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Trip Reports |
| If you would like to a trip report of your own, then you can send it to me via E-mail and I will post it here. |
| #74- 9/26/2002 18:39:47 by K. Derrick lapd22@netzero.net |
| Me and my family just returned from viva fortuna (begining of september). We had a great time, I really don't understand what all the bad talk is about it. We arrived at 11:30 am our room was ready for us, check in is not until 300 pm. our room was in the albaco section, which our back porch faced the ocean. The beach was beautiful, I loved the little tiki huts for you to sit under. the bartenders where great (kevin "doc" at the main bar was really friendly). The pool was really nice and the staff worked there b##t's off. there was plenty to do, but it was the same activities everyday so it would get old after awhile. The room was basic (my wife stated the walls where dirty) but we had plenty of room and a beautiful view. the food was very good, lunch was the same every day, burgers, pizza, hot dogs, etc. dinner was good with a varitiy of meats every night. We where really impressed with the deserts and the tons of fresh fruit at every meal. We heard people complain that they did not like to eat on a schedule and that you could not eat after 11 when the restraunt closed. We did not have this problem all three meals are open for roughly 3-4 hours plenty of time to stop in and eat, we ate too much! The drinks where good we had to tell the bartenders to put less alcohol in the drinks for my wife, but they made whatever we wanted. My daughter loved it, Jen in the kids club was great and gave mom and dad a break for a few hours. The reef was awesome and it is right off the beach. I went offshore fishing one afternoon and it was a blast, guest services will book it for you I brought my catch (maui-maui) back to the resort and the chef did a awesome job preparing it for me. The photographer at the resort is pesky and perverted, stay away from him if you can. The time share people came up to me once and offered a free gift, once I looked at the card to fill out I knew it was for a time share, said no thanks and they did not bother us the rest of the weekend. The weather was great the whole week I would rank this resort as average to slightly above average. The location, staff, price and all-inclusive make it awesome! |
| #73- 9/15/2002 13:05:35 by InsideDoc42@aol.com |
|
Well, I'm a little concerned, having read through the recent reports. We (6 of us)
were at Fortuna in 10/00, and had a wonderful time. We didn't need more than basic
accommodations, since we were outdoors at the beach, or exploring, most of the time.
However, if it rains or there's no hot water, and the room isn't clean, and a time-share rep wakes me up in the AM.... I'll be cranky! We're coming back this October, and expect the same courtesy and friendliness we encountered in 2000. From the arrivals desk to the bars to the dining room, the staff was very pleasant & accommodating. The food was fine and varied, if not gourmet, and eating in an open-air space was very enjoyable. It's true, you should try to pick up dessert when you get your entree... The housekeeping staff probably needs to be beefed up, since when we asked for the 2nd set of towels back in 2000, we wound up having to go get them ourselves. From a review of several postings, sounds like they are either understaffed, or not well supervised. Re: the bars, my one warning to light drinkers is: if you want to tip the barkeeps, tell them to go light on the alcohol. We tipped to be courteous, but found that that resulted in more booze than we needed in the already-fine, nonwatered-down drinks! Nice gesture by the staff, but it made me sleepy... Thanks to all who included suggestions/comments re: off-resort activities. We'd like to do some different things this time. And Andy Horrocks, why did you have to tell me about the little ginger cat behind Bimini? I will have to look for it, and my friends will tease me! |
| #72- 9/07/2002 14:04:05 by Tammy Hilmer editor@theturfonline.com |
|
My husband and I just returned from Viva Fortuna and my first priority
has been to make sure people know what a great time we had. I was
VERY
uncertain about this trip after reading so many negative things about
the facility and the staff. I told my husband to expect NOTHING
and then we could
only improve from that. I guess it all depends on what kind of person
you are, whether you will enjoy the facility or not. We are pretty
laid back and
casual people and enjoy meeting people from around the world... playing
games... scuba diving... kayaking, etc. So we had a ball.
