mutteringhousewife

Yes, I am back home and having great difficulty with it not being thirty degrees and not driving a Mercedes any more. I thought I’d wrap up my holiday adventures with a review of the resort we stayed at for the last week, as it was a bit … unusual.

After discussing it with husband and sister and sister’s husband, we decided that the Paradise Palms Golf Resort had been built by someone who wanted to build a beautiful and luxurious resort that would be perfect for families. He then went broke and the place was taken over by people who had previously only run caravan parks. That conjecture pretty much sums up our experience, although it doesn’t explain the restaurant, which I’ll get to.

The rooms and fittings were just beautiful. They were self contained, so had excellent kitchenette with granite topped island bench, a decent sized dinner table, and their own washing machine and dryer. Attached to the excellent kitchen was a snarky little note saying that we’d better wash up and put away the crockery before we left, or there’d be a nasty surprise on the bill. To aid us in washing up there was a single sachet of dish washing liquid. The surly girl at reception informed us that if we wanted more, it was fifty cents per sachet. See what I mean? There was a lot of stuff like that. A full ashtray on our balcony. A thick layer of dust on the wooden venetians. Yes we do have four channels of Fox, but you can only have two. Take your own rubbish down to the car park, if you make us do it at the end of your stay we’ll charge you.

The resort wasn’t walking distance to any shops, and yet didn’t have its own shop or offer a shuttle to nearby towns. It had two pools, but you had to hire beach towels. The mini golf and kids playground were terrific, kept our kids entertained all week. They had a very large jumping pillow that I had to try, despite my ankle and knee joints shouting “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”. It was surprisingly tiring, even the kids thought so, and not at all like a trampoline.

The restaurant was another study in what on earth. They appeared to have a top chef and someone with many clues writing the menu and drinks list. Then hired any old random walking by as waiters. My sister and I ordered some afternoon cocktails from the inventive looking list, then watched as a middle aged man with shaky hands clearly had his first attempt at making a cocktail ever, reading off a set of instructions, then mucked it up half way through and had to start again. Soon after we watched a waitress wander past holding some half empty jugs of juice, navigate around a tall chair piled with cushions, lose her balance a little and tip a copious amount of juice into the cushions, look thoughtfully at the chair for a bit, then move on with her life. My morning muesli didn’t come with a spoon. And yet the food was uniformly delightful.

So I would commend it as a great place to stay with kids if you have your own car, beach towels, washing powder and dish washing liquid. You may even be able to make up the bill with a stint at the cocktail bar.