HAYMAN ISLAND:
the backstage
Let the show begin
Today’s the fifth time I come across that sign that I hate and can't get away from; they make sure they wallpaper it in every possible corner. Depending on the day and the mood in which I find myself, the tone with which I read it seems more threatening than friendly or vice versa, but always shifting between those two extremes.
I tie my shoelaces while mentally checking if I have everything I need. I touch the pockets of the blue shorts I am wearing and feel the cell phone that is not mine on one side and the master key on the other.
I open the wooden curtain and leave the annoying sign behind: “Smile, you are about to get on stage”. I don't know why, but I obey the instruction with the last energy I have left of the day. I wouldn't dare ruin my performance in front of the family that is leaving the 503. It's a Wednesday evening kind-of smile, but a smile at last.
The cloud of rosehip perfume reaches me a few meters before them. They walk with a holiday type of swing, almost levitating, while fixing the last details of their Sepia filter outfit. The youngest one is left behind. He still has his hair damp and his naivety intact. He is way more tanned than last week and has a new accessory, one of those colored thread bracelets that he must have made in the children's “crafts” workshop, while his parents tanned themselves under the sun with a mojito in hand. My only spectator gives me a mischievous look and with a trot joins the rest.
First day tour of the hotel. Photo: MW
First of all, welcome
Although the uniform still doesn't separate us, a floor does, they are above and us, the staff, below. Two sharp-faced girls with their hair wet in gel and stuck in a gray wrapping that ends just above their knees, hand out cheeses and serve champagne delicately, with a circus grace worthy of admiration. The teenager with blonde thread hair toasts with his jovial parents, his little brother immersed in virtual games doesn't even flinch. The father, wearing a pink linen shirt and Versace glasses orders another drink while his wife kisses him from under her wide-brimmed hat with silk bow. The only bathroom is still occupied and I continue to scan the upstairs surroundings as someone who arrives alone and too early to a party. A newly married couple takes a selfie on the veranda; an employee automatically approaches them and offers to take another one.
The dress code while boarding the resort yacht is strict:“don't wear shorts, ripped jeans or pants nor flip flops or tank tops", said the email with our contract. We all respected it, but our Italian friends took it even more seriously: between their linen shirts, the sunglasses and the cocktails they bought at the airport they are closer to being guests than washing $200 australian dollars dishes for $27AUD an hour. That one and cleaning rooms for almost a thousand dollars a night (the cheapest one) were going to be our jobs for two months on this island. To be as unnoticed as possible would be the third one, but that we would find out later.
One hundred meters from the arrival dock, a squad of eight employees activate phase 3 of the “Welcome” protocol: greeting the guests with one hand behind their backs and the other waving high, with more synchronized moves than the British Royal Guard. However, this ceremony doesn’t need crowns, they already know they will be royals for the days their stay lasts.
There are two wings of rooms in the hotel: the lagoon and the pool one. These last ones have their own private stairs to dive into it. Photo: MW
The front row public
Hayman Island is one of the eight most famous islands in the Whitsundays archipelago, located in the north of the state of Queensland. It is one of Australia's touristic gems destinations and also one of the most expensive, especially this private island where this five-stars hotel is the only accommodation available.
The establishment has five bars and restaurants and 168 rooms that vary in size, views and facilities, and of course, prices. The most expensive, 120m2 with its own pool and access to the beach, costs AUD$5,000 per night. The rest is around AUD$1,500-AUD$2,000. Assuming that the majority of those who stay choose this second option and stay at least four nights, they already spend around $7000 Australian dollars just for sleeping.
If they added a "little" extra thing, like the four meals a day, for example, the helicopter to the Great Barrier Reef, the private boat to the neighboring island with a picnic and snorkeling equipment included, the kayak and jet ski activity, an intimate dinner under the stars, the spa visit, the children nursery or, say, an extra bottle of water as a souvenir, which has the hotel logo printed all over and comes in different colors, they will spend about AUD$10,000 more in four days.
—Let's look at some of the main guests' profiles, Rebecca suddenly says, making the Excel file I made up in my head close without saving.
With just one click on her remote control, she went from front office manager to teaching a 20-slide marketing class for the new staff. She is flawless from her stiletto-heeled feet to her voluminous hair pulled neatly into a ponytail. Her fresh face and prepared speech are getting ready for the upcoming Easter high season, the reason why all these new faces as well as me and my ten friends were hired in the first place. She savors each word she says as if she tastes them for the first time and is effusive, but not exaggerated. Her magnetism would have captured my attention some other time, but after six hours of chatting, I am no longer interested in what these luxurious guests do for a living, what are their reasons to come here, if they rate them with five stars or shoot them with unusual complaints.
