…except not. As I write this, I keep hearing (I think) country singer Phil Vasser singing “Just Another Day In Paradise.” The Paradise Resort hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that is. We’d stayed there in 2024, and my wife enjoyed the facility particularly because she could park on the same floor as our room if we stayed on either the 2nd, third, or fourth floors. This is easy to do during the relatively low-occupancy Christmas period, so I opted to book the same hotel again thinking it would be better than some unknown property that might give me variable results. All was well until… well let me set the scene first.

Before I get into the meat of it, I should say that at no point were we in any real danger. Everything was fine as things unfolded, at least with regard to our physical safety.

Ok, so we’ve sort of established a routine for our Myrtle Beach Christmas vacations as this is our third: day one, arrive, walk along the ocean, eat at Olive Garden, buy snacks. Day two, wake, have a leisurely breakfast (preferably at Hot Stacks Pancakes though this year they were closed so we had to do Waffle House), walk along the ocean, eat at Paula Deens Family Kitchen for dinner. Day three, (usually Christmas) wake, have a light in-room breakfast, watch TV and speak with family for a while, walk the ocean, pick up food at IHOP then bring it back to the room for eating. (You can only eat out so many times right?)

So we had just wound up the last of those activities, and she was headed in to start preparing to call it a night. As she made her way into the bathroom, I settled into the somewhat squeaky couch to enjoy some of my audiobook. Suddenly, I hear… really? An alarm? The funny part is that earlier that day, my wife had played a video clip of some kind of siren that made me jump and stand, ready to evacuate the room thinking it might be the fire alarm. So perhaps I couldn’t be blamed for doubting the veracity of this new sound, even as I again stood and positioned myself for a quick getaway. A voice then came over what I assume is an ingrained PA system informing us that “the fire alarm has been triggered. You must evacuate the building.”

My wife, rapidly re-dressing, scampered over to me and told me to grab my Mantis braille display and jacket. She said she also got her purse and phone. And I’m happy we did, because we discovered on entering the hall that it was not fire, thank goodness for that, but water sounding like the ocean was gushing full-force down the hall and already entering many of the second floor rooms. As it turns out, a pipe had burst in the housekeeping area.

‘What the…” she said as we made our way pel mel to the second floor exit.

As we tore up and down ramps trying to work out the best approach, I guess because of the stress my heart rate accelerated nerve-wrackingly. So I took a grateful seat in the car and tried to breathe deeply and relax as she made her sloshing way back inside to retrieve as much of our stuff as possible. It didn’t take me long to get back under control, but man I’m way too far out of shape as I’ve already sort of discovered in just taking those brisk walks along the sea. I know I gotta start moving more.

Anyhow, I asked her to as soon as possible help me find some water, and happily sucked on a bottle once it became available. We managed to get pretty much everything out of the room, but much of it was soaked as we had it on the floor near or just inside of the nightstands. There were not many suitable places to place luggage, as these units are usually owned by individuals who can decide what is or isn’t inside of them. Fortunately, the only thing of real concern I would have lost besides my electronic equipment, which I already had, would have been my medicine. It was mostly just a giant aggravation.

After sloshing in there a couple more times to retrieve whatever else we could grab, as they had already started sucking out as much water as they could as quickly as possible, we entered the check-in area to see what we would have to do. We had to wait a while as they scrambled to find available rooms to put us all. My wife said one man in particular was doing most of the work, fielding phone calls, dealing with unhappy customers, and beginning to turn red from the strain. Once we got our turn, we were placed in a room on the seventh floor. Luckily, her sister had also come to the beach and helped us steer a cart with our sodden stuff onto the elevator and up to that new room. It was nicer, with better furniture and an actual bedroom, instead of the room with a bed we pass through on the way to the ocean-facing living room in back. At this point though, we barely cared about the upgraded surroundings. We took a little while to eat snacks, try and relax some, and again! Finally! Headed for bed. Yes, I was glad to return home after that.

So that was my wacky Christmas Day at the beach, about which we will likely be talking for years. I did receive about 20% off in compensation, though surprisingly there has been little communication from the property as this all unfolded. All they said during its happening is that “a leak” had caused the WiFi to be shut down. A leak sounds like nothing, and as we noted if I’d seen that while we were, say, at a restaurant, we would not have known that we needed to hustle over there and get our stuff. Interesting. Ah well, thankfully all is well that ends well and we only lost a couple of easily-replaceable things. Till my next travel adventure.