This poor sod fared worse than us (c) Iain Purdie

We had to shift resorts for a couple of days due to an incoming storm which was upgraded to a hurricane (winds in excess of 74mph). The Decameron Club we’re staying at is a collection of wooden-roofed shacks right on the sea front, so was deemed a little unsafe with wind speeds expected. We were shuttled over to the nearby Decameron Fun which, as it transpires, used to be the Hedonism III resort before they moved further down the coast. Which would explain the mirrors over the beds and jacuzzis, then.

The Fun gave a good first impression with a huge restaurant and slightly higher standards (it’s a 4* compared to the Club’s three), but after an initial tirade from Gillian of “you’re paying to upgrade us to stay here for the rest of the trip”, we rapidly ended up gagging to be back at the Club.

Mainly, it was due to the noise and inconsideration of our co-refugees who insisted on yelling up and down the staircase at each other at all hours, waking up the kids and ourselves. Tossers.

The food wasn’t bad – in fact I thought the desserts just topped those from our “home” resort – and the pool was huge with a water slide and everything… but the rooms weren’t as great as first impressions had us believe and we couldn’t wait to be moved back to the Club.

Actually, one of the first things that happened at the Fun was when I spotted that our window leaked. Badly. I managed to get it shut tight and put towels all over the floor to soak it up. I then went into the ajoining room to check on Little Miss and Grandma who informed me that their window didn’t shut properly either. Armed with my new experience in pulling windows closed and bolting them I opened the curtains to find that the right half had blown backwards in the wind and was in danger of banging closed to hard it would shatter all the glass.

I grabbed it and pulled it shut… and then discovered that it was at a 10 degree angle due to the top hinge coming loose. While attempting to right it, the bottom hinge gave way completely, three panes of glass slid out, crashed to the poolside two floor below and left me holding onto the entire window assembly while leaning outside in the pouring rain.

Thankfully, maintenance came up quite quickly with a hefty chunk of wood and covered it all up before we got the “do not leave your room for any reason after 10:30” notice that everyone roundly ignored.

Food and drink was supplied in polystyrene containers to most people (my parents didn’t get a dinner and I know other people seemed to miss out on one meal or another), but in fairness I think the staff did a decent job given the situation and that they were short on numbers due to many of them being stranded at home.

The storm itself wasn’t that impressive, especially to a survivor of Hurricane Bawbag which had faster winds. It was just a bit of wind and some occasional rain, although far warmer than we’d have had back home. The south of the island definitely fared worse than us according to the reports we heard.

We had to cancel the Dunns River Falls trip as we’d booked to do it during the storm and the reschduled dates didn’t work for child care reasons. We also had to seek a refund on our diving as we never made it out! A shame, as the plane wreck nearby is from one of the early Bond films.

Overall, we treated it as a holiday from our holiday and Hans made it onto his delayed flight from there despite a complete lack of information about departures. Nobody’s fault with the phone lines being down and everyone just doing as best they could. Thankfully, due to the hard work of the staff and the comparitive lack of damage, we were able to move back to the Club after 2 nights away.

It was good to be home.