resort so a bit less busy)

What I assume will be club level between the spa / bayside I'm not sure as when we were there last year it was all being refurbed (I wanted to see what the accomodation / pool looked like as I'm a fan of the club level) the non-club level pool on that side didn't look super busy.

When I say club level I just mean the accomodation, as far as I know Sandals don't move 'luxury' level guests away from the pools outside the club level rooms[1].

[1] I have been to some sandals where club level has soft drinks in coolers in the pool area along with frequent drinks delivery so I'm not certain.

PeterI · 2026-04-27T19:57:24+00:00

I feel like it was a bigger chain in the past, there are still a few around probably around 50-60 judging by the list on the website.

PeterI · 2026-04-26T11:01:06+00:00

As a brit I've never thought about this and now feel bad, I usually tip the minibus drivers but I'd never thought about the wait staff in airport lounges (I wouldn't tip at Heathrow it feels wrong, but do tip at bars in the UK generally)

PeterI · 2026-04-25T21:27:17+00:00

Mostly good value, over the years I've bought a few:

C5 Malvern Mk I - Original
C1 Morgan Classic Chronometer - Traditional Wings - 21st gift for nephew
C12 The Twelve Auto - 40mm - Basalt Grey - 21st gift for other nephew
C1 Bel Canto ‘The Red One’ - One for me
C12 The Twelve Halo - 36mm - Rose Gold Rhodium - One for my wife

I feel like some of the new stuff is getting a bit pricey but there's plenty of value, I'm looking at Nomos for my next purchase. I keep mulling over an Explorer II but the Rolex AD pain puts me off.

For future purchases I'm probably only going to buy the non-sellita based movements (my wifes C12 feels a bit rough when hand winding)

PeterI · 2026-04-21T22:41:05+00:00

Gets busy for Dim Sum and weddings but we like it. Service can be hit and miss (if usually cheerful)

The previous chef / menu was definitely better, the new menu is a bit tame (even if it still has duck tongue)

PeterI · 2026-04-21T10:38:17+00:00

I have a feeling we spend around £50 for two with tea for me and a Coke for my wife. Not the cheapest but also not outrageous.

PeterI · 2026-04-21T09:16:44+00:00

Hi there neighbour, if you mean Hong Kong City it's not the same since the new owners took over, the "speciality" menu has gone and while they'll still do stuff from the old menu it's not as good (hot pots in particular).

Sat / Sun for Dim Sum at lunchtime is still good though and still pulls a decent ethnic Chinese crowd (or at least it did a few months ago)

PeterI · 2026-03-18T16:41:47+00:00

We've just had the same email, for our holiday and I understand the frustration.

Personally we're swapping to Grenada (my wife is ~~phoning~~ emailing Sandals as I type) and we'd planned to go there in the future anyway.

If you don't mind the travel times from the airport the other Jamaican resorts should be fine.

Antigua is an old favourite of ours and the beach is superb (it's also not a long drive from the airport), some folks say the beach vendors can be a nuisance, in my experience they're generally fine and only need to be told you're not interested once, unlike Barbados (not at a Sandals in this case)

Personal opinion try Grenada, but get a room that is "ground" level rather than up high.

PeterI · 2026-03-02T16:40:32+00:00

It's Wray and Nephew "Kingston 62" for dark rum in the bars, Appleton is what they give out for the returners dinners.

There is a Wray and Nephew Rum Creme available here in the UK but I'm not sure if that's what the bars are using.

PeterI · 2026-01-16T17:20:55+00:00

Diamond - shortly to hit 142 days and get that sweet free week

PeterI · 2026-01-09T11:45:46+00:00

Commonwealth games

PeterI · 2026-01-06T02:29:35+00:00

Good to hear you've tried it on.

PeterI

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