From The Dark Side (Literally)

[♥ COVID-19♥]

For those of you interested in this sort of thing: checked in to H2 around noon Wednesday and all appeared OK as far as I could tell. However, for most of the past two days, there has been NO ELECTRICITY in either all or some of the resort (think Rolling Blackout?). Right now, none of the rooms have any electricity; staff have put lit candles in the rooms; the main dining room & lobby do have electricity (for now, anyway), which is how I'm able to post. As I type this in the Internet Cafe, there is some guy in the lobby behind me screaming his head off at the girls working the front desk. While this won't do much good (aside from the satisfaction of venting), I and many others here are similarly frustrated.

Since I've been here, the place has been fairly empty, but many of the NYE regulars have been slowly arriving in dribs & drabs. Spoke to Scumba the other night (he was working the main bar) and he informed me that the crush of NYE guests will be arriving this weekend, so I'm expecting it to be packed either tomorrow or by Sunday at the latest. Will they have the electricity issue fixed by then? Will it be fixed by NYE? As the Spanish say, "Quien sabe".

Kevin Levee has been very visible around the place all day and night running around on his cell phone and holding stand-up meetings with staff at various locations; he seems pretty stressed out right about now, if you ask me. Last night, power was restored around 6:45PM or so, then went out again about 15 min. later, then came on about 7:30 and remained on the rest of the night and well into this morning when it went out again mid to late morning.

On a more positive note, plenty of towels and bananas.

OY!

[Ardbeg... innit]

So the trade off seems to be electricity versus towels/bananas... an interesting quandary

[Tex]

When will they get electricity in Jamaica? You write very well in English. Do you write in English at home?

Beeb is at Hedo so that means it's almost New Years. Have a good time "down there" Beeb.

[Merlot Joe]

They need to stop trying to run the place off of two old car batteries.

Beeb did they say what is causing the power outagage?

[Ardbeg... innit]

I bet one of the bar blenders is overloading the main.

[Tex]

We haven't heard from Beeb lately. He either found some action "down there", ate a brownie, or the electricity problems got worse.

[Ardbeg... innit]

Probably busy trying to find a way to compound the electrical problem into an electrical/septic problem

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Jan 2, 2013 10:30:45 GMT -6 Tex said:

We haven't heard from Beeb lately. He either found some action "down there", ate a brownie, or the electricity problems got worse.

Thank you all for playing our little game of "How Do You Keep An Idiot In Suspense?" Your consolation prize of an updated Mayan calendar is in the mail and soon come.

Got back shortly before midnight last night (made excellent time) and I'll try to fill-in the blanks about what happened while simultaneously updating my blog with lotsa new stuff and enjoying my usual post-vacation celebration of Laundry Day (while sneaking in some football watching somewhere along the way).

[Tex]

Welcome back.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Dec 29, 2012 10:18:37 GMT -6 Merlot Joe said:

They need to stop trying to run the place off of two old car batteries.

Beeb did they say what is causing the power outagage?

The best answer I could get from one of the employees was that a transformer went and it took many hours to resolve the issue -- proved by the fact that they thought they had it licked Thursday night only to see it go out again the next morning, as I stated.

About 15 minutes after my original post in this thread, the power went out again in both the lobby & main dining room; the outage there only lasted about 5 minutes before being restored -- but to those locations ONLY ... all of the rooms remained without electricity.

Exhausted, I eventually returned to my room about 8:30 and plopped myself down on the bed; the only light in the room was from the lit candle left by housekeeping. About 5 minutes later, I heard a familiar "click" sound and felt the cool breeze of the air conditioner. I checked the lights and found that the power was back, so I immediately shaved, showered and shampooed with an alacrity that would've rivaled Usain Bolt; not knowing when/if we would lose juice again, I wanted to seize the opportunity while it was available.

Once the power was restored Friday night, it remained on throughout the remainder of my stay, thankfully.

