Club Med Columbus Isle

We're heading to CI this Sat. (May 5) Can anyone offer recent dress codes?
For any GOs at CI, do you need anything from "the states"? (Within reasonable size, of course).
I believe the weather has been a little rough lately, so we're planning on arranging better weather for our week there.

Amateur GO ( Professional GM )
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Will be arriving in CI this saturday, Cinco de Mayo as well with the wife. Any dress code updates?

Howie



Cancun 1985
Punta Cana 1989
St Lucia 1990
Eleuthera 1994
Turkoise 2000
Punta Cana 2002
Sandpiper 2003
Punta Cana 2004
Sandpiper 2005
Columbus Isle 2006
Turkoise Oct 2008
Turkoise Oct 2009

Looks like we'll be there together Howie.... Looking forward to meeting you.

Amateur GO ( Professional GM )
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Same here. Happy Cinco de Mayo

Cancun 1985
Punta Cana 1989
St Lucia 1990
Eleuthera 1994
Turkoise 2000
Punta Cana 2002
Sandpiper 2003
Punta Cana 2004
Sandpiper 2005
Columbus Isle 2006
Turkoise Oct 2008
Turkoise Oct 2009

For anyone interested, I've posted a full trip report of our recent trip to CI, with a photo album, to my web page: www.hammocktree.us/ms/trips.html



Amateur GO ( Professional GM )
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Thank you for the extensive review and the pictures. There used to be two annex restaurants , Watling's (seafood) and a steak restaurant. The latter is not at the village website any more ( cost cutting ?). Is there any development with the proposed villas ( I did not see any picture of that in your album). Was the disco ( at the sea center) open during your stay? Was there any reception for the silver/gold members? GOs could eat at the annex restaurant if they were invited by a GM; has this changed? Was there a corkage fee? Did you have a chance to do the historical tour of the village. 9 AM power walk helps getting oriented to environment outside the village, and it is possible to see some of the sites you had photographed. There was a church being renovated at the entrance of the Cockburn town (CM side), did it become a museum? I think US Spirit connection is the weak link of this village. In both times I visited CI, I flew from Chicago to FLL with Spirit ( this is the only time I would use this carrier), both times land crew gave me hard time to check my luggage to CI, they demanded extra luggage fee for the segment from FLL to CI, and once they lost my luggage. What do you think about the GO team ( energy, interaction with the guests) and the CDV?

Wow.. so many questions, will see hoe many I can answer.
yes, for whatever reason, only one annex restaurant at the Sea Center. We didn't go so I don't even which side of the upper lever they were using. Usually GOs can go when invited by GMs, but apparently the CdV thought the annex was so "over-booked" that they were disallowing any GOs. We're silver level and did not hear of any kind of reception. We got a small basket with some fragrant soap in our room, and 15% discount at the boutique (which is way overpriced to start with, of course). Net, it really does us no good. Didn't take any wine into restaurant with us so can't say about corkage fee. If the church has become a museum, it was not obvious; we weren't specifically looking for it, but didn't notice. The disco was open the first couple of nights, but Patrick said it was closing to be remade into some kind of kids club for the summer season. The GOs were just finishing the changeover, so hard to judge their energy level would be while we were there. I think they will be good, but hard to tell.


Amateur GO ( Professional GM )
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There is a reception/cocktail party (invitation hand-delivered to the room) each week for Gold members at the CdeV's house. (champagne & really nice hors d'oeuvres)

Adria

I read your report and was a little taken aback by the attitude and incompetence of the flight portion of the trip. Since this aspect of a vacation can sometimes cast a negative feeling on the whole vacation, you would think that CM wouldn't tolerate being partners with people who obviously don't care about their customers. Somehow I get the feeling if this were to happen to the French vacationers, it wouldn't be tolerated.

Probably true that the French would not tolerate it.. although... The week we were both of the other charter flights (from Montreal and Paris) were also late, probably by about 60 - 90 minutes I believe.
I admit to having some mixed feelings about Spirit airlines... Although we have had some problems with them on both of our trips to CI since Spirit took the charter over from American Eagle, on the last trip when American Eagle was doing the charter, they "intentionally" left both our suitcases in Miami because the plane was overweight. (Actually, they were tankering fuel to avoid paying high prices at San Salvador, and that caused the heavy weight.) It took them 2 days to get my wife's suitcase and 5 days (Thursday) to deliver my suitcase.

Amateur GO ( Professional GM )
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If any other industry mis-treated their customers as much as the airlines, they wouldn't be in business. I was standing around once with some colleagues when one of them asked, When was the last time you had a great experience on a flight. All he got were blank stares. We now consider it a good flight if it doesn't crash.

John

The invited GOs at the annex restaurant is ( in my observation) a very small percentage of the total restaurant patrons, and they occupy seats, but not tables. I am afraid this is part of the trend to decrease/eliminate GO-GM interaction, aka the 'New CM'.

Just wanted to comment that the Spirit charter flights, despite some issues with baggage charges, are still so much better than any other option that has been available for many years to get to San Salvador Island. The American Eagle charters the Club used to use out of Miami were smaller planes & very often deliberately left some GM luggage behind to save weight. Some bags routinely arrived days later, on Bahamasair via Nassau, frequently with items missing. The GM's would be given vouchers to buy a few things in the boutique while waiting for their missing bags to arrive, but that hardly compensated for the stress & aggravation. (And it was an ongoing problem that was beyond Club Med's control.) Since the Club switched to the Spirit charters out of FLL, the travel to/from San Sal has been so much easier & more comfortable. Sure, there are flight delays sometimes; but for the most part the flights are pretty dependable & the luggage arrives when it's supposed to. It's a short flight, only about 40 - 45 minutes actual flying time.

Adria

You are correct Reefpolice. As I mentioned in my previous post, our luggage was left behind one time by American Eagle. But it was not a simple matter of the plane being overloaded, it was a conscious choice by American Eagle to save a few bucks by tankering fuel that caused the aircraft to be overweight. They didn't care what impact they had on our vacation, as long as they saved a few bucks. My suitcase arrived on Thur., following the Sat flight. I didn't miss the clothes so much, we know you don't need a lot at CM, but my windsurf and snorkeling gear was in the suitcase!
When I heard Spirit was taking over the flight, I thought perhaps things would be better. Unfortunately, apparently not. Spirit just seems so inept and uncaring: they had multiple opportunities to make up some time on the schedule, but didn't bother. They really didn't care that they would be forcing so many people to miss connecting flights. Of the about 10 people we talked to on the flight that we kept track of, at least 6 missed their connecting flight and had to spend the night in Ft Lauderdale. (Another 2 had planned to spend the night because they assumed the chances of a missed flight was so good).
We made about 5 trips to CI on American Eagle, with one significant problem. We've made 2 trips to CI on Spriit with one minor problem (very late/delayed flight to ATL) and one major problem (missed connection causing an overnight stay). Right now, I'm not sure which one I dislike the most....

Amateur GO ( Professional GM )
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