Two weeks to go…
Dying of man-flu, unable to sleep, and with nothing better to do I’m going to analyse the Trip Advisor visitor reviews.
Most importantly, the reviews on Trip Advisor are entirely dependent on the date on which they were posted. People complaining about construction work in 2008 might have had a valid point… in 2008… but one would hope that by 2011, unlike a major international airport, the offending construction work would have been completed. By 2016 I expect the reviews will comment on how dated and shabby the place looks.
And then there is, to us, the alien concept of "The Holiday Rep". It would appear from a lot of the posts that I have read that he, or she, is solely responsible for making one's holiday enjoyable. "Billy Bob was the best rep we've ever had!".... "Shazza was fantastic and had a beautiful singing voice!"... or, in this case, "Taxi Pete was amazing!" (although he, apparently, has an offensive singing voice). For God's sake! We do not go on holiday to be patronised by an economically disadvantaged youth with an annoyingly familiar disposition! And, from what I can tell, "the rep" is about as useless as a chocolate fire guard when it comes to trying to sort out issues that one might have with the management of the establishment. I shall, however, make it my duty to try to find out where the "Taxi" in "Taxi Pete" comes from.
But, for all of that, there are some interesting and insightful comments:
“People, including myself and my partner complained of sickness and diahrrea (sic) whilst we were there!”
Okay… this is common. One moves from one part of the world to another and one’s stomach goes “oops… I wasn’t expecting this”. Here’s a clue: If the entire nation is rushing to the bogs one has good reason to suspect that one has chosen a gastronomically dodgy destination. If the local population is consuming what you are consuming and not rushing to the bogs every 5 minutes then the problem is obviously not with the country but with your digestive system. The best remedy, as shown to me by a Bedouin in Jordan, is to consume the contents of a Liptons Yellow Label tea bag with a glass of water. No Immodium - that will dry you up and have you plinking pellets for ages.
“…. we found 4 cockroaches in our cooked food, had severe food poisoning for 10 days.”
It’s one hell of a statement this. 4 cockroaches in a single dish? 4 cockroaches in 4 dishes? 4 cockroaches in the 42 meals you had over 14 days? How do you know they were cockroaches? Cockroaches are not to be confused with unshelled prawns. And, of course, whilst cockroaches may spread the bacteria that cause food poisoning, I can find no evidence to suggest that eating cockroaches will do the same. In fact Cockroaches are but one of many insects whose nutritional excellence has been underestimated or scorned, according to The Eat-A-Bug Cookbook, which also reports (on p. 66) that Lafcadio Hearn found that many New Orleanians had great faith in a remedy of boiled cockroach tea. Okay, let's not go there... Having cockroaches present in one's food is not a good thing. However, if the cockroach food infestation of which you speak was endemic there'd be a lot of people complaining... Let's move on...
“….we were forced to drink tap water…”
The reviewer does not state how much tap water he, or she, was forced to drink. I cannot think of anything worse than to be forced to drink tap water, or indeed water of any kind. I can think of nothing more satisfying than to put in a review "... we were forced to drink beer because the island had run out of desalinated water."
“The all inclusive drinks were the worst we have encountered to date with no dark rum or canned fruit juice.”
Firstly, I have a problem with the concept of all inclusive drinks. Dash of wine, some whiskey, a bit of lager, a touch of tomato juice, some crème de menthe, a dash of sherry,…. You get the idea. I want all-exclusive drinks. Exclusively beer. Exclusively wine. Secondly there’s the issue of “…that I have encountered” One does not “encounter” drinks unless one is a student foraging around the remnants of a good party. One “orders” drinks. Finally, I think this reviewer has confused his holiday destination. It’s not the Caribbean… so rum, of any kind, is probably not high on the spirits list. But it’s the last part of this complaint that gets me. “No canned fruit juice.” It’s a tropical island for God’s sake. I hope to hell they have fresh fruit juice. If they don’t, they should. I don’t care if it’s pineapple, mango, papaya or lychee, Time will tell.
“The hot food was quite often delivered cold and the meat was not cooked enough to be edible.”
Given that it’s supposed to be a buffet at every meal the temperature thing is a bit confusing.
I have to assume that this was written by someone from England whose carnivorous preference is for meat with a chewy grey interior and a cremated exterior…
Now given that the Maldives are a stone’s throw from India and Sri Lanka the following comments are really hilarious:
“The curries were usually inedible due to being over peppered… and I am convinced the curries were produced for the staff.”
I’d hope so because if they wouldn’t eat them neither would I…
“There was also curry on the menu at breakfast.”
And your point is?
“I'm not even going to go into the evening meal but curry was on the menu!!”
Guess you don’t like curry then? And I’ll bet you were well grumpy that there was no bacon or pork sausages either…. But, just to show that not everybody appears to be unhappy with the food I quote the following review:
“The food was incredible. My boyfriend (fiancee now) is very very fussy and he found something to eat at every meal and really enjoyed it. The menu was different every day for two weeks and the beef is some of the best I have ever tasted. There is a huge array of salads, potatoes, rice, meat, currys, fish and desserts”
We’ll see… I happen to like curry so I can’t I magine that I’ll have a problem… Now, on to other matters:
“…the TV did not work for the first 3 days of our fortnight stay ( that's what it took to have it fixed! ),”
Did you really travel for 10 hours to a tropical paradise to watch TV? You could have saved yourself a whole lot of money and invested in http://www.elc.co.uk/Little-Tikes-Wooden-Sandbox/125650,default,pd.html and put it in your living room.
“We killed six large red ants which we found in bed. These may have been the cause of itchy spots that we both had.”
Quite possibly… although mosquitoes can do that too. I presume that you killed them after you got the itch, and not before, as killing them before would have negated your claim. Fire ant stings itch like mad and are prone to infection. In some cases, these stings can produce severe allergic reactions. Apply a topical steroid cream, such as hydrocortisone. Administer oral antihistamines. Job done.
“I guess invasions of red ants crawling over bedding constantly, dirty threadbare 'towels', blood stained sheets and thefts from rooms are all then quite normal!”
On an island 175 meters x 275 meters “Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Bloodstained Sheets” could have made for a good 30-minute bit of television. Invasions? Blood-stained sheets? Thefts? Wow! But all of this excitement is negated by the following review:
“Our room was cleaned twice a day, the hygiene standard was exceptional.”
Guess you guys must have been too happy to notice the ant infestation, the bald towels, the blood stained sheets or the fact that half of your possessions went missing…
“And also if you want a quite (sic) holiday away from kids, it is not gonna happen, as they are everywhere...”
Oh no… the last thing I need is to get up for a piss in the middle of the night and find a kid in our bathroom… please say it’s not so….
“We were rather aprehensive initally (sic) thinking that this may not really be a place for children & that they may be would be bored but far from it, and there were a few children but not overun and tehy (sic) were all great holiday playmates for one another.”
Perfect.
So…. Who, and what, are we supposed to believe? Paradise or Purgatory? In less than two weeks we’ll be able to make up our own minds. And, because I get bored very easily, you’ll be able to chart our impressions right here on http://meedhupparu2011.blogspot.com/
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