had a guest inquire about our linens and i asked laura to e-mail her with info. here is what she said….
We buy them from Coyuchi (www.coyuchi.com). They are fair trade, organic
linens which they purchase directly from a coop in India. Coyuchi is a
fairly small company, if you just tell them that you are interested in the
sheets purchased by Bird Rock, they will tell you all about the thread
count, etc.
elena: can you call the spa guy today and ask him to stop by. i think we may have one of the filiments burnt out and the spa is not heating. right now its been covered and turned up and the temp reads 97 degrees. (the guests said its been covered all day) the water also looks cloudy. thanks…
BRAND NEW Strawberries were delivered today:)12boxes. Today I actually threw out ~2boxes of these,the local ones. They all were moldy. Probably we shouldn’t order as many as before. We’re not as busy m-f, we don’t have as many breakfasts to use them for. What do you think?
ORDERED
I ordered champagne, printer paper, ink cartridges & teas (and everything else on the Food Coop list). I will stop by with emergency printer paper, breakfasts forms, local strawberries (use first) and blueberries in a moment.
Happy sunny fall days, have fun and be kind:)
EMAIL
Please, everybody, make sure you open the hotel email every morning and check it periodically throughout the day. The call center emails messages which need attention on the same day, so do our guests.
I know, it’s busy and we all worked so hard all summer, but our guests deserve our attention, smiles, help and service all the same. Be there for them: in person, via phone and email.
EARLY B-FAST
We missed the 7:30 Breakfast this morning When I got here the people were waiting and ended up being a little upset, we gave them some yogurt to go since they didn’t want to wait. The form was under all the rest and the time was written under the Special requests. It would be awesome if we could write that on the board in the future, just to be safe.
Everyone else was very happy and we hod lots of great compliments this morning on the scones (yay Olesea!) and everything in general. The two gentlemen in the Matia even said that our website doesn’t do this place justice. I love mornings like this!
Yeah, personal care products from the Food Co-op!
Kaitlyn, do you know if our guests used the hair care products from Giovanni or Nature’s Gate? We currently carry both. I’m leaning towards Giovanni. Any other guest comments on this?
FRUIT
I ordered fruit from MP, will pick it up tomorrow. Give me a ring if there is anything else we might need to get through the weekend (eggs will come on Saturday).
UH OH…
It turns out that Robin’s nest is now closed on Tuesdays and a floral arrangement for today’s romance package was ordered from there so we were without flowers, I put in a desperate call to San Juan florist and left a very pathetic sounding message. Just a heads up so this doesn’t happen again NO ROBIN’S NEST ON TUESDAYS
steffi: kudos to you. we have gotten a lot of really great compliments on the shampoo, conditioner and lotion. i had a gal from the san juan come down and say that her husband travels all over the world and this is the best stuff they have found. they loved all the bath products including the soap. she also said….don’t change the brand. what you got is really good. (i mentioned we were going to try another product line out) this is not the first compliment. i have given the brand name out a couple of times already and what is so nice about this stuff is…you can actually find it in super markets!!!
bird rock binders
de-calcifying espresso machines
pay per view
also: fyi front line gave some info to a guest who wanted some info on rooms that was incorrect. gave a rate of 114$ plus tax and didn’t mention anything about shared bathrooms. guests were walk-ins but felt badly about the mis-info.
wierd guy: this stranger from town darted into our garden and started to cut our roses off. i asked if i could help him and he said he was pruning our roses and then said he had a daughter whose birthday was tomorrow and wanted to give her something nice. i think i acted strange enough that he will not come back. (i started jumping and screaming and yelling “hoot-hoot-billy bob train station kit kaboodle!!”) (not really) what i really should have said is that we already have someone who prunes our roses and to please not cut them off. but of course i couldn’t think of that till now.
i didn’t bring out the recycling because tomorrow is a holiday and didn’t think there would be a pick up. so our can is full…and we would love it if some of that recycling could fit in the bin at elements.
thanks steffi on the follow up on housekeeping snafoos.
kaitlyn
Well done, team! Great Labor Day weekend. Great party, Lina. Good bye and thanks for all your hard work Emilia, Marina & Diana. Have a great life and write us!
HK REPORT
Please write HK comments in the “housekeeping notes” section of each individual reservation, meaning: in a reservation go to “edit”, scroll down to “housekeeping notes”, write what you need.
Let’s not use the housekeeping notes in the housekeeping report, it’s not necessary for our small property and can be, as Kaitlyn noticed, quite confusing. Thank you.
keep in mind that under reports and in the housekeeping where we mark rooms clean and dirty…if you type something into the comments field it will stay there for days and days and days unless you manually erase it and update the housekeeping report. while handy for our matia room to type in the kind of bed…it can also be dangerous. today we had a reservation that guests requested 2 twins over their internet reservation and special requests but in the housekeeping report there was still king bed typed in from yesterday. so there was a king bed up there with a twin bed request.
plan of action: what would be best??? manually erasing all the comments each evening from the housekeeping report or hand writing on the report each morning when housekeeping picks it up. i know there is an option to put a note in the edit field of the actual reservation but does this translate to the report we give out??? any ideas? comments and what we should do?
Where are my fellow worker bees? No blogs from you? But why?
We got delicious local blueberries & strawberries again. Ah, what a treat.
SPA
When making an appointment with the spa, please take the the name of the person you talked with. We had an incident today, where we booked a massage but the spa didn’t have anything in their books. Very frustrating for our guests.
INCIDENT FORMS
I will bring some incident forms down and put them in the file cabinet. Just a reminder: always fill out an incident form in case of an accident.
FIRE ALARM
I think we all need to brush up on what to do when the alarm goes off, since our “clear thinking” abilities will be compromised due to the noise (mine were quite compromised last night).
So:
The system panel reads: “System normal” at all times. In case it goes off, open the panel door and push: “silence” aaahhh
The panel will read: “alarm zone…” and a number. On the panel door is a list of zone numbers (lobby is zone 5, for example).
You then grab the keys from the panel door and will go to the floor which set the system off and find the pull down alarm or smoke detector which did. If a pull down alarm was triggered, open the red box with one of the keys you have in your hand and put the little level back to the normal position. If it was a smoke detector, the little light will be on steady red. Press that red light to reset.
Look around, if it was a false alarm, you will stroll back to the alarm box and press: “reset”. Done.
If there is a fire, go home and have a beer, work is over. No, the system will automatically call the fire department. Start knocking on people’s doors and meet the fire department when they come.
If there was a false alarm, you have reset the system and it goes off again, check the zone again. If you are 100% sure that everything is fine, call the 24 hour number for Guardian on the inside of the panel door.
FIRE ALARM
So, we tested the fire alarm today. Ahem. An extra special Thank you! to all our very patient guests, our wonderful staff, especially Seth, for enduring an hour and a half of alarm sounds. Thank you Fire department for stopping by. Thank you for this being over. So: we have a defective smoke alarm in the smaller bedroom (queen bed) of the Bainbridge Suite. Seth disconnected it for now and I scheduled a repair with Sheryl from Guardian. They will be by on 9/10 (if not, they’ll let us know). Please steer the technician into the right bedroom when he stops by. Give me a ring if you have any questions.
We reorganized all the keys in the back and began labeling the key rack with room names and numbers but the label maker ran out of tape and we couldn’t find more (please order). Please try to keep them in order.
I ordered 3-25lb boxes of scone mix from Conifer INC. it will bi shipped tues or Wed.
GROCERIES
I will pick up milk, bread, butter, green apples, yogurts etc tomorrow also from MP.
TRIP ADVISOR
WE have two new comments on trip advisor both Excellent!!!
We also got a written comment from the guest which stayed in the Patos Last night. it says;
“Thank you for the wonderful accomodations and the great first experience on San juan Island! The bedding is wonderful the decor is great, the breakfast was so pretty and delicious. I kept tripping over the bed, it sticks out a bit. The breakfast choices were great, the tv’s are very nice and the bathrooms were very nice, thank you for the complimentary bicycles and helmets. We would love to come again!”
ELENA
Thank you for being the fruit queen. I didn’t order butter for Wednesday, please pick some up (enough for a week) when you go to MP.
SCHEDULE
New schedule is up. Have a look. We’ll have lovely Lina on the weekends now, yeah! Raquel will schedule amazing breakfast help from her crew for Wednesdays and Thursdays.
TORY
Thank you for lending me “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”. What a cool movie. Even my totally horror movie opposed husband enjoyed it.
1233937 called and cancelled, Kenmore Air canceled all flights to FH due to heavy fog and some other issues…I only charged him to 10%..sorry I didn’t put this in the reso notes, I accidentally canceled it before I wrote any notes.
FRUIT
Will need to be ordered tomorrow and picked up on Tuesday by ME.
2 more…
espresso machines which are out of service so for now the machine for the Patos will be put in there, if someone wants to rent the Patos just let them know it will be without the espresso or coffee machine.
I just got a call from one lady. She wanted to confirm her reservation and.. she said that she called so many times, but our number on the confirmations was wrong - she said it’s 18003523652, it’s supposed to be 18003522632.
Tory & Steffi’s adventure with light:
WHIDBEY
Please call Seth tomorrow and have him replace the light bulb in the Whidbey bathroom. They are tricky little things, nowhere to be found (I learned all kind of things about our hotel while looking for them) and the guests really can’t see well with only one light in there. Light savvy Tory put the lamp from next to the guest computer in the Whidbey bathroom for now. please tackle that situation tomorrow and blog about it.
LITTLE SPOT LIGHTS
Tory noticed while crawling under some bed for one reason or the other that the plugs for the spot lights (like we have in the Skipjack, etc.) are very hot. Is that o.k.? Dave? Seth?
COMPUTER
So we are still working off the “new” computer on the front desk, without programs like word or excel, our files, or a credit card swiper. If you need a form, let me know, I have most of them on my computer at E. Looks like our old front desk computer passed away. Guest computer is fine for now. Awaiting more details from Chris.
HOT TUB
is at 99. When current guests check out, get the knob and turn it up a tiny eenie weeny bit, please.
That’s it. Money was good today. You got petty cash and I got lot’s of receipts with initials on them. Thank you guys.
Great job on the good review on Trip Advisor, you are our Bird Rocking shining stars!
Also I think if anyone comments on how hot their room is offer them that tall skinny fan it does wonders. I gave it to the Spieden guests. They are happy with the temp now.
Thank you Elena & Lina for being the shopping queens. Thank you Lilly for helping me schlepp today (cool car, girl). My shoulder is killing me (Colbert’s Wriststrong bracelet doesn’t seem to help for shoulders).
HOT TUB
Was at 88 degrees today. I turned it up an hour ago, it’s at 91 now, so it’s doing something. Please keep checking that. If it stays low an element might be burned out, if I turned it to far, we may hurt someone.
