This week we had our training session with Natalie from Gold Medal, who brought us up to date with the Pure Luxury programme and the deals available, including the half-board upgrade and free child places to Atlantis The Palm in Dubai.
We were all impressed, and Natalie did a great job of transporting us to the resort; even I could imagine myself dropping at speed down the slides in the water park, and that’s saying something – I usually only drop at speed after one too many Pinot Grigios.
Natalie’s training sessions are always informative, fun and fattening; she arrives laden with orange juice and pastries, and I’m beginning to think she actually believes that imbibing vitamin C in sufficient quantities negates the calorific impact of a vanilla cream crown.
Fondly christened ‘Calamity Jane’ by travel agents around the country, Natalie had arrived sporting a hairband that gave her a decidedly ‘Alice in Wonderland’ air. I asked her if she was going to be hanging out with a hatter, a hare and a dormouse at a tea party later.
She explained that the Alice band was disguising a bad hair day. Apparently there’d been a burst water main in her part of Bristol, so she’d had no hot water that morning, and her usually tamed tresses had returned to their wild state during the night.
“The Alice band is the only way of reining it all in,” she said. “I could hardly turn up with ‘bed head’, could I?” I agreed that ‘bed head’ was not the best way to impress in professional situations.
As well as the pastries, Natalie gave us each a stress ball and a ‘fun’ mouse mat featuring an arch and two fish swimming around the Atlantis resort. We wasted a lot of time squeezing the stress balls to bursting point, trying to get those damn fish to swim through the arch. The fish are too big. It’ll take you about 10 minutes to realise.
Jason’s double life
Natalie is not the only live wire at Gold Medal; I got chatting to Jason in reservations while fine-tuning a booking, and discovered that I was dealing with a chap with more energy than a long-life battery.
While most of us collapse at the end of the day, clutching a drink, Jason is pouring them from the other side of the bar in his capacity as landlord. Apparently, on days when the chef is off duty, he gets behind the grill, too. Talk about drive; this man has it in spades.
I love to delve into the lives of the folk I deal with in the industry, and Jason’s life story, some of it spent in Asia, had me spellbound.
He’d lived in Hong Kong, married a Thai wife (though they’ve since divorced), and he’s putting his wide travel experience to good use both in his job at Gold Medal and in the bar. After all, there can’t be that many places you can get pad Thai with your pint.
Jason, you deserve every success. Hard work pays dividends!
Respect your elders
Someone who knows all about hard work is my 70-plus-year-old client who called in following her recent UK coach holiday. During her working life she was a matron at a famous London hospital and is still as sharp as a tack, though she is not as physically able as she once was, and uses a stick.
At the time of booking, she had requested a ground-floor room, but upon arrival, discovered she had been allocated one on the second floor. The room was difficult for her to navigate without bumping into things, and the bathroom had a high step at its entrance, making it entirely unsuitable for elderly guests.
But it was the breakfast that added insult to injury. “It was boiled egg and soldiers,” she explained, “because they think that the elderly aren’t capable of eating anything more challenging. I felt patronised and uncared for.”
It would have taken just a little thought from the hoteliers to change this old lady’s experience, and that was the very least she deserved.
A Scilly mistake
How’s this for a nice try? I booked a client to the Isles of Scilly and duly sent her a confirmation. She later rang to say she had received it and that she had been pleasantly surprised to see that it was all-inclusive, and not just bed and breakfast.
I panicked, as I knew that I had booked her bed and breakfast. “Where does it say all-inclusive on the confirmation?” I asked. “On the headed paper, it clearly states: ‘Isles of Scilly Inclusive Holidays’,” she replied.
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels in Gillingham, Dorset