My dad used to say, “you really don’t know someone until you live with them.”
In the 5 years we owned and lived at the hotel, we got to really know people because we lived with many, many guests.
And as The Doors’ say in their song, people are strange.
Well, maybe they are not strange. Maybe they do strange things because that’s who they are, or maybe they act strange because they’re on vacation!
The Doors’ sing, ‘no one remembers your name’, but I sure remember the strange things they did!
Here are some examples of the ‘strange’ things people did. You can decide if it’s because they were on vacation or if it’s just who they ‘are’. You never really know until you live with them!
The Drone Flyer
In January 2019, with the hotel remodel complete, one of the first guests we welcomed began flying a drone over the jungle in front of the hotel.
I was sitting in our common area thinking “Oh, um, I’m not sure I like that” when the drone turned and flew through our open-air restaurant. Are you kidding me?
He then flew the drone out of the restaurant and turned it toward the pool to film his wife who was standing at the infinity edge waving at the drone. He hovered the drone low over the pool and buzzed over the heads of other guests. So low they could feel the downdraft of the drone! Ugh. He had no regard for the other people around.
Was he inconsiderate because that was who he ‘was’ or was playing with his drone just his vacation behavior?
(He at least shared his drone footage with me 😂, but from then on, we instituted a ‘no-drone’ policy!)
The Bearded Surfer
Another couple arrived who wanted to celebrate their anniversary with us. I met them briefly when they arrived. The guy had a thick dark beard. He was excited about surfing in our local area and was going to spend his days heading to the beach, while his wife seemed a little disappointed to hang out at the hotel by herself.
After saying hello, I went to our apartment to get ready for dinner.
Not 10 minutes later, I got a phone call from Vianney, our bartender, who said, ‘Um, Marlo, you need to come here. The bearded guy had an accident in the pool.’
Accident? In the NEW pool? What kind of accident??
When I got to the common area, I saw the bearded guy sitting on our pool lounger holding his nose in a pool towel. His bloody nose! In our brand new green and white pool towel.
I asked Vianney what happened. He told me that the bearded surfer walked to the grassy terrace to look at the view of the ocean, and then decided to try out the pool. Instead of walking back around to the pool stairs to enter like a normal adult human, he decided to climb on top of the wall that formed the pool’s infinity edge and dive in! He glided a few feet under the water before smashing his face into the stairs on the opposite side of the pool!
He dove into the pool from the back end! OMG! What? Are you 10 years old? The pool is only 4 ½ feet deep!
My first thought was OMG did he bleed in the pool?! The pool had only been full for about 3 weeks and I didn’t want to have to drain the pool if there was blood in it. That would’ve taken days, and we didn’t have extra water capacity for that.
My second thought was that I was sooo glad he wasn’t paralyzed! Diving in 4 ½ feet of water headfirst?! Not recommended.
I went over to bearded surfer to check on him and his injury. Our pool towel was soaked with blood. I gave him a new towel (this time our multicolored beach towel!) so he could return to his room to get his wife. His forehead, the bridge of his nose, and his chin were all cut pretty badly. I thought he should be looked at by a doctor.
Luckily, no other guests had seen his accident, and there was only a little blood on the new travertine tile. I didn’t see any blood in the pool, but I had the maintenance guy add lots more chlorine and we cleaned up the new travertine tile immediately.
We arranged for him to see the doctor in town. When they returned a few hours later, we didn’t recognize the bearded surfer! The doctor had to shave off his whole beard because he needed multiple stiches. She also told him that surfing in the salty ocean was out of the question for their whole trip due to the risk of infection.
As he was sulking about his ‘ruined’ surf trip, for the first time, I saw his wife smile, as she now had her husband back to celebrate their anniversary trip as a couple!
Was his excitement because he was on vacation or ‘was’ he just a 10 year old boy?
The Distracted Driver
Often some of our guests included groups of friends. On one visit, we had a group of 3 women friends traveling together. They hiked our trails, sat at our pool, enjoyed happy hour and spent a lot of time laughing. We enjoying watching them have a great time together.
They had their own rental car, and wanted to explore the area, so one morning, they set off in their car to go ziplining. A few minutes later near the parking lot, we heard a lot of commotion, and the organizer of the group came to the front desk asking for some help. It seemed their car was stuck in a ditch near the parking lot and they needed help getting the car out.
We couldn’t figure out how they got stuck, and their description was quite vague. Our maintenance guys got their car out of the ditch, and they were on their way to zipline!
After they left, I realized that the security cameras we had around our property might have captured some footage. It wasn’t until we SAW the accident on our security camera that we realized what had happened!
It was so funny, I still have the camera footage, so you can see here for yourself and decide! And if you are wondering, no, we didn’t tell the women that we ‘saw’ their accident!
Was she just having a good time on vacation or ‘was’ she always a distracted driver?
Now that you’ve also “lived” with some of these guests, what do you think?
Are people strange?
I think when on holidays, some people think they are immune! No seat belts, trust any stranger, pet wild animals, drink questionable amounts of booze, smoke random herbals, eat piles of spicy food, you name it! It isn’t normal life so it’s safe to cut loose
I mean this stuff happens in B-movies, not real life, right? Did you post a sign "No Jumping" where the guy jumped off? Now you know why McDonalds puts the warning that the coffee is hot!