DISH WASHING DETERGENT
I got 2 different dish washing powders today from Compost It. Please check them out, let me know if you like them. I don’t want to keep using the scented, phosphor laden stuff, which isn’t biodegradable.
NAPKINS
Will come on Monday, until then we’ll need to get by with running to the store.
PAYDAY CANDY
Who ordered that? I gave it to cafe zia for sale.
PETTY CASH
Initial your receipts, please. I keep saying that because I really would like you to do it. Also: when you buy something for a guest, please write the confirmation number on the receipt, next to your INITIALS:)More petty tomorrow.
I’m office girl all week, I can help, cover, put out fires, everything but lift. Call me, call me!
We have a possible availability for tomorrow (Thursday) night. The people in the Spieden feel “very uncomortable” here and I trying to leave a day early if they can get into their other hotel a day early, they will let us know if they are going to be leaving early for sure sometime this afternoon (so don’t sell the room unless we have gotten the go ahead from them but know that we do probably have a room for tomorrow night) I did tell her also that if they leave early and we can’t resell the room that we do have to charge her. I have her cell phone number at the front desk just in case someone wants to book the room…
Groceries
They are here and put away we do need some yogurt and maybe some milk.
Don’t forget that some guests will be coming in here on Friday Looking for their bags please let them know that they are waiting for them up at ELEMENTS.
Here is some stuff that is well past due but useful all the same; In case the hot tub gets murky like it did this last time Paul suggested that we take the filters out and either hose them off or change them out with spares in the outside shed by doing this the water will filter out more quickly. We also need to get some more Bromine powder maybe ask Dwight to order some for us or check Brown’s, Ace? This last time I had to change the tub from Bromine to chlorine with some help from Morgan but its not easy. I also bought some clear blue stuff from Ace and while it does help to make the water nice and clear it also causes the impurities to come to the surface in the form of slimy brownish tan goop. so be prepared should this happen. Paul also suggested that we make a sign that can be put on top of the spa cover asking guests to take rinse off before getting in, suntan lotion, makeup, etc. all use up a lot of the free bromine in the tub.
FLOWERS: I agree with Steffi. Every time I have seen the flowers that Susie has delivered, I have liked them. It may be because I’m not too crazy about “traditional” flowers. I’m sure that it is true that they don’t last as long, but that is just something that we have to contend with as long as we are committed to doing the whole organic thing. This is a pretty important issue for me, so unless the locally grown flowers really suck, let’s just keep working with them. Don’t be shy about asking for the best from Susie, though.
$$
I reconciled cash today (uff). You guys have petty cash again. Two things though: please initial the receipts after going shopping. I want to know who you are:) Also: money was $30 short. Maybe a forgotten receipt? Please pay attention to this. I hate this feeling: “is somebody taking things?”
FOOD - ELENA & LINA
Please order fruit on Monday from MP: box of organic apples, oranges, melons, grapes, strawberries. Get check from Cindy on Tuesday and while there please get organic lemons, bananas & Laura’s green apples. Please blog about the status of this. Gracias!
FOOD - FSA
I phoned in a FSA order: scone mix, sugar (brown & white) & mints. Please blog when it comes, so I know.
FLOWERS
I looked at them today and I think they are fine. You know Lina, the flowers we get from SJ Florist are probably from Brazil or some other far away place, sprayed with pesticides so they don’t wilt, picked by underpaid children and what not. They look better, but that is all they do. They are wrong in all other ways. So I think we should stay with our local flowers. Laura, what do you think?
AMAZING SETH
Is gone next week for a long deserved vacation. Please contact Cindy and I if something breaks.
Thank you so much for all you hard work. The place looks great, our guests are happy, you are wonderful.
Hey is this the wrong blog? I guess I should have made that right turn at Albuquerque…
Well Steffi asked me to blog about your temporary emailing situation. The program you will be using is Outlook Express. It is buried a little bit in the start menu but you should be able to find it. I asked Lilly to make a shortcut for it on the desktop. The back computer used to be your front desk computer. Unless Chris has fished working on it, it was moved to the back because it was having technical difficulties. If you have any questions you can let me know. Talk to you later all.
COMPUTER
Last I spoke with Chris, he said he set up Outlook on the “new” front desk computer. I have a call in to him and when Morgan gets here I may send him down to play with it. The back computer doesn’t have internet. Chris will work on getting the old front desk computer up and running again on Monday. He will also look at the guest computer and it’s unwillingness to work for us.
PASSPORT
Thank you, K for tackling that. Any luck to ship it off island on a Saturday?
FLOWERS
Well, it seems the flowers aren’t really working out for us. I’ll look at them today and then we’ll make an informed decision about the flower future.
the passport guy called. he wants us to overnight his passport to his hotel in seattle. i will be taking this with me to see if i can get it done first thing in the morning. if post san juan is not open…i will call him and arrange a different address. he knows this…
computer in the back apparently does not have internet. i assume chris t. is working on this.
computer in the front is not set up for outlook so we are not getting any e-mails at this point. perhaps adam knows what all the passwords and settings should be.
second floor computer is also not connecting to the internet.
I would like to say what I think about the flowers for the breakfast trays.
So.. I don’t know if it’s either because Susie was supposed to bring the flowers on Friday.. or something else, but the flowers don’t look good..not like fresh beautiful flowers as they’re supposed to be. She brought them yesterday, but they are like they’ll be dead in a few days.
I noticed that when I and Elena bought 1 or 2 times flowers from the SJ florist, we used them like 2 weeks.
Thank you all for staying on top of things so well, you beautiful Bird Rockstars!
I will spend half days with you guys again, starting tomorrow (be afraid, be very afraid, just kidding).
Please let me know about scheduling wishes for the next 2 weeks.
So I decided to make a waiting list because so many people are calling or emailing about being put on a wait list, so I made a document in word…it is on the desktop and called “wait list” please refer to this when we have cancellations! Thanks!
What happened today?..many forgotten things
1096593-lenses and solution in the Marrowstone
1096591-an earring in the Lopez
1181730-clothes in the Cypress
I called for the Lopez and Marrowstone-actually this is one and the same person.
For the Cypress it was not working number or something.
The flowers for the breakfast trays looked really dead..so I and Lilly decided to throw them away. I called Susie and asked her to bring us flowers today instead of Friday and she was ok with that.
Good Morning
The shipping charges have been charged to the ladies who set boxes home, please see their reservations for notes if you have any questions.
Seth is off today, he will also be leaving on Friday for 6 days. Depending on the maintenance request will depend on who gets it, SO please let Steffi or I know if something needs dealt with.
Welcome back Laura and Steffi
Laura told Raquel where the new clothes hangars go. I am hoping Seth will install them tomorrow.
The guy from the spa pro called and I told him everything what Elena tried, I took a look one more time at the jacuzzi and it still has the little white things on the top, looks really bad… So, he will be here tomorrow at 8:30am and hopefully will fix the problem. I’ll tell Lilly to let the people know about the early visit tomorrow.
MARROWSTONE
The hot tub is still not looking so good, not as foggy as yesterday but the clear blue that I added made all the grimy stuff come to the surface so I spent quite a bit of time just skimming the surface, let the gentleman know we did our best and that tomorrow or as soon as Seth gets back to me and Morgan can come do the chemicals we will empty and re-fill the whole thing for them.
Rez# 1086626 Left their cell phone in the Matia it is all set with a shipping slip and just needs to be dropped off at post San Juan on Monday.
The folks in the cypress may or may not want breakfast for tomorrow their breakfast form is on the front desk they said they would stop by and let us know.
SKIPJACK
They will be leaving early and will need a 7am breakfast you can make it and leave it in the back when I get here I will set it out.
MATIA BEDS
It seems that there are rarely ever notes about how the beds need to be set up and when housekeeping asks I always have to guess or call the guest same day. Please call guests when it is booked online and then make a note or if over the phone please be sure to ask. thanks
FOOD FUTURE
Elena will order produce tomorrow, which we need to pick up on Friday. Kaitlyn or Tory, can one of you get a check from Cindy and head on up to MP for pick up, please? Buy some bananas and anything else we might need to get through the weekend.
Lilly will pick up the Food Coop order next Wednesday.
I’m in the woods. Please buy food as needed (there is some cash in the safe in an envelope with my name on it, write down what you take). Please contact Cindy if something big happens. Have a great week:)
I just wrote my whole blog and it dumped it, it told me I was blogging to fast?? Has that happened to anyone else?
Okay here we go again:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Hangars
The new hangars came in that Laura ordered, only about 8 months late.. None of us are exactly sure where she would like them hung in the specific rooms so next week she will let Seth know. Until then please keep the boxes in the back room where they are at easy access, AND make sure that the box that is open gets taped up so no parts fall out.
Evening Magazine
Thank you so much Lina and Elena for all your preparation yesterday, I am sorry that the photographer did no have time to come inside, they took an outside shot. I know you were ready for your big debut, But remember you are both already stars in my eyes..
Frontline
I sent you a email regarding the Frontline Call Center, if any of you have any questions please let me know.
Reviews
Starting NOW, Bird Rock employee’s are eligible for a reward for any positive reviews the property receives, please see Elena, Steffi or I for any questions
Bathroom Lights
Seth fixed the lights with help via telephone from Mr. Dave. Great job you two…
in the bathroom upstairs on the right (shared bathroom) the lights do not turn on. raquel called cindy and left her a message to have dave come down. we might need to follow up on this in the morning if we don’t hear from either of them. we put the lobby standing lamp in there and the small table lamp from laura’s desk in there. (which by the way looks to have a broken shade on it.)
the two espresso machines on the counter in the back are ready to be sent back. we just need to call aeronautical services before 9:30 am and let them know to pick them up.
i couldn’t get the second floor computer to log on to the internet. can you call techi chris to see if he can fix. i unplugged the thingys a couple of times and rebooted both times and it still didn’t work. thanks
ESPRESSO MACHINES
we got the replacements espresso makers today and they are in the back office above Tory’s bed. They also sent an extra return slip in case we have another machine break or malfunction, Kaitlyn put it in the key drawer of the safe.
Cancellations
we have had a few cancellations for very relevant reasons heart attacks, one lady’s water broke 10 weeks early (so sad) so we have some availability I think we should start a waiting list for down here I know that some of these rooms.
HEADS UP!!!
Cindy called this morning to let us know that Evening Magazine will be doing some filming here at Bird Rock between 11-3 Lina and I will make sure and have everything as spiffied as possible, cookies out lobby sparkling, the housekeepers will also be wearing their new uniforms (well at least Socco and Olga)
KEYS
It looks like there are some car keys on the back desk that need to be dropped off at post San Juan on Monday.