At the sign of lots of subtle yawns and loose scribbling, Rebecca suggests we have one more coffee. She still needs to read the hotel manifesto.
The induction of the second day lasted all day. Photo: MW
Panic floods
“Nooooo, noooo”, I hear him wail once more from the hallway. He rushes into the room; he has his usual blue cap on but is also wearing his coloured aviator sunglasses: near sunset, they can only mean one thing. That's why I turn off the vacuum.
Apart from swearing frantically and using the "F" word as a connector for all his phrases, he sweats profusely. Every drop crawls densely but without stopping until the bottom of his neck, sprouted by the rosacea, by the heat or by both. For us, he's JP, I don't know his full name but I do know how much he stresses out with most of the housekeeping issues, especially today —the least convenient of all days: the inauguration of Jenna and Mark’s Kardashian style wedding, which lasts all weekend.
—Thank you, mate. You're a legend — JP says, agitated. He swallows all the air he can in one breath as if he were about to jump off a cliff and disappears, with his blue bag full of other “welcome” kits like the one he puts on the wedding guest bed.
If these lovebirds that had put up enough money to close half the hotel find out that one of their wedding sound technicians found his room dirty, the bed still unmade and the trash cans overflowing with rubbish (according to the incomplete story JP told me), the only stars left will be the ones in the sky.
But it is my boss' health that we are more concerned about. That's why we agreed to clean one more room at 6:38 p.m., on the tenth hour of work and four and a half hours after check-in.
Sunset from the "Aqua" bar and from one of the rooms. Photo: MW
Must always continue
The exclusive wedding left the second clause of the contract very clear. We can only cross paths with guests in our workplace: no access, beach, or common activities. How do you accomplish this living on an island the size of a shoebox? Setting up a kind of village next to the hotel —surrounded by a gray wooden wall— which has, in addition to shared rooms for two, a dining room, two gyms, a swimming pool, a bar and a "store". Very clean, well-kept, with yummy food, but with a huge population density, taking into consideration that the famous cockatoos also live with us.
The impulsiveness and audacity with which they fly and live is proportional to the respect that these yellow-horned birds have earned on the island. Standing like statues on the balconies of the corridors, they are calm, friendly and elegant, like their white feathers. Until the sugar appears.
Their addiction to sweets makes them capable of disrupting everything that stands between their drug and them: floors, cleaning trolleys, rooms, our patience and even the organizational scheme of the entire hotel, like this one:
—There's been a bloody bird attack on room 503—JP spits at us from the walkie-talkie ten minutes after I started my morning shift. The sympathy I once had towards the cockatoo had lasted the first 500 meters from my room to work.
There is never a protocol for eventualities like these. We only know that we are still on stage and that “the show must go on'', so we gather soldiers, take the tools and show our faces —always smiling— of course. We are told that the adults are not in the room: "they are probably still partying with the newlyweds", one of the housekeepers says.
The one who was inside was the youngest son, the one with the string bracelet and the mischievous look from yesterday, who was eating potato chips out of the silver tray of room service and was watching television in the king size bed, escorted by a nanny and surrounded by bird poop.
In addition to the main one, the island has another beach: "Blue Pearl Bay", which is only accessible with an hour and a half walk. Photo: MW
***
Seeing them stacked like sardines on the palm trees was a nice postcard to start the day, completed by the tropical landscape and the breeze that calmed down the day's sauna. They looked so innocent that he would never have suspected that that palm tree was actually his post-vandalism refuge.
—There's been a f**king bird attack on room 503 —JB spits at us from the walkie-talkie. That's how quiet my work day starts. My sympathy for the f**ing cockatoo had lasted the 500 meter commute from my room to work.
There is never a protocol for "shits" like this, literally speaking. We only know that we are still on stage and that “the show must go on”, so we gather soldiers, take the tools and show our faces – always smiling – of course. They let us know that the parents are not in the room: "they are probably still partying with the boyfriends", is the hypothesis of Joaquín, the Spanish cholulo of the team.
The one who was inside was the youngest son, the one with the string bracelet and mischievous look, who ate room service fries and watched television on the big bed, escorted by a babysitter and surrounded by bird poop.