We arrived late in the afternoon on Saturday 8/31. We had absolutely no trouble with the staff at the front desk. They were friendly and courteous and were very willing to help. We did have a few issues (but we have found this to be the case everywhere we travel)... our room had no television and I wanted one to keep track of the tropical storm that was near by. Also our adjoining room door was not locked and I had read that had happened to someone else. Those issues were rectified within a few hours. We were friendly about it and the staff was as well. Those are the only issues that we had the whole time. This was our first all-inclusive... I was very surprised at how strong they made the drinks. In my opinion, they did not skimp at all on the alcohol (which I really expected the opposite). We did tip the bartenders at several points throughout our time there. I just read someone's review that they were rude... I found them to be very friendly and we talked and laughed and had a good time. There is a reef to snorkel... there is a lobster under the reef that has the orange buoy next to it. Quite large and friendly. I also was very upset by the people STANDING on the reef. These people did not speak English or I would have said something to them. It just made me sad to see a lovely creation being destroyed by people that don't understand just how long it takes to build something like that. Someone saw a shark swim through on one day... I was not there to see it, but the staff really really don't want people to say the word "shark". My guess is that it was a nurse shark or something harmless like that. But, make no mistake, no matter what they tell you, there ARE sharks not far from this beach. I went on a shark dive where they feed about 40 or 50 Caribbean reef sharks about 2 miles off shore (you can see the boats from the beach at Viva Fortuna). I am not the type of person to be concerned about sharks. . but I did find it odd that the staff highly discouraged people from saying they saw one. I guess it is bad for business. The dive operation at Viva Fortuna is very good. I had difficulty with several things on my first dive (weights and equipment issues) and went through air much faster than I normally do... the dive master was so so good with me. There is nothing like being treated kindly when things are going badly for you. I can't remember his name, but he is the very very tall fellow. :-) Our first dive was at Octopussy reef. I got no explanation as to what the correlation was to the movie, but there was a small boat sitting upright that you could actually swim inside. Since my air went pretty quickly on this dive, I can't really say too much else about it. Some people saw rays and a turtle. The second dive was at Shark Alley. The huge live aboard Nekton Pilot was also there... there were at least 30 divers in the water at the same time from different operations. It was a remarkable dive... UNEXSO was there doing their shark feeding/handling. I can only compare it to a three ring circus underwater... everywhere you looked, there was something thrilling going on. Beautiful sharks swimming around to and fro. These sharks have got to be the most beautiful in my opinion. The reef there was also quite interesting and make sure to take a light with you to truly see the color... lots of bright orange and purple colors! We also saw a very large spotted ray and sea bass. I fell in love with kayaking! Wahoo... great fun. :-) I learned not to do it after drinking because it tended to make me a little queasy ... LOL My husband goes 90 miles an hour all the time so he did everything that could be done, twice over. I mostly relaxed and joined in occasionally. There is volleyball, water polo, boche (sp?) ball, archery, kayaking, wind surfing, snorkeling, sailing and jet ski's... and you can always go diving... or walk down the long beach. The Grease production was very entertaining and I was impressed with the dancing in it considering these are all people that work at the facility and are not even remotely professionals. We are going to encourage our son to work there for 6 months when he graduates high school. It would be an awesome experience for a young adult. The food: I am a very picky eater and I survived just fine at Viva Fortuna. With all of the complaining about the food in reviews of the place, I was very worried that I would go hungry. But I thought the food was good to very good most of the time. The Italian restaurant was nice as well. It was really nice to have a lot of fruit around. :-) The rooms are basic, but I had no complaints about anything. We stayed in Abaco A1104... the balcony looked out at the beach and the sports equipment rental area. It was hot and humid to sit outside, but in my opinion, it is part of being in the Bahamas! :-) Tropical Storm Eduardo was hanging around the north shore of Grand Bahama Island for most of our stay, so we only had one day of full sunshine and intermittent sun after that. I can see that if it did nothing but rain and you weren't comfortable playing in the rain, then it might be boring there... but we had fun in the rain too. You might as well snorkel or something. . you are already wet. ;-) To summarize... please don't be scared away by the negative comments about Viva Fortuna. It is cheap enough to give it a try and see for yourself. We had a great time and we ARE going back. I can't wait! :-) |
| #71- 8/23/2002 13:34:35 by Andy Horrocks andy_horrocks@talk21.com |
|
We have just returned from a 2 week holiday to Club Fortuna.
We were worried after having read all the negative reports but for the
cheap price you pay it's not too bad.
The beach is beautiful and cleaned most days. There's enough fish, rays etc on the small reef to keep you interested (but the number of people that we saw stepping on the coral was incredible!). If you walk up the beach it is very quiet and you can be on your own. They must have improved on the food as we thought it ranged from OK to excellent, I'm quite fussy but I still managed to find someting to eat each day. Quite often they have a roast that they carve - beef, lamb and turkey were all delicious. This is the first all inclusive place that we've been that has drinkable red wine (not great but drinkable). We always eat quite late and never had a problem with desserts running out, although it was annoying when they started clearing away food well before closing time. Our room in Bimini block was on the first floor and faced the sea. It is a really nice quiet location with a good view. The room and bathroom are a decent size, plenty of storage space and on the surface look clean. However on closer inspection there are a few dirty parts, the bed that our mattress lay on was filthy. The maid was very slap dash and didn't spend enough time cleaning the room. We didn't use the balcony as the hot air from the airconditioning unit makes it unbearable to sit there. Even if you turn it off next doors is often going. I've never met such miserable staff before. We considered the barmen to be rude, they never reciprocate smiles or greetings. We were only approached by timeshare once (3 days berfore we went home), as soon as we said we were not interested they didn't bother us. Although these sound like alot of negatives they were not enough to spoil our holiday. On hind site we would still have gone. It is a cheap, good value for money hotel that could be a little cleaner and friendlier. If you want to go and see the dolphins then it is well worth being the 'Dolphin trainer's assistant'. You spend the whole day with the dolphins and it's very good value for money. Finally would somebody please feed the little ginger cat that lives behind Bimini block. She's very friendly but also hungry!! |
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| This page was last modified on 6 November 2002. |