MATIA & SAN JUAN
The rooms are booked under the same name Rez # 1219240. They have stayed here before when it was Friday’s so when I explained the breakfast form the response was surprisingly “if you have a complaints sheet this is something I’d like to write about” ??? She was challenging me the whole time about EVERYTHING. to top it all off the Matia was on the list of clean rooms and actually wasn’t when we got up there the room was dirty!!! eeek! I apologized and offered to hold their luggage but nope they didn’t want that. Oh and before showing them up to the room I nicely offered to give her a comments sheet and she just said “We’ll see” anyways just a heads up that they are a little testy( well mostly just the lady) They also said something about noise being horrible the last times they said and thought the Matia would less noisy which I informed her was not true saying “you will get noise from all sides of the building” Just trying to cover my bases here. I have a bad feeling about them.
KEYS
the Bainbridge keys are switched out.
LOST & FOUND
I added an item to the lost and found today. A pair of white shoes from rez # 1168067 in case they call about them.
SCHEDULE
New schedule is up, guest starring Amazing Elena & Extraordinary Tory in “night shifts” at ELEMENTS & Lovely Lilly in a special appearance as “breakfasts queen” at Bird Rock. RE: Seattle girl getaway: Tue 8/19 & Wed 8/20 would work better schedule wise.
Great job everybody, each and every one of you rocks my world.
Just to let everyone know the found ipod from the Lopez Suite is in the bottom of the safe in the money box. I asked the last guests that checked out but it was not theirs. All swipe keys were traded out for shiny new ones except the Bainbridge I have not seen them all day. Bye my lovelies I’m going on my days off. Heart, T
FRONT DOOR KEYS
Today was the day. Kaitlyn found that over 10 keys aren’t working and we redid them all (thank you Kaitlyn, for organizing the switch). Please remember, if you ever make keys for BR’s front door, always make a copy, never a new key.
PAY PER VIEW
So the pay per view is not working. Our account isn’t set up and we can’t order “free” movies anymore. Laura will continue the battle with the TV people when she gets back. Thank you, K, for letting us know.
cancellation 216877539 called. this is the overbook that was blogged. i tried to be as helpful as possible in explaining the situation and called elements that he would be in touch. wanted to extend stay.
noise complaint:1162582 in speiden. see notes if complains again. cindy spoke with guest and kings about the loading dock in the morning. kings said there wasn’t much they could do but would speak to drivers about yelling in the morning.
kings noise: cindy says we should tell people when they book the speiden and the cypress they are on the side of building with store loading dock. may or may not be some noise in the morning. possibly book these rooms last.
Res# 1144947 is a no show. I went ahead and charged her and printed out invoices. I am spending the night tonight so if she shows up I will check her in. The contact number that we have for her is a home number. The lady that answered the phone said she is out of town so I suspect she will arrive I hope the dates are correct.
THE LITTLE FRIDGE THAT COULD
I discovered that the little fridge in the back has been defrosting itself because the door is not closing properly. The iceberg emerging from the freezer wont let the door close all the way. It’s on the back porch now but I will bring it back in and get it set back up when I get up in the morning.
SEA & SKY SPECIAL
Hey guys, I was just going through upcoming reservations and noticed that several guests had booked the sea & sky, but their total due was only the room rate (but their rate said: sea&sky). I don’t know why that is, maybe WRP defaults back to the room rate. I will look at it when I have more time. For now: if you notice this upon check-in or when going through future reservation, simply add on a $75 dining credit and a kayak trip for $89 per person. Gracias!
Overbooking
The shaw was overbooked for the 26th, Steffi will take one of the emergency rooms from ELEMENTS and set it aside for them. when the guests check-in please explain to them what happened and be very accommodating maybe even have the Elements shuttle come and pick them up.
INCIDENT
Today, while the folks in the San Juan were out I went ahead a made them a little hand written note apologizing for what happened last night and thanking them for their patience and understanding with a split of champagne and set it in their room.
#216877539
UNIREZ overbooking: I was able to put the guest in an Earth Place at E. This is a mistake on the travel agent’s end and they claim they don’t have any guest information, so all this will be news for the guest upon arrival. Be very kind and understanding, when sending them to E, give them the option to check with other hotels.
For now: whenever you have a second, go to the availability calendar and make sure we aren’t overbooked. If we are, try to contact guest right away, if you can’t, make a reservation at E or another place for the guest. Thank you guys.
The sheriffs department stopped by to ask about the San Juan Suite guests. They were under the impression that there was someone on the balcony shooting a pellet gun at cars parked at Herb’s. I informed them that they had just returned from dinner an do not seem like the type of people that shoot things while on holiday. They investigated a little more and asked to be shown to the room so they could question the guest. The police left and said that it must not be them and I agreed. A while later the guest came downstairs and I apologized for the inconvenience he laughed and said “oh it’s no big deal”. Now that’s a Friday Harbor you don’t get to see on postcards!
RECONCILIATION REPORT
As of today, you don’t have to print a reconciliation report anymore. Cindy prints them daily up at E.
#5006
Left message with Terrence regarding refund (our system doesn’t let you refund after 120, so he’ll get a check). Please confirm mailing address on file.
gal with cc: called and we got things squared. she would like to have matia all three nights if it becomes available from cancellation. res #1229342
matia: bed was made up wrong. king was reserved and two twins were made up. i gave them a split of champagne to apologize. roman and i put bed together after guests checked in.
skipjack: was priceline night before and travelocity tonight. i kept a copy of confirmation letter so adam, steffi, or cindy can take a look. its in the safe with the paperwork. was booked for four guests and program booked them into skipjack. guests checking in were two adults and two children. 8 and 12. moved them to elements.
porta crib: was missed to be put in room. perhaps our new housekeepers do not know what this is?? or where they are??
morning message: was from yesterday. i recored a generic message without a date. i think steffi or cindy mentioned this. if you want to change…ok with me. i tried to sound chipper. but my voice goes up an octive so it might be squeeky.
whale watch booking option: sorry elena. i didn’t really understand the notes. so i left it in the alarms.
reservation 215480850 came with three adults. the reservation was made over priceline. guest quoted two adults on reservation and arrived with three. room too small. so i moved them up to elements in an earth room.
bike lock: is not getting unlocked in the morning.
matia bed: was not set up for two twins. olecia and i changed it after the guest checked in. we might all want to train on how to set that up and where sheets are just in case this happens by mistake.
post san juan alarms:
i was under the impression cindy would take care of these when we got our bill from post san juan.
guess no one could take my shift on monday. thanks for thinking about it. i may ask for the same thing next month. they only do drill on monday nights.
THIS MORNING
Went very well, Olga and I were here bright and early at 7:00am. Martha followed at 7:40 or so but I actually sent her away since Olga and I had everything well under control.
SAN JUAN & MARROWSTONE
I asked them this morning if everything had worked out okay for them and they seemed very happy said that they had, had a wonderful time. They just mentioned that the clothes rack we had given them was a little unstable.
POST SAN JUAN BILL
What is up with these alarms? they have been there for a long time have they been taken care of? I’d like to turn them off.
would it be possible to make the office door to the lobby a hindged swinging door?? it gets left open all the time because housekeeping needs to go in and out to the laundry so much. plus it would be so much easier in the morning for breakfast too.
as a morning person a measly two days a week, i was wondering why we don’t have diana and olesia helping with breakfast anymore. they were very fast and efficient at this. i am still training housekeepers?? this isn’t working when i am scheduled to come in at 7:30 am and they are getting here at 7 and not knowing 1. how to enter the building and 2. what to do.
please help and give us back our experienced breakfast crew. (at lease until the busy season is over.) please????? if this will not work…then we need to change the schedule for the front desk to come in at 7 instead.
i am ok with not serving apples. there are plenty of other fruits to fill a small plate. what if we just had that sack full for the lobby. the granny smith apples stocked. we don’t need a case of those…
it sounds like the apple biz is boomin’ should we change our professions??
STEFFI WENT TO APPLE SCHOOL
We just payed $100 for a case of organic Fuji apples from New Zealand. The produce dude, who used to be an apple broker (I’m such a sucker for stories like that) explained it to me: the combo of fuel prices and the weak dollar make things like foreign fruit out of season extraordinarily expensive. And once our apples will be in season, it won’t help us a bit because the Washington growers make such a high profit on selling overseas (weak dollar again). I also learned about internal apple pressure (14lb is optimal), storing temperatures and when to buy which size apple.
So, what does this mean for us? Don’t waste apples, don’t eat them yourself, every apple is precious and special.
I would like to hear your opinion Bird Rockers: shall we not serve apples right now, shall we serve non-organic, smaller servings?
That’s my apple story.
can anyone work my monday evening shift at bird rock on the 21st? i was hoping to participate in a heavy rescue drill at the fire department. it only happens once a month and is required credit for my emt certification. it is a 3-11 shift monday the 21st. please help me out???
INPUT FROM BL (beautiful Laura) PLEASE
Laura, Seth put up the bike rack, kind of diagonal, I think it looks very nice. We might want to ask the gardeners to move one of the planters and one of the hanging thingely dingies. When you are back, will you have a look and let me know what you think? Also: where would you like the second bike rack? Also: do you still want us to change the message every night and day, even though we have the nights covered by the call center now? Maybe we could just have a short, strong day message which stays?
We miss you!
FIRE ALARM / TELEPHONE
Centurytel installed the dedicated fire alarm line 1183 (after consulting with Guardian). The 0834 will be the back-up line (we can still use it as a phone line). According to Matt from Guardian, an alarm technician will come by on Tuesday and connect the system to the newly installed phone lines.
KEYS
Locksmith Kyle will be by Monday at noon to make back-up keys. Please have him make 4 Marrowstone, 4 Bainbridge and whatever else you see we are low on.
BATHROOM WINDOW
I had Seth frost the window in the guest bathroom.
FOOD
I will go to MP tomorrow for fruit. K, please let me know if there is anything else we need.
FLOWERS
Talked to Susie, she will be mindful of the pollen and fragility issues the next time she brings flowers. If the flowers we have from SJ Florist are still nice, don’t throw them away. Keep me posted, keep supplementing with SJ Florist flowers if Susie’s die or try to reproduce in the jam (only Elena will get this, he, he, peludo!)
UNDERSTAFFED
Sweeties, over the next couple of weeks we are skeleton staffed. Please be on time, work hard, think ahead and make it easy on the person working after you. Especially at Bird Rock, do as much as you possibly can for the following shift. I won’t be around much, working the desk at ELEMENTS, but call me if there are issues. I can always do a store run, etc.
A couple of other random things: if you promise something to a guest (like an early check in), write a note in that guest’s file. Please don’t give out room numbers before check-in time, things can change.