BTW, regarding those candles I mentioned ... the candles were the same ones that they use on the tables at night during dinner. However, they had to use so many of them at various places around the resort that they eventually ran out and were forced to use citronella candles instead of the regular ones. It kept the bugs away, but the bar kinda reeked. Also, when the power returned Thursday night, they were apparently a bit overly optimistic -- housekeeping immediately came to my room and took back the candle, only to be forced to return it the very next day. This time, however, when they left the candles in the room on Friday, they left TWO -- one lit, the other not ... and they also left a book of matches as well (insert your pun about once burned twice shy). Once the power came back permanently, they were not so quick to take back the candles. Learned their lesson this time, I take it.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Jan 5, 2013 10:23:52 GMT -6 Tex said:

Welcome back.

Gesundheit.

[Merlot Joe]

Lucky with all of those candles they didn't burn the place down.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

They had so many candles lined up all throughout, it looked like the front of a church.

[Exildo Wonsetler Briggs III]

Sounds like the Hedo of old!! I miss the old place, when there were candles in the room for all those times the power went out. It made for a fun week!

[♥ COVID-19♥]

If it had been for one day only, I guess people would've been less ill-humored about it. Then again, maybe not -- we're all older now and have gotten more spoiled and us geezers are less willing to put up with such inconveniences in our old age. Add to this the timing: (a) a holiday period with people paying premium prices and (b) the sale of the place where one of the parties involved (Levee, the GM) was present and visible. Maybe not so much fun. Perhaps the place is being sold just in the nick of time.

[Chicago Jake]

Jan 5, 2013 17:16:38 GMT -6 ♥ COVID-19♥ said:

They had so many candles lined up all throughout, it looked like the front of a church.

Or a Sting video.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

BTW, in the last post I made to my blog before I went on vacation, there was a martini recipe that included Gordon's London Dry Gin; it was noted that the kind Hemingway preferred -- the one that's 94 proof -- is no longer available in the U.S.

Much to my delight, I discovered that it *is* available in Jamaica! And furthermore, I requested that particular gin whenever I ordered a martini there.

When I was at the Duty Free store at MBJ on my return, I noticed they were selling it there, so I picked up some (in addition to the rum cream). Haven't yet had a chance to crack it open, but since I only got the one bottle, my intent is to use it sparingly.

[Chicago Jake]

Sounds like good stuff.

When I think of Gordon's gin, I always think of Humphrey Bogart. I have a poster of him, dressed as his African Queen character, opening up a crate of Gordon's Gin and pulling a bottle out of the crate. I don't recall if that was the brand used in the movie or not, but he agreed to make this ad campaign for the company.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

In that movie, I seem to recall Katherine Hepburn tossing some alcohol overboard. What that what she dumped or was it whisky?

Back to Jamaica for a moment ... has anyone ever spent any time in Club Mobay at MBJ? This has been something like my third or fourth time there and I really like it; not only do I prefer it to hanging out in one of the bars/restaurants near the gates, but I think it's substantially better than the First Class Lounge that Air Jamaica used to operate (where the only thing first class about it was that it was a first class dump, at least as I remember it).

[Chicago Jake]

Jan 7, 2013 20:32:34 GMT -6 ♥ COVID-19♥ said:

In that movie, I seem to recall Katherine Hepburn tossing some alcohol overboard. What that what she dumped or was it whisky?

It was definitely gin that she tossed overboard. Makes me cringe as much as Bogey did.

"Oh, missy; I'll perish without a hair of the dog!"

[New Mama]

We have used the new lounge and also like it very much. It is worth the cost if you have a couple of hours to wait which can be often.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Yeah, that was my situation -- the bus to the airport was actually early, so I had a few hours wait.

Also, I've been using Caribbean Air since they merged with AJ and their service has been great, both at JFK & MBJ. In both cases, they had someone escort me through the airport to make sure I got to the lounge without a problem; they helped me with luggage and at MBJ they even fast-tracked me through security. Definitely worth it if you can afford the extra to splurge.

[Tex]

Beeb, what is Hedo charging for the wifi these days?

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Sorry, I didn't even bother checking because I never bring my laptop. I was posting from the Internet Cafe off the lobby. The Internet Cafe was something like $10 for half hour -- but at check-out, they never even charged me for it!