Caprice 28Jan-4 Feb

[MarkK]

The Caprice poolside welcome at 3pm (for the Ottawa flight) with the majority unclad set an encouragingly CO tone after the surprise of hijabs at Linda Mar. The only excursions available were day and evening cruises, and info on the resort was not up-to-date: only lunch was snack at the bar (as previously advised), and return times (3.30 and 4.30) from Sirena given by outbound driver didn’t match either the brief or Reception’s suggestions. It’s the ‘3000’ minibus; the train doesn’t go as far as Caprice, unless the driver takes pity on you. The free 11am coach to the Marina was also not mentioned. No chair on balcony? Call reception. Except the telephones are not working. After the fourth daily request for a chair, two deck chairs appeared, but there is only space for one. A knot in the wood meant it collapsed under under my 90Kg. Apart from the young bartender at the Ranchon, the front-line staff were not as fluent in English, French, German or Italian as on all previous visits. For the price we paid in October… the only solace was it was less than it was in 2000.

At first sight the room looked well-supplied, with TV and fridge (both immediately turned off and never used, although others reported the TV to be snowy), and even bottles of shampoo. But no beach towels. And everyone had trouble with the safe: locked open, low battery, reset to default (correctly guessed as 1234). Weirdly, the supposed ‘ocean view’ rooms have frosted glass obscuring all the view, but plain glass in the bathroom overlooking the street. The rooms with numbers a multiple of 4 have a balcony with a panoramic view; the others are offset so there’s no sun after 8.30am.
There’s no fan, nor mosquito nets, and the in-room cooling is chilling, but not with sufficient flow to keep off the mosquitoes coming through the ill-fitting balcony door. We slept in the style of frightened children with the sheets over our heads. The mosquitoes may have thought it was dusk all night as with modern bulbs there is an absurd amount of light at night, so no stars, and even during the day at the bar, although these were helpful in showing when the electricity was on so snacks could be made. Wi-fi available in 15-hour blocks rather than for time of stay (and rather fiddly to log-out), with passable cover in the Reception, Bar and Ranchon, but minimal in the room.
The old Iguana Pool seemed to be working, and would have been good for lengths, but we were repeatedly advised in was not to be used although no reason was given.

Good news was having no wrist-bands; all other hotels had yellow but a few people had sparking diamond ones. As it was in 2000, there seemed to be free-flow between hotels for food and drink, but also now at Sirena (except for liquor).
Food and drink seemed to be much improved when supplies arrived on Wednesday.
The Caprice animators did try to enthuse, but had minimal response from the handful of people; we escaped a quiz (for 3), and a pool exercise session (for 5), moving upwind of the LOUDspeaker to find somewhere quiet to read. Two parasols for the entire pool was not enough shade.
The plant nursery has been extended, but now grows plants to eat, not for decoration. Shops only at other hotels, Marina and Sirena.

A tiny bit of beach appeared on the last day. [Uploading/attaching even small pictures not working?] CO: Early morning walks along the entire length of hotel beaches (and rocks) as well as along the road from 100m East of the Grand Memories building site. Afternoon between Mal Tiempo to point with starfish, except immediately in front of Sirena. Caprice pool and bar all day.

Only issue with Sunwing flights was that both online and self-service check-in failed, seemingly because of having non-Canadian passports. Two hour flight delay on the last day – a frozen cargo door with Ottawa at 32C. Reception, by now at least available in French, was unable to give a revised pickup time, but also adamant that we must be picked up from the reception and not the pool area. As it only takes 1 hour to check-in the entire aircraft, why do we need to be there three hours ahead of time?