This is it, this is what we are working towards all year. Be focused, keep your spirits high and be kind.
Much love.
CHECK FOR REZ # 1034392
I called and left a second message regarding the unsigned check that we received and left the alarm on because I will try her once again tomorrow otherwise we will need to ask Cindy what to do if we don’t hear back.
REZ # 1101561 “THE MESS”
I called her back once again to confirm that all of her activities as well as her stay were correct before we go moving kayaking and dinner reservations around. Hopefully she will call back. otherwise I will try her back again tomorrow. Cindy also said that because she has sooo many activities and she has moved things around so many times we will have to charge her an additional %10 deposit for our trouble.
LUGGGAGE FOR 1146049
They will be back again on Friday and will need us to put their luggage back in their room for them. The luggage is in the second floor luggage room.
I SEE YOU…
In the shared bath shower on the second floor there is a window and when there are people on the roof of kings they can look right in. It happened to a lady this morning, she was not upset or anything she just thought we should maybe frost that glass or something. Laura what do you think?
GC FOR GRACE CONSTRUCTION
The gentleman called back with the mailing information for the GC. CINDY should we just go ahead and mail it or is there something special that you wanted to send with it since it was a large purchase?
ALARMS
I just left them on for now for myself to follow up on tomorrow.
reservation 1101561 called around 8:30 9:00 tonight to change reservation dates. this is a HUGE mess of a reservation. they changed their dates three times and had booking options each time. in the meantime…stuff was canceled or scheduled by guests themselves. this last call put us in charge of everything again. it was the friend that called…so could someone please call the reservation holder and confirm the newest dates and booking options with her. we need to confirm dates of kayak tour, dinner and massages if there were any. then we need to call all of our vendors to reschedule. new vouchers need to be made for everything. sorry to heap this on you but i go on three days off. if you have questions, you can call me. essentially just treat it like you are re-confirming with the original party the changes that were made to the reservation.
elena: the fellow that had the package sent to him that is arriving soon…just called to reconfirm that it came and we know what to do with it.
the clothes hangers that we got for the marrowstone and san juan…beware of putting too much stuff or making them too tall. the guest said that when they got to their room all the clothes had fallen off and rack was on the floor. for future reference…
PLEASE HELP??!!!:
i was really hoping to participate in a heavy rescue drill at the fire department for my EMS education credit this monday the 21st. CAN ANYONE COVER MY PM SHIFT AT BIRD ROCK FROM 3-11PM ON MONDAY THE 21ST?
LET ME KNOW. STEFFI TOO. SHE HAS TO APPROVE. THANKS
kayak mixup: res. 1168891 didn’t make it to san juan outfitter 5 hour tour. guest was under impression they were going out with outdoor odysseys because whoever they talked to over the phone said outdoor odysseys. (which makes me think we should no longer use abbr. when making our notes.)
odysseys had room so they took them. the room charge is still there. one charge was to room the other was paid POS. odysseys will be billing us without vouchers received and san juan outfitters was able to cancel with no penalty.
reservation 1221975 arriving doesn’t want down or feather pillows of any kind in their room. raquel is going to bring 4 pillows to us tomorrow tuesday for their stay.
i think there was some confusion reservation 1168891 and their kayak trip. they missed their five hour tour today and i think they assumed they were heading out with outdoor oddysseys and they had a van pick up down town….well, mostly its my fault for not double checking the voucher i gave them…but they were scheduled to go out with san juan outfitters and never made it out there. so…i have learned a valuable lesson to look at the voucher i hand over and make sure the guest has transport or correct info on transport.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TORY AND PRISCILLA :):):):) I AM SORRY I AM NOT THERE TO GIVE YOU BOTH BIG HUGS THIS AFTERNOON.. MY NECK DECIDED IT NEEDED AN IMMEDIATE BREAK, SO I AM AT HOME WITH THE HEATING PAD.. HAVE THE MOST WONDERFUL DAY EVER, YOU BOTH DESERVE IT..
LUGGAGE
We have quite a bit of luggage in the second floor storage next to the Fidalgo. 1 box which was delivered for rez # 1117988 arriving on July 24th.
There are also 3 red suitcases which will be picked up on Friday, I will be here so no problem.
PROBLEM SOLVED
Miss Raquel “The Queen” solved the problem with the folks in the San Juan & Marrowstone, she got them clothing racks for their stay afterwards they should be stored in the second floor storage next to the Fidalgo and offered to guests with long stays.
GROCERIES. There are plenty of groceries for now. I will place an order with MP on Wednesday or Friday we’ll see how things look.
FLOWERS
San Juan florists daisy bunches are about $10. We usually get two bunches and they last almost 2 weeks. What do you think Steffi? The flowers we get now seem to barely make it through one week.
might i add…that it looks like i have talked a couple of time with these guests before they arrived. it is so frustrating to look forward to a guest coming because you have established a relationship and then have them be so upset when they get here. relationship shattered and fear inserted. man…that really sucks.
flowers: were replaced because suzie dropped off fresh ones. thats the reason the others disappeared.
i rolled as many silverware as we usually do. i don’t know what happened there…
guests in san juan were very upset when they checked in (reservation number is under daughter) because there was not a closet to hang clothes. situation got stickier the more i tried to help. and guest said she would not stay if there was no place to hang clothes. so in a panic i tried to get steffi and couldn’t and called cindy. cindy tried to help and called raquel to see if we could think of anyway to hang their clothes. so i thought perhaps they could hang clothes on curtain rod and they thought to hang clothes on towel rack. raquel said cindy would try to get ahold of seth to come tomorrow morning to work a contraption out for them. last report is that they are ok and thank you for trying to help.
(but at the time it was very scary because guest was not quite so nice and threatening to leave.)
THIS MORNING
Was horrible…
dishes still in the machine
not enough butter and jam prepared
not enough silverware rolled
etc etc
FLOWERS
what happened to the really cute bud vases that Lina and I put together they have been replaced it seems by some wilted (and sorry) but very ugly yellow flowers that look like they are from outside. The bud vases that Lina and I made we got from San Juan florist so please do not replace them unless they are horribly wilted, they cost money. It was honestly really upsetting to see what they had been replaced with.
So I am not mad or anything and most definitely not trying to be rude. But please consider that this next week I will be without Lina. I will have A housekeeper from only 7-9am and I really need things to be ready otherwise every morning will be absolute insanity. Please, please consider this. thank you
Called San Juan Taxi and they had the sunglasses. She was ecstatic! Res# 201196072 would also like to stay with us another night if we have any cancellations for Sunday. Diana has bike #10.
sunglasses from the san juan: guest thought she left sunglasses at the duck soup last night (friday night). restaurant called and said they didn’t find them. i let guest know. she may need some more help tracking other places down to see if they are there.
breakfast forms: don’t forget to double check the forms in the pm before you close. there were two saltspring tickets and in the rush this morning…we didn’t notice. so the saltspring got yesterdays guests breakfast about an hour and a half earlier than they wanted. oops. just make sure we don’t have any doubles up.
fruit: there were 5 cartons of moldy strawberries in the small refridgerator. i don’t know how to solve this. they get moldy or they get dehydrated. should we just go get berries every 2 or three days so we don’t have them go bad? i just look at them and think…i wouldn’t eat that. why would i give it to a guest? and end up tossing them. open to any and all suggestions…and pass it on to the breakfast ladies. they are not as in tune to checking the status of things in the fridge. so it may be a front desk duty to double check stuff daily.
cancellations: i have noticed a couple of times when we get these that there are other rooms arriving that would have liked to extend or stay in the same room if possible. when we get a cancellation can we start looking at the reservations before and after the arrival by a day to see if a guest wanted that room who is still coming. we missed an excellent opportunity to do that for a guest who wanted to stay an extra day in the marrowstone when we had a cancellation. its super easy to check if you go to the availability screen and just run the mouse over the days before and after the cancellation. the guest remarks come up with the name and sometimes you can tell if they wanted an extention.
THURSDAY, JULY 17th - a Century Tel technician will come to do two things related to our fire panel:
1) Install a new “dedicated” phone line directly to the panel. This line’s telephone number will be 378-1183.
2) Tie into our existing line 378-0834 (the new line we just got put in) and hook this up to the fire panel as a “back up” or secondary line to the panel. This line should NOT be dedicated solely to the fire panel.
Whoever is working on that day will you please, please, please make sure this gets done correctly??
espresso machines: there will be two replacements sent to hotel that have shipping slips for the two additional machines under the desk in the back room. do not throw these away. we need to tape them to the boxes and call aeronautical services to pick them up. they will be with dhl and aeronautical can do this. but they must get the call to come get them.
then we should be receiving two additional units to replace the two that are in the back.
steffi and i both think that it is best to not open the machines up to try to fix them even if the tech tells you too. just because you never know about warranty and if one person in their company says yes and another says no.
(i figure the warranty is almost out anyway? do we know how long this lasts? one year two years??)
Tory: don’t forget to leave the hall lights ON when you close up.
Hey guys, sorry about the Shaw, that was my fault. The guy walked in and said it would only be him and his wife with their very young daughter (I didn’t know about the extra person charge…I thought kids were free if they were younger.) However when they arrived and I checked them in, I saw that they clearly had two daughters who were nowhere near “little”….so I kinda panicked and didn’t really know what to say to them because the guy was kind of testy with me. I’m really sorry I promise I didn’t do this intentionally.
well…and it kinda seems like A LOT of our rooms can only fit comfortably 2 people. really. mostly because of our “fire code” don’t feel bashfull to tell people that and secretly…if we get too many people in a small room…the noise from that room goes up too. so surrounding guests get a little “put off”
i experienced this first hand. and a neighbor guest was not happy to see so many people going into a room. don’t forget…we have a lovely sister property that has rooms not one but TWO fabulous beds. which would be best in most cases with families.
Morning Kaitlyn!
Will you please call Aeronautical Services and have them pick up our 2 broken espresso makers today? Thank you, thank you.
MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY & EXTRA PERSON CHARGES
Elena is right. All our rooms are priced for 2 people except of the Bainbridge Suite (4), any extra persons (kids under 4 are free) cost $20 per night. Please charge accordingly.
I wrote the maximum occupancy of each room on our front desk rack card, please have a look.
I will go to MP tomorrow, will check in for things needed before I go.
REZ. #1213756 for the Shaw had 4 people! 2 adults a 15 year old and a 7 year old. This is NOT okay. And on top of that it looks like they were a walk-in and weren’t even charged extra person fees.
Refrigerator.
Anaco appliance is delivering a refrigerator for me tomorrow please call me when they come in so that I can let them into my apartment.
The bikes are now in numerical order please try and keep them like this.
