Jan 1st

January 1st 2017!

Happy New Year :)

After having a wonderful celebrations on the island, and having a wonderful year ending, I was informed that out of our 5 boats only 1 was still operational, but no worries, 3 more boats can be easily be operational when we get the spare parts the next day.

Thanks to Murphy and his law, the last boat lost one of its two engines! so instead of getting on and off the island in 15min , the trip takes you like 50min now!

It is 6pm, no one is available to rent you a boat and the island is full! I am sure you are familiar with the hop on/hopp off bus in the cities, well we have almost a similar concept as a catamaran in Abu Dhabi. Called their operation manager for help, he was amazing sending me one, meanwhile the guests had waited for an hour now on the island waiting to go back to the city! I can say, after offering them some drinks in our Mexican restaurant, all were fine, except a couple, in flip-flops and beach bag, which is normal, claiming they have a flight to catch, and threatening by "TripAdvisor" of course.

The Catamaran is here, it was supposed to operate for two hours that will be enough for my boat mechanic to fix the recently failed engine. 40 guests went on board of the catamaran, some felt like escaping Alcatraz, although with such a lovely weather and a delicious free margaritas the wait was not that bad, but it is their right and I accept that.

I was relaxed, until the catamaran captain called and said that he has to go back to port due to low tide that had just happened!!! what!!!??? when, how!? well this is the "island life" and you have to deal with it. Pressed my boat mechanic to fix the boat asap, so for almost 30 min, the island had only a small jet boat to be used in case of an emergency. At that moment I inserted as speed dial the coast guard number into my cell phone.

4 guests still to depart, 30 min delay, the boat is back into the water with two engines, Hallelujah, well not yet, after 10 meters, the second engine had stopped again! I asked them to continue with one engine, luckily my mechanic was also on board, by the time I was waiting for it on the jetty, I could finally see a roaring speeding boat coming towards me, with two engines fully operational. How? It was a lose connection that was fixed on the way.

Guests were more than superstars, totally relaxed, patients and understanding. I invited them back to the island whenever they want, and things all went back to "normal" waiting for he next day.

A.M

Decoration

As I have mentioned, our villas are magical, you have the bed, the private swimming pool and the beach all aligned! So this can be a theater to a wild imagination, especially from our guests!

"Happy Birthday" was written of a 7 stories cake coming out from our boat carried by 4 Filipinos representing the decoration company and then came the "lady" our guest with 10 pieces of luggage for a one night stay!

DND card was put during the whole day and her "other half" joined in the villa early evening.

Check-out day, the guest asked for a buggy to take them to the reception, and I was called by my housekeeping hosts. Entered the room, and other than the parrots, or love birds, other than the red and white textiles covering most the villa's walls and surface, other than the two meters Happy Birthday banner, other than the thousands of petals of roses spread on the floor and all over, I saw two big red "chandeliers" hanging from the ceiling!!! something that I assure you we don't have!

Called the lady guest back to the villa to ask how did she drill and hanged these things in my villa, the guest was upset, mentioning that she paid for the villa so she can do whatever she wants in it.

Lesson learned, guests can have extended versions of "Guest is King" or Queen in this case.

I asked her to pay for all the damages caused, we had to close the drilling holes and repaint the ceiling. The guest was not "Happy" but I am sure her memories of the evening were.

A.M

Barbecue!

As an island resort, all guests have private villas, with private pools and beach access. So it is heaven for many travelers especially couples "in love".
So a beautiful couple asked to have a private barbecue on the beach, a service we gladly provide, a new host (we call our staff by hosts), was sent to the villa, with the barbecue and the charcoal, he did an amazing job to lit it up and took the order from the guests: steaks and jumbo shrimps.

I have to mention that this has happened maybe 2 weeks after I started... our beautiful couple asked to see the GM, so I gladly presented myself, and to both of our surprise, the guests and especially mine, our dedicated host, came back with the steak and he jumbo shrimps already cooked!!!

So here I was, almost laughing in front of an "upset" guests, actually they were cool enough to laugh to the situation too, wondering why did he bother to take 20 min to lit the coal THEN bring the food already cooked in our kitchen!

And that was my first lesson that an island is different than an regular hotel, this host was never trained, or couldn't imagine to serve raw food to the guests, he insisted on cooking it as any normal "room service" would do.

So although I offered to bring them again "raw" food to be barbecued, they decided not too, so we put the cooked meat and seafood on the barbecue grill,  just for a moment to take a nice picture and "fake" a real barbecuing with a magical Arabian sea background.

A.M

Introduction

I have been an Hotelier for more than 20 years now.
I was offered a job as GM (General Manager) in a beautiful island resort in Abu Dhabi.
This job was a dream come true, but, there is always a but, the island needed lots of "organization" and "revamping", without knowing what was really awaiting for me, I gladly accepted the challenge :)
Until I realized, that my work/life became like a a strange Tim Burton movie with a hint of Mary Poppins and a splash of Tarantino's Pulp fiction.

So came the idea of this blog, after 9 months on the job where I highlight some of the downs and ups of a Hotelier and especially of a GM...Hope you will enjoy the ride.

A.M