HAMILTON ISLAND – WAS IT JUST A DREAM??

I can’t believe it’s already over, another fabulous incentive trip is done for this year (and Fiji will be just as good, if not better next year!). 

I know a lot of the Aussie demos have been updating while we were at Hamilton Island, but us “out of country” folk didn’t take our laptops with us, so we had to wait until we got back, and then we had to wait 2 more days until we could finally find the camera and upload photos!!!  I had to use my son’s camera on trip as mine was scratched, so the photos aren’t fabulous, but hopefully you can see how amazing this trip was anyway.

DAY 1
We checked in to our hotel and the 13th floor turned out not to be unlucky for us, because look at the view from our room:

 

Tonight everyone on trip got to have a nice dinner just 5 minutes walk from our hotel.  By 11pm local time, Harry and I were just about dead – we had been up for 22 hours by that time and had only had 4 hours sleep the night before, so we decided to head back to the hotel a little earlier than most of the others.  Wouldn’t you know that this was the only time that it rained while we were on the island, and not only rained, but POURED!  Harry and I got back to the hotel looking like drowned rats where we tried to sneak in without seeing anyone and met Jacqui at the elevators (I’m sure glad she didn’t have a camera on her!)

DAY 2
Today was certainly not forgetful anyway – we spent a long 2 hours on a boat going out to the reef (lots of us were very sick with the 2 mtr swells)!  It was fun while we were on the pontoon and Harry got to go snorkelling and hang with the fish while I hung with the girls and caught up on what they have been up to since convention.  Unfortunately we then had to do another 2 hours back in the boat before we hit dry land again …

 
I “borrowed” this photo and the one below from my lovely friend, Claire Daly

DAY 3
All us “girls” got to spend the morning doing make n’ takes with some awesome new products out of the upcoming mini (believe me, you had better start saving now – it’s incredible!!!).   We got to swap cards as well, so when I figure out my camera tomorrow I’ll have to start sharing some of the amazing creations that I got from my fellow demos.  What a super talented bunch of ladies!!


I’m not sure what started the picture taking, but it seemed to go forever and ever with lots of variations (colour, upline/downline, country, and whatever!!) 

In the afternoon Harry and I spent time just wandering the island and checking out things.  The great thing about being on incentive trip is the relationships, so we were always running into other demos and stopping for a coffee, chat, or a glass of wine.  It’s just the most amazing thing how amazing these ladies are, they are so willing to share their talents and offer their business expertise with everyone else, just an incredible group to be included in. 

DAY 4

The last afternoon we were put into teams of 4 and given a list of 25 questions and a golf cart and sent out driving the island for the next 2 hours looking for answers!  Harry and I were teamed with Jayne Mercer and her hubby Gareth.  It was lots of fun and the really awesome thing was that we kept being given gifts of SU product at lots of the stops (I got designer paper, cardstock, ink pads, and even a brand new stamp set that won’t be released here until December 1st!!)  Talk about generous, Stampin’ Up! certainly pulled out all the stops on this trip with all the “extras” …

Speaking of generous, how about this for super incredible!  We had an amazing farewell dinner at the Yacht Club on the last night where I was stunned to hear that I had won this Flip video camera (it is the size of an iphone!).  For those of you who know Harry and I, you know that Harry wins everything and I never do, so this was super exciting for me.  Harry got pretty excited about this as well – in fact Shelli even said “Harry – I’ve never seen you so excited!”!  Don’t worry about Harry feeling left out, he found out he had won $300 in grocery vouchers the day after we got home, so he’s still way ahead of me in the number of things he wins (my gift is just way cuter!)


Just when you think they couldn’t possibly give us anything more, we get back to our rooms to find these amazing bags (in one of my favourite colours as well!)  We had been given the matching clutch earlier in the trip.  Needless to say, there were an awful lot of these bags at the airport the next morning!! 

DAY 4

The last morning we decided to have breakfast with the Koalas.  While that might not excite the Aussie demos, we thought it was pretty cool, although this little fellow was keeping a close eye on us the whole time …

Each day we got to “spin” for product.  So I was sent home with lots of designer paper, a Versamarker, and some yummy accessories from the upcoming mini.  It’s amazing.  The really great thing for Harry was that Stampin Up! always bring lots of American candy (lollies for us non-Yanks) with them, so each day we would sit down in the hospitality suite with whoever happened to be there at the time and have a chat and a laugh.   I’m convinced all the world’s problems could be solved if everyone would just sit down and chat over chocolate!!

Of course it eventually had to come to an end, and there was lots of sad farewells and hugs before we all headed off towards our homes, more determined that we are going to be going to Fiji next year for another amazing trip courtesy of Stampin’ Up!


Another “borrowed” photo from Claire – doesn’t she take fabulous photos?  I’m hoping that since I bought a new camera like Claire’s on my way back through Aussie, that my photos might start looking more like hers … I can hope anyway!!

Sorry this has been such a long post, but there was just so many amazing things to share that I didn’t want to leave anything out!  Anyway, I really need to get to bed, so I’ll share some more tomorrow.