I exchanged our last backup coffee pot in the Whidbey Suite. The full cup button is not working and water is coming out of the bottom. I placed it back in the box and put it with the other machine to go back to manufacturer.
THANK YOU STEFAN!
For coming down and helping the guest in the whidbey hook up their WII. Their son is really happy now that he gets to play his games now while on vacation.
Laura got us spiffy new glass carafes. Tory and I washed 16 each and stored some of the old style and the spares above the safe in the luggage room. Use those for OJ, please.
Also: please let Raquel know that I brought 50lb of earth friendly laundry detergent into the upstairs laundry room (it’s mighty warm in there).
If somebody has time & car tomorrow, please get green apples and other organic apples from MP.
ELEMENTS rate sheets are in the front desk in-box & resource.
The Key to perfect cookies is…..
**Pre-heat the oven to slightly below 350.
**Once the oven is up to temp.
**Place very cold cookies straight from the freezer is best and put them in the oven right away.
**Bake for 15-20 minutes
** Remember don’t let them get too brown in the oven since they will continue to brown after you pull them out.
Why I’m blogging from ELEMENTS? Its slow, why not.
The guest who has the Shaw booked for the 9-11 of july called wanting to cancel, I called her back and left her a message letting her know that we would have to charge her if we can’t rebook because she is canceling within t10 days of her rez. I didn’t actually cancel the rez. until we hear back from her.
GROCERIES
I ordered groceries and I will pick them up tomorrow.
DO NOT DISTURB: Kaitlyn, thanks for mentioning that we don’t have those. I just assumed that we still had the old ones. I will see what I can find out.
378-0834
Elena installed our third line phone today. It sits sleek and black on your left when staffing the front desk. Front Line will forward calls only we can deal with to that line (I hope, Cindy?)and we can call each other on that line when we really need to talk to somebody immediately (as in: “How long have you felt that way? Drink 2 glasses of water and take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning.” or: “He said what? No, he didn’t! Eat 2 boxes of chocolate and watch ‘Steel Magnolias’ and call me in the morning.”)
I took 2 mini tongs, an old baking sheet, the large cooling tray, and the mini muffin forms and brought them to Gio, who is creating the most amazing baked concoctions for sale at Cafe Zia.
fyi: it smells awfully musty in the saltspring. should we be looking for a leak??? i have noticed it before but not every time i go in there to check someone in. does not smell that way in the whidbey.
laura: thanks for the new napkin stickers. it is much better with the bigger sticker. and…do you plan on getting “do not disturb” and “service please” tags for the room doors?
Hey guys, so the Patos cell phone…sorry I totally forgot to put the rez number, it is 1154673. I have called her and left a message telling her that we have her cell, but I also sent her an email in case the number we had on file is belonging to the phone that we have. So hopefully we will hear back from her soon! Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th
P.S. The $20 was Soco’s! She came downstairs asking if we found 20 bucks laying around. Also I have to apologize the camera lady called on Wednesday and said that she found her camera when she was unpacking. I just didn’t put it in the blog. I noticed Kaitlyn asking about it this morning in the blog…my bad!!!
elena: i haven’t heard anything about the camera. but what do i know…i have been off for three days. so i guess…probably….they called the sheriffs office directly.
lilly: the post san juan bill is a reminder for us when cindy gets the account bill from post san juan for us to charge the appropriate amount of postage for this gals box. there is another lady Res# 14790 to get billed as well. we sent their luggage to them and didn’t have the three number security code on the credit card that hamid requires of us.
also FYI: tory didn’t set the garbage out today because he was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a pick up being that it is the 4th of July. so….we will probably need regino or seth to come and help us out tomorrow or sunday if the transfer station is open. we will have A LOT of garbage by then.
also: i put all the spare keys we had up on the peg board behind the actual room names. we have plenty for the whidbey and a couple of other rooms. but if we get a pro in to make spares…we should do that for all the other rooms too.
JUICE DECANTERS: Okay. I blew it. I ordered some beautiful new juice decanters and they came and they are beautiful, but they are plastic…yuck. So, I ordered glass ones which will be coming the end of next week. In the meantime, feel free to use the plastic ones as needed and they will make good back ups for later.
IPOD: Is it working now? I went by this morning to pick it up and fix it, but it was working. The battery was almost dead so Lilly put it on the charger this morning and I’m wondering if it is still working. Let me know.
So I found $20 just lying next to the door by the front desk…did anyone lose 20 bucks? Or could it maybe be a guests money? I have left it on the front desk for someone to hopefully claim it….
I created an alarm and a maintenance request but will someone please make sure Seth takes a look at the toilet handle in the Marrowstone Suite.
Also the Ipod is frozen we have been using the two little ones in the meantime and charging them when the die. No biggie.
And the Shaw coffee maker sucked the pod rest into the top chamber. I removed it and it is in the luggage room. AKA my room! Guest didn’t want to bother with getting another one. Said they do not drink coffee…hum. I don’t understand it either.
See you in the afternoon Lilly!
LOPEZ
I have reopened the Lopez on the 25th, I think it is a better idea to leave the floor the way it is until we are slower. Dave has unplugged the cables, and nobody will no any different except for that they will not have an extremly hot floor to walk on. Dave does not need a whole day to fix this, he will only at lease 3 hours to fix it, but there will be no need to close the room off for the entire night. Steffi, let’s give Dave a call (like the night prior)when we see a day that does not have anybody staying in it.
Thanks,
Cindy
FOOD
I’ll go to MP tomorrow to get us through the 4th (granola, fruit, etc.) and will pick up a big fruit order on Saturday.
PHONE 1
Elena just brought by a simple phone (with cord) for our emergency line.
PHONE 2
Cindy will email instructions about how to forward the phone lines to Front Line in the evening and how to cancel it in the morning. Very Very important, so our phone lines will never go to voice mail. I’ll print out instructions and put reminders everywhere. And I mean everywhere:)
KEYS
I have a call in to Kyle, the locksmith. Please have him make duplicates (4 each) of the Skipjack, Saltspring & Whidbey keys. He will be here within the next week.
LOPEZ HEAT
It being summer and all, why don’t we wait until the shoulder season to have that repaired and leave the bathroom heat turned off? Adam? Laura?
Gosh I am just blogging away today…one last thing, our ipod in the back seems to be broken! The screen is frozen and it won’t do anything. So we’ve been enjoying all the interesting music on the blue little shuffle.
There is an alarm in the New Bookings section about a guest who was having some boxes shipped, does anyone know how much we are supposed to charge her? Rez # 1040663
I have closed off the Lopez for 7/25 (the only day it is open from now) so that Dave can work on repairing the heated bathroom floor. We will need to call him the morning of 7/23 just as a reminder…however if we start getting really busy for that date, or sold out, please release the room to be sold and call Dave to let him know. Thank you!!
Hopefully there will be no complaints, Dave just shut off the heat altogether in the Lopez bathroom. So if people are worried that it isn’t working this is why!
Adam, I just checked it and it was already set to the lowest temp. But I will go back in a few hours and see if the floor has cooled off at all. Thanks for the tip!
LOPEZ HEAT: If the heat is turned off in the bathroom and the heat is still on, there is a problem. Lilly, can you please make sure that the heat in the bathroom is set to it’s coolest, 50, and then test it 2 hours later. If the heat is still on, please call me. I do have a call in to Dave already to see if he can swing by and take a look.
A guest just made a really good point, our honeymooners staying in the Lopez pointed out that the heated bathroom floors were a little uncomfortably warm this weekend with the hot weather that we had…is there any way that we can turn them off?
Patos…left their cell phone in the room! I called and emailed them so hopefully we will hear back soon!
Can someone bring down some more time cards for the boys and girls who do not have a swipe card. Also I think it makes more sense to print off alot of breakfast cards up at Elements in Cindy’s really fancy laser printer and then bring them down here for us to slice in half. We seem to be burning through about 1 ink cartridge every two weeks. Also I had a guest check into the Whidbey suite tonight and there were no keys. I went ahead and improvised.But noticed we are getting low on our back up key cards.
Also res# 1126239 wanted to cancel the last night of his stay. July 3rd. So there it is ripe for the taking. I reminded him of cancellation policy. He would like to stay if we do not resell the room and need to charge him.
SPIEDEN LEEK
So this morning Olga noticed that there was a pretty substantial leek coming from the tubes under the Spieden. I called Seth to Have a look at it and it appears the tubing was disconnected at one of the joints, elbows whatever its called. But that was not the only problem… the caulking around the Spieden bath tub was in pretty bad shape so he re-caulked and this should relieve the issue but this may happen on a smaller scale again if the bath tub is overflown or the shower heads are pointed too far onto the shower wall.
KEYS
Kaitlyn left some keys that have not been working on the rooms and it looks like they are some of the newer ones. This sounds like a job for Steffi and maybe a locksmith.
SILVERWARE
were are all out of the little stickers we use on our silverware rolls so miss Raquel
EMPLOYEES ONLY
Lina and I have been experiencing a lot of very snoopy guests barging in on our breakfast prep to see if they can have their breakfast 5 minutes early. Or to see if they can just get something out of their luggage. So we made a tasteful little “employees only” sign to try and prevent this.
THE CAMERA
Have we heard back from the lady about the camera? updates… anything?
FLOWERS & CHOCOLATES
Rez #1120560 had a request for flowers and chocolates on the 4th of July but Robin’s Nest will be closed so the flowers will be delivered on the 3rd around noon. if there is any refrigerator space they should be refrigerated so that they look nice and fresh. Chocolates are ordered and we will need to pick them up around noon tomorrow.
Well folks, we didn’t make our June forecast. I’m sure that we’re all pretty bummed about that. I have been very carefully analyzing why we didn’t make it and I think it has mainly to do with the poor weather. Which, despite my wishes, remains out of my control. Both Elements and Bird Rock came in under expectations even though our advanced bookings were really high. What does this mean? Unfortunately for you it means no June bonus. For us, it just means we still can’t afford to pay all those darned bill collectors. BUT, it doesn’t mean we need to give up hope. Quite the contrary. I really do think that it was the weather and not the ecomony (which depsite my children’s wishes, also remains out of my control). So, let’s just all keep those beautiful smiles flashing and dazzle our guests, future, current and past, with our wonderful hospitality. Any questions, comments, ideas or dreams, just let me know. Happy July!
whoops.
keys: there is a key in seth’s box for the saltspring that does not open the saltspring. we will probably need another copy. i don’t believe there is one in the spare bag. and the skipjack had 2 new keys made that do not work either. we will need two more of those made as well. so far…i believe we only have one of each of those rooms.
speiden: the window in the speiden is broken (not the glass) the two rods in the side of the window that keep it up have come loose or are broken and the window is loose in its frame and won’t stay up. i managed to prop it open for the guests in there (it is very warm) and will still close. they were concerned. i didn’t act concerned so… i think they are not as concerned now.
screens: we are missing two screens for the lobby. one for the desk window and one for a window above the couch. would be great to have so the buggies don’t come in after we close down for the night.
Oh Elena, you are SO brave and athletic and agile and helpful and and and…. Good job. I can’t tell you how many times I hopped the back fence by King’s back in the days before you could walk through by the propane tanks. Yes, I would lock myself out of the kitchen, inevitably on one of the rare days I would be wearing a skirt. You can picture it, can’t you? I’d plop over the fence with some poor King’s worker looking at me like I was a crazy nut job.
CYPRESS TV: I’m imagining that Seth will be there tomorrow and he can put the new tv in. When that gets done, will you let me know, pretty please??
FENCE HOPPING
Yes, thats right FENCE HOPPING! Little old me jumped the fence in the Marrowstone in a heroic attempt to rescue the ladies who could not get the gate open. They actually got it open though just as I was coming down the other side, hey its still heroic isn’t? And if you don’t believe me ask Lina she was witness to the whole thing. Now that is called going above and beyond (the fence) for our guests. The ladies were real good sports about the whole thing and we had a good laugh afterwards.
Cypress T.V.
Its here and in the kitchen just waiting for Seth! I also called Laura and left a message.
STICKERS.
We are all out of the round stickers that we use on our silverware rolls. I put a call in to Laura since I think that it is all on her computer.
LOST CAMERA
The lady Rez #1159623 Lost a Sony Camera while on the Island. She thinks she probably left it behind in one of the shops. I put a call into the sheriff’s office and they do have a Sony camera that was turned in but need a better description than just the Sony in order to get it back, model number, the pictures on it. I called the guest and left a message to either call the sheriff’s department directly or us.
Check out Steffi’s FRESH MOUTH EMPORIUM for the front desk staff. Enjoy luscious organic gum and assorted organic mints and have breath fresh as a dewy Spring morning in a meadow. Not only those of us who still pray to the tobacco gods (you know Laura’s heart hurts every time you smoke!), now everybody can enjoy fresh breath when talking to our guests. And remember: you can “hear” on the phone not only when you smile but also that you have fresh breath. Eat ‘em up!
TV: the dead tv has a metal bracket screwed to the back of it for mounting it on the wall. will someone please remove that bracket and the screws and put them someplace safe for the next tv before sending the dead one back? thanks…
JUICE CARAFES: I just ordered 20 new 1/4 liter and 20 new 1/2 liter carafes for juice. Hopefully they’ll work well for us. They should be here in a week.
SCHEDULE
I put up the schedule for 7-7 to 7-20. Due to day-off requests we are all working all kind of shifts on all kind of days, yeah, summer! So please look closely. You guys rock, keep up the good work!
Kaitlyn:
What information to we need from the guest who wants the driftwood mailed?
Thanks for being on top of the coffee machines.
To print out a reconciliation report from any other day, just go to the date you want to print out, click on reconciliation and print (don’t worry about it, I’ll print it when I reconcile the entire week). Does the printer work o.k. today?
cindy sent us an email with the hideaway pictures. i made a file called Hideaway Pictures in MY DOCUMENTS that has these. the e-mail is also saved in cindy’s folder in the inbox in outlook.
the tv that is broken is going to be shipped back. i assume we will put it in the box that the new one will come in so save the box and put the broken tv in it and label it so we don’t get confused.
i called soltazza today and they are going to replace ANOTHER machine. its a black one that prays water on the counter and into the basin below. when we get the slip for dhl…we need to tape it to the box and give it to aeronautical when they come. if they don’t come…we need to take it to the office at the airport. there is ONE spare black machine on the top shelf that works. it has a sticky on the box that says “this machine works!”
elena: can you call the company and get the part for the machine that you took apart so we can get it back in circulation? thanks
tory: the second ipod is plugged into the back of the computer tower to charge. maybe it could stay there so we know its charged up if someone wants it?
steffi: did you ever find out what you needed to know about those two big boxes that we sent our guests. (the kayak gals?) i have one more box for one of them. (she knew it would arrive later. it is a stick she picked up on the beach and is a weird size.)
Reconciliation report failed to fully print out 3 times. The last 3 pages printed out all screwy on one page. I logged out and in and still nothing. I know we need this report for our records so can someone please try to reprint this in the am maybe the computer needs a little break.
KAITLYN
Morning. I’ll bring by a produce order around 3.30 on Friday, call up to E if there is anything else you need. On Saturday when Katie comes with eggs, would you please give her the empty cartons we collected on top of the fridge.
Have a great shift:)
BAD
One of us made a reservation for a guest, but for the wrong month (#1178028). We are able to host her tonight, but not tomorrow. I’m holding a sky place for her. Guys, please, pay attention to the dates, always, always, always.
Ok so I talked to the Nexus TV guy today and they accidentally sent us the wrong TV :(…so it came via UPS today but the package is now being sent back and they will have the correct TV in the mail asap
Pretty quiet day…only two check-ins for the evening, wow.
I am excited for our second computer though! That will be so nice to have that when we are super busy. I agree with Laura about putting it in the back office, there is a good amount of space and it would be a nice place to be on the phone taking reservations when there is someone else in the lobby checking guests in.
We are almost out of strawberries too…props to Lina on doing such a great job every morning with breakfast, you’re awesome Lina
Cypress TV
Lilly sent the 26″ TV (they sent us by mistake) back right away and the company will send us the right size 32″ ASAP, probably by Monday. Thanks Lilly.
Lavendera Spa is closed on the 4th of July, For those guests that would like spa services please call spa d bune at 370-5027, they are going to be open to us only. spa d bune does not need our vouchers with it, they will charge the guests there and we will facilitate in making the appointment and directing our guests where they are located. If someone inquires about spa services on day of the 4th we will have an on call number to call. I will post that next week. But for spa reservations prior to the 4th for the day of the 4th call spa d bune directly.
Thanks so much.
FIRE INSPECTION: Yeah!! Thanks for taking care of this Steffi & Cindy.
NEW COMPUTER: Yeah!! Again. I think it should be set up by the safe. That way it can feel a little more like a back office which I think could be really good in some situations (e.g. at check-in/out, etc. if someone’s helping a guest in person and the other person is helping a guest on the phone, the front desk won’t be so chaotic.
NEW PHONE LINE: Perhaps this should be the number that we call in on ONLY when it is really important to talk to the front desk staff right away?? Kind of like the 5800 number at Elements?? That way our front desk staff can have a hotline phone for very urgent matters AND the front desk staff would know to interrupt what they were doing to answer that line. What do you think?
FIRE ALARM
We passed our L&I inspection. Guardian will call the fire marshall and set up a date with him. Dave from Guerdian will contact us soon regarding the status of our system (we wanted monitored, but it is currently not monitored). If you hear from him, give Laura, Cindy or I a holler.
SECOND WORK STATION
Cindy ordered us a new computer, yeah! I want to set it up by the safe but it is small enough to be set up at the front desk. What do you guys think?
THIRD PHONE LINE
We will have a local phone line on or about 6/27/08 (Qwest will show up and install a third jack, let LCS (Laura, Cindy, Steffi) know if that happens. Since our phones only have 2 lines, we’ll probably get a completely separate phone for that line. The number will be: 378-0834.
FOOD
Wednesdays the food coop order comes (everything but produce).
Thursdays: eggs from Synergy Farm
Saturday: eggs from Lacrover Farm
On Friday we will need to pick up a produce order from MP (I ordered kiwi, melon, strawberries & blueberries, I will go there today to get us through Friday).
COFFEE
We are out. Steve from the San Juan Coffee Co will bring by 2 small bags tonight and will bring 2 big bags tomorrow. When you see the coffee getting low, please call San Juan Coffee at 378-4443 and order more.
Steffi or someone, who will buy groceries…
We need:
granola/out/
yogurt/we have just 1 plain/
grape/out/
bananas/out/
orange juice/we have just 4 left. I don’t know whether they’ll be enough for the breakfast tomorrow/
strawberries/just 1 small box/
Thank you
Breakfast was really, really busy and we are tired.
BUT…
We got a lot of stuff done today,
we made eggs, lots of dishes, Lina swept, we bought flowers from the SJ Florist and made new vases since the old ones were… dead:(. I called Susie Wampler and let her know that we don’t need any delivered.
We got the spa checked today and added a few things everything else looked good.
There was a reservation that came in online (1190640)that had a note saying “Our friends all booked for the same nights 4 rooms and received 10% discount, what do I need to do to get that?” I called and left a message asking that she call us back becuase there aren’t 4 rooms staying on that date, and none that have notes about discounts. Her reservation is still in the new section for now until we hear back from her.
WOW The kitchen floor is sparkling clean (thanks to Lina) We mixed up a bottle of floor cleaner and labeled it to keep just for the kitchen.
guest comment: from lopez
shower heads (there are two) they don’t spray into one spot if you try to make them. you really only get one showerhead spraying on you at one time. perhaps a different nozzl
September 7th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
had a guest inquire about our linens and i asked laura to e-mail her with info. here is what she said….
We buy them from Coyuchi (www.coyuchi.com). They are fair trade, organic
linens which they purchase directly from a coop in India. Coyuchi is a
fairly small company, if you just tell them that you are interested in the
sheets purchased by Bird Rock, they will tell you all about the thread
count, etc.
September 7th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
elena: can you call the spa guy today and ask him to stop by. i think we may have one of the filiments burnt out and the spa is not heating. right now its been covered and turned up and the temp reads 97 degrees. (the guests said its been covered all day) the water also looks cloudy. thanks…
September 6th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Well, be super generous with the strawberries. This is the last week we can get them from here.
New schedule is up, yeah!
September 6th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
BRAND NEW Strawberries were delivered today:)12boxes. Today I actually threw out ~2boxes of these,the local ones. They all were moldy. Probably we shouldn’t order as many as before. We’re not as busy m-f, we don’t have as many breakfasts to use them for. What do you think?
September 6th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
ORDERED
I ordered champagne, printer paper, ink cartridges & teas (and everything else on the Food Coop list). I will stop by with emergency printer paper, breakfasts forms, local strawberries (use first) and blueberries in a moment.
Happy sunny fall days, have fun and be kind:)
September 6th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
fyi for anyone who cares or if it matters…we served our last full size bottle of champagne last night. all we have now are splits.
September 5th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
PUBLISHER
Chris installed publisher on our front desk computer, so now we can print out vouchers, etc. again.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
EMAIL
Please, everybody, make sure you open the hotel email every morning and check it periodically throughout the day. The call center emails messages which need attention on the same day, so do our guests.
I know, it’s busy and we all worked so hard all summer, but our guests deserve our attention, smiles, help and service all the same. Be there for them: in person, via phone and email.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:22 am
steffi: the hair products that the guest liked were the natures gate. i didn’t think we had cycled into the giovanni yet…
September 4th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
EARLY B-FAST
We missed the 7:30 Breakfast this morning When I got here the people were waiting and ended up being a little upset, we gave them some yogurt to go since they didn’t want to wait. The form was under all the rest and the time was written under the Special requests. It would be awesome if we could write that on the board in the future, just to be safe.
Everyone else was very happy and we hod lots of great compliments this morning on the scones (yay Olesea!) and everything in general. The two gentlemen in the Matia even said that our website doesn’t do this place justice. I love mornings like this!
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Yeah, personal care products from the Food Co-op!
Kaitlyn, do you know if our guests used the hair care products from Giovanni or Nature’s Gate? We currently carry both. I’m leaning towards Giovanni. Any other guest comments on this?
FRUIT
I ordered fruit from MP, will pick it up tomorrow. Give me a ring if there is anything else we might need to get through the weekend (eggs will come on Saturday).
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
UH OH…
It turns out that Robin’s nest is now closed on Tuesdays and a floral arrangement for today’s romance package was ordered from there so we were without flowers, I put in a desperate call to San Juan florist and left a very pathetic sounding message. Just a heads up so this doesn’t happen again NO ROBIN’S NEST ON TUESDAYS
September 1st, 2008 at 10:50 pm
steffi: kudos to you. we have gotten a lot of really great compliments on the shampoo, conditioner and lotion. i had a gal from the san juan come down and say that her husband travels all over the world and this is the best stuff they have found. they loved all the bath products including the soap. she also said….don’t change the brand. what you got is really good. (i mentioned we were going to try another product line out) this is not the first compliment. i have given the brand name out a couple of times already and what is so nice about this stuff is…you can actually find it in super markets!!!
what a great nose you have.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:37 pm
your top ten hit list:
bird rock binders
de-calcifying espresso machines
pay per view
also: fyi front line gave some info to a guest who wanted some info on rooms that was incorrect. gave a rate of 114$ plus tax and didn’t mention anything about shared bathrooms. guests were walk-ins but felt badly about the mis-info.
wierd guy: this stranger from town darted into our garden and started to cut our roses off. i asked if i could help him and he said he was pruning our roses and then said he had a daughter whose birthday was tomorrow and wanted to give her something nice. i think i acted strange enough that he will not come back. (i started jumping and screaming and yelling “hoot-hoot-billy bob train station kit kaboodle!!”) (not really) what i really should have said is that we already have someone who prunes our roses and to please not cut them off. but of course i couldn’t think of that till now.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
i didn’t bring out the recycling because tomorrow is a holiday and didn’t think there would be a pick up. so our can is full…and we would love it if some of that recycling could fit in the bin at elements.
thanks steffi on the follow up on housekeeping snafoos.
kaitlyn
August 31st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Well done, team! Great Labor Day weekend. Great party, Lina. Good bye and thanks for all your hard work Emilia, Marina & Diana. Have a great life and write us!
August 31st, 2008 at 7:24 pm
HK REPORT
Please write HK comments in the “housekeeping notes” section of each individual reservation, meaning: in a reservation go to “edit”, scroll down to “housekeeping notes”, write what you need.
Let’s not use the housekeeping notes in the housekeeping report, it’s not necessary for our small property and can be, as Kaitlyn noticed, quite confusing. Thank you.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:04 pm
i noticed something:
keep in mind that under reports and in the housekeeping where we mark rooms clean and dirty…if you type something into the comments field it will stay there for days and days and days unless you manually erase it and update the housekeeping report. while handy for our matia room to type in the kind of bed…it can also be dangerous. today we had a reservation that guests requested 2 twins over their internet reservation and special requests but in the housekeeping report there was still king bed typed in from yesterday. so there was a king bed up there with a twin bed request.
plan of action: what would be best??? manually erasing all the comments each evening from the housekeeping report or hand writing on the report each morning when housekeeping picks it up. i know there is an option to put a note in the edit field of the actual reservation but does this translate to the report we give out??? any ideas? comments and what we should do?
kaitlyn
August 30th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Cathy Huguenin
has a gift certificate from Friday’s Historic Inn (#170) for one night in a standard room. We will go ahead and honor that.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Where are my fellow worker bees? No blogs from you? But why?
We got delicious local blueberries & strawberries again. Ah, what a treat.
SPA
When making an appointment with the spa, please take the the name of the person you talked with. We had an incident today, where we booked a massage but the spa didn’t have anything in their books. Very frustrating for our guests.
INCIDENT FORMS
I will bring some incident forms down and put them in the file cabinet. Just a reminder: always fill out an incident form in case of an accident.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
FIRE ALARM
I think we all need to brush up on what to do when the alarm goes off, since our “clear thinking” abilities will be compromised due to the noise (mine were quite compromised last night).
So:
The system panel reads: “System normal” at all times. In case it goes off, open the panel door and push: “silence” aaahhh
The panel will read: “alarm zone…” and a number. On the panel door is a list of zone numbers (lobby is zone 5, for example).
You then grab the keys from the panel door and will go to the floor which set the system off and find the pull down alarm or smoke detector which did. If a pull down alarm was triggered, open the red box with one of the keys you have in your hand and put the little level back to the normal position. If it was a smoke detector, the little light will be on steady red. Press that red light to reset.
Look around, if it was a false alarm, you will stroll back to the alarm box and press: “reset”. Done.
If there is a fire, go home and have a beer, work is over. No, the system will automatically call the fire department. Start knocking on people’s doors and meet the fire department when they come.
If there was a false alarm, you have reset the system and it goes off again, check the zone again. If you are 100% sure that everything is fine, call the 24 hour number for Guardian on the inside of the panel door.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
FIRE ALARM
So, we tested the fire alarm today. Ahem. An extra special Thank you! to all our very patient guests, our wonderful staff, especially Seth, for enduring an hour and a half of alarm sounds. Thank you Fire department for stopping by. Thank you for this being over. So: we have a defective smoke alarm in the smaller bedroom (queen bed) of the Bainbridge Suite. Seth disconnected it for now and I scheduled a repair with Sheryl from Guardian. They will be by on 9/10 (if not, they’ll let us know). Please steer the technician into the right bedroom when he stops by. Give me a ring if you have any questions.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
We reorganized all the keys in the back and began labeling the key rack with room names and numbers but the label maker ran out of tape and we couldn’t find more (please order). Please try to keep them in order.
I ordered 3-25lb boxes of scone mix from Conifer INC. it will bi shipped tues or Wed.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
FRUIT
Is ordered and I will pick it up tomorrow.
GROCERIES
I will pick up milk, bread, butter, green apples, yogurts etc tomorrow also from MP.
TRIP ADVISOR
WE have two new comments on trip advisor both Excellent!!!
We also got a written comment from the guest which stayed in the Patos Last night. it says;
“Thank you for the wonderful accomodations and the great first experience on San juan Island! The bedding is wonderful the decor is great, the breakfast was so pretty and delicious. I kept tripping over the bed, it sticks out a bit. The breakfast choices were great, the tv’s are very nice and the bathrooms were very nice, thank you for the complimentary bicycles and helmets. We would love to come again!”
August 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
ELENA
Thank you for being the fruit queen. I didn’t order butter for Wednesday, please pick some up (enough for a week) when you go to MP.
SCHEDULE
New schedule is up. Have a look. We’ll have lovely Lina on the weekends now, yeah! Raquel will schedule amazing breakfast help from her crew for Wednesdays and Thursdays.
TORY
Thank you for lending me “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”. What a cool movie. Even my totally horror movie opposed husband enjoyed it.
Keep up the good work, everybody, you rock!
August 24th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
1233937 called and cancelled, Kenmore Air canceled all flights to FH due to heavy fog and some other issues…I only charged him to 10%..sorry I didn’t put this in the reso notes, I accidentally canceled it before I wrote any notes.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
FRUIT
Will need to be ordered tomorrow and picked up on Tuesday by ME.
2 more…
espresso machines which are out of service so for now the machine for the Patos will be put in there, if someone wants to rent the Patos just let them know it will be without the espresso or coffee machine.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:03 am
If any questions about Saturday night cancellation please see guest profile #1215085 Thanks!
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Hey everybody!
We have local strawberries & blueberries, very delicious. Please use first. Next week we’ll get local melon, yummy!
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
reservation 1109561 may have left a wall charger for an mp3 player. its on the shelf behind the front desk. left one message. 8-22-08
steffi: we need some more breakfast cards if you get around to that sort of stuff. thanks!
kaitlyn
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Happy Birthday Lina
Have a great birthday…
August 15th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I just got a call from one lady. She wanted to confirm her reservation and.. she said that she called so many times, but our number on the confirmations was wrong - she said it’s 18003523652, it’s supposed to be 18003522632.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Tory & Steffi’s adventure with light:
WHIDBEY
Please call Seth tomorrow and have him replace the light bulb in the Whidbey bathroom. They are tricky little things, nowhere to be found (I learned all kind of things about our hotel while looking for them) and the guests really can’t see well with only one light in there. Light savvy Tory put the lamp from next to the guest computer in the Whidbey bathroom for now. please tackle that situation tomorrow and blog about it.
LITTLE SPOT LIGHTS
Tory noticed while crawling under some bed for one reason or the other that the plugs for the spot lights (like we have in the Skipjack, etc.) are very hot. Is that o.k.? Dave? Seth?
August 14th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
COMPUTER
So we are still working off the “new” computer on the front desk, without programs like word or excel, our files, or a credit card swiper. If you need a form, let me know, I have most of them on my computer at E. Looks like our old front desk computer passed away. Guest computer is fine for now. Awaiting more details from Chris.
HOT TUB
is at 99. When current guests check out, get the knob and turn it up a tiny eenie weeny bit, please.
That’s it. Money was good today. You got petty cash and I got lot’s of receipts with initials on them. Thank you guys.
Great job on the good review on Trip Advisor, you are our Bird Rocking shining stars!
August 14th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Susie Wompler left her flower receipt book here, so if she stops by to grab it, it is on the front desk!
Busy day…hot day! The sun is a burnin’….see you guys tomorrow!
August 13th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Also I think if anyone comments on how hot their room is offer them that tall skinny fan it does wonders. I gave it to the Spieden guests. They are happy with the temp now.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Thank you Elena & Lina for being the shopping queens. Thank you Lilly for helping me schlepp today (cool car, girl). My shoulder is killing me (Colbert’s Wriststrong bracelet doesn’t seem to help for shoulders).
HOT TUB
Was at 88 degrees today. I turned it up an hour ago, it’s at 91 now, so it’s doing something. Please keep checking that. If it stays low an element might be burned out, if I turned it to far, we may hurt someone.
DISH WASHING DETERGENT
I got 2 different dish washing powders today from Compost It. Please check them out, let me know if you like them. I don’t want to keep using the scented, phosphor laden stuff, which isn’t biodegradable.
NAPKINS
Will come on Monday, until then we’ll need to get by with running to the store.
PAYDAY CANDY
Who ordered that? I gave it to cafe zia for sale.
PETTY CASH
Initial your receipts, please. I keep saying that because I really would like you to do it. Also: when you buy something for a guest, please write the confirmation number on the receipt, next to your INITIALS:)More petty tomorrow.
I’m office girl all week, I can help, cover, put out fires, everything but lift. Call me, call me!
August 13th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
We have a possible availability for tomorrow (Thursday) night. The people in the Spieden feel “very uncomortable” here and I trying to leave a day early if they can get into their other hotel a day early, they will let us know if they are going to be leaving early for sure sometime this afternoon (so don’t sell the room unless we have gotten the go ahead from them but know that we do probably have a room for tomorrow night) I did tell her also that if they leave early and we can’t resell the room that we do have to charge her. I have her cell phone number at the front desk just in case someone wants to book the room…
August 12th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Groceries
They are here and put away we do need some yogurt and maybe some milk.
Don’t forget that some guests will be coming in here on Friday Looking for their bags please let them know that they are waiting for them up at ELEMENTS.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
steffi,
we need some more breakfast cards and rack cards. thanks!!
kaitlyn
August 10th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Here is some stuff that is well past due but useful all the same; In case the hot tub gets murky like it did this last time Paul suggested that we take the filters out and either hose them off or change them out with spares in the outside shed by doing this the water will filter out more quickly. We also need to get some more Bromine powder maybe ask Dwight to order some for us or check Brown’s, Ace? This last time I had to change the tub from Bromine to chlorine with some help from Morgan but its not easy. I also bought some clear blue stuff from Ace and while it does help to make the water nice and clear it also causes the impurities to come to the surface in the form of slimy brownish tan goop. so be prepared should this happen. Paul also suggested that we make a sign that can be put on top of the spa cover asking guests to take rinse off before getting in, suntan lotion, makeup, etc. all use up a lot of the free bromine in the tub.
August 9th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
FLOWERS: I agree with Steffi. Every time I have seen the flowers that Susie has delivered, I have liked them. It may be because I’m not too crazy about “traditional” flowers. I’m sure that it is true that they don’t last as long, but that is just something that we have to contend with as long as we are committed to doing the whole organic thing. This is a pretty important issue for me, so unless the locally grown flowers really suck, let’s just keep working with them. Don’t be shy about asking for the best from Susie, though.
August 9th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
gas fire place: the propane key is in the safe labled “marrowstone/bainbridge gas key”
i was unable to mail the passport today. it is on the desk in the mail folder. we will need a new address for this. the fellow knows and will call.
espresso machines: steffi picked these up. she knows aeronautical does not pick up. they should be sent back this week.
kaitlyn
August 9th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
$$
I reconciled cash today (uff). You guys have petty cash again. Two things though: please initial the receipts after going shopping. I want to know who you are:) Also: money was $30 short. Maybe a forgotten receipt? Please pay attention to this. I hate this feeling: “is somebody taking things?”
FOOD - ELENA & LINA
Please order fruit on Monday from MP: box of organic apples, oranges, melons, grapes, strawberries. Get check from Cindy on Tuesday and while there please get organic lemons, bananas & Laura’s green apples. Please blog about the status of this. Gracias!
FOOD - FSA
I phoned in a FSA order: scone mix, sugar (brown & white) & mints. Please blog when it comes, so I know.
FLOWERS
I looked at them today and I think they are fine. You know Lina, the flowers we get from SJ Florist are probably from Brazil or some other far away place, sprayed with pesticides so they don’t wilt, picked by underpaid children and what not. They look better, but that is all they do. They are wrong in all other ways. So I think we should stay with our local flowers. Laura, what do you think?
AMAZING SETH
Is gone next week for a long deserved vacation. Please contact Cindy and I if something breaks.
Thank you so much for all you hard work. The place looks great, our guests are happy, you are wonderful.
August 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Hey is this the wrong blog? I guess I should have made that right turn at Albuquerque…
Well Steffi asked me to blog about your temporary emailing situation. The program you will be using is Outlook Express. It is buried a little bit in the start menu but you should be able to find it. I asked Lilly to make a shortcut for it on the desktop. The back computer used to be your front desk computer. Unless Chris has fished working on it, it was moved to the back because it was having technical difficulties. If you have any questions you can let me know. Talk to you later all.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
COMPUTER
Last I spoke with Chris, he said he set up Outlook on the “new” front desk computer. I have a call in to him and when Morgan gets here I may send him down to play with it. The back computer doesn’t have internet. Chris will work on getting the old front desk computer up and running again on Monday. He will also look at the guest computer and it’s unwillingness to work for us.
PASSPORT
Thank you, K for tackling that. Any luck to ship it off island on a Saturday?
FLOWERS
Well, it seems the flowers aren’t really working out for us. I’ll look at them today and then we’ll make an informed decision about the flower future.
See you all this afternoon.
Much Love.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:51 am
the passport guy called. he wants us to overnight his passport to his hotel in seattle. i will be taking this with me to see if i can get it done first thing in the morning. if post san juan is not open…i will call him and arrange a different address. he knows this…
computer in the back apparently does not have internet. i assume chris t. is working on this.
computer in the front is not set up for outlook so we are not getting any e-mails at this point. perhaps adam knows what all the passwords and settings should be.
second floor computer is also not connecting to the internet.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I would like to say what I think about the flowers for the breakfast trays.
So.. I don’t know if it’s either because Susie was supposed to bring the flowers on Friday.. or something else, but the flowers don’t look good..not like fresh beautiful flowers as they’re supposed to be. She brought them yesterday, but they are like they’ll be dead in a few days.
I noticed that when I and Elena bought 1 or 2 times flowers from the SJ florist, we used them like 2 weeks.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Thank you all for staying on top of things so well, you beautiful Bird Rockstars!
I will spend half days with you guys again, starting tomorrow (be afraid, be very afraid, just kidding).
Please let me know about scheduling wishes for the next 2 weeks.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
So I decided to make a waiting list because so many people are calling or emailing about being put on a wait list, so I made a document in word…it is on the desktop and called “wait list” please refer to this when we have cancellations! Thanks!
August 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
What happened today?..many forgotten things
1096593-lenses and solution in the Marrowstone
1096591-an earring in the Lopez
1181730-clothes in the Cypress
I called for the Lopez and Marrowstone-actually this is one and the same person.
For the Cypress it was not working number or something.
The flowers for the breakfast trays looked really dead..so I and Lilly decided to throw them away. I called Susie and asked her to bring us flowers today instead of Friday and she was ok with that.
August 6th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Good Morning
The shipping charges have been charged to the ladies who set boxes home, please see their reservations for notes if you have any questions.
Seth is off today, he will also be leaving on Friday for 6 days. Depending on the maintenance request will depend on who gets it, SO please let Steffi or I know if something needs dealt with.
Welcome back Laura and Steffi
Laura told Raquel where the new clothes hangars go. I am hoping Seth will install them tomorrow.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
FOR SALE: Shaw is canceled for Aug 8th. we need to resell it.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
The guy from the spa pro called and I told him everything what Elena tried, I took a look one more time at the jacuzzi and it still has the little white things on the top, looks really bad… So, he will be here tomorrow at 8:30am and hopefully will fix the problem. I’ll tell Lilly to let the people know about the early visit tomorrow.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
MARROWSTONE
The hot tub is still not looking so good, not as foggy as yesterday but the clear blue that I added made all the grimy stuff come to the surface so I spent quite a bit of time just skimming the surface, let the gentleman know we did our best and that tomorrow or as soon as Seth gets back to me and Morgan can come do the chemicals we will empty and re-fill the whole thing for them.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Rez# 1086626 Left their cell phone in the Matia it is all set with a shipping slip and just needs to be dropped off at post San Juan on Monday.
The folks in the cypress may or may not want breakfast for tomorrow their breakfast form is on the front desk they said they would stop by and let us know.
SKIPJACK
They will be leaving early and will need a 7am breakfast you can make it and leave it in the back when I get here I will set it out.
MATIA BEDS
It seems that there are rarely ever notes about how the beds need to be set up and when housekeeping asks I always have to guess or call the guest same day. Please call guests when it is booked online and then make a note or if over the phone please be sure to ask. thanks
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:40 am
i stowed some bags in the shower that will be picked up sunday.
techi chris stopped by friday and did computer update and second floor maintenance.
July 30th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
FOOD FUTURE
Elena will order produce tomorrow, which we need to pick up on Friday. Kaitlyn or Tory, can one of you get a check from Cindy and head on up to MP for pick up, please? Buy some bananas and anything else we might need to get through the weekend.
Lilly will pick up the Food Coop order next Wednesday.
I’m in the woods. Please buy food as needed (there is some cash in the safe in an envelope with my name on it, write down what you take). Please contact Cindy if something big happens. Have a great week:)
July 30th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I just wrote my whole blog and it dumped it, it told me I was blogging to fast?? Has that happened to anyone else?
Okay here we go again:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Hangars
But remember you are both already stars in my eyes..
The new hangars came in that Laura ordered, only about 8 months late.. None of us are exactly sure where she would like them hung in the specific rooms so next week she will let Seth know. Until then please keep the boxes in the back room where they are at easy access, AND make sure that the box that is open gets taped up so no parts fall out.
Evening Magazine
Thank you so much Lina and Elena for all your preparation yesterday, I am sorry that the photographer did no have time to come inside, they took an outside shot. I know you were ready for your big debut,
Frontline
I sent you a email regarding the Frontline Call Center, if any of you have any questions please let me know.
Reviews
Starting NOW, Bird Rock employee’s are eligible for a reward for any positive reviews the property receives, please see Elena, Steffi or I for any questions
Bathroom Lights
Seth fixed the lights with help via telephone from Mr. Dave. Great job you two…
July 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Kaitlyn & Lilly: you two switching shifts is totally fine with me. Thanks for letting me know.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Kaitlyn..I would be more than happy to take your shift on Monday the 4th, I will check with Steffi tomorrow to see if that will be ok.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
in the bathroom upstairs on the right (shared bathroom) the lights do not turn on. raquel called cindy and left her a message to have dave come down. we might need to follow up on this in the morning if we don’t hear from either of them. we put the lobby standing lamp in there and the small table lamp from laura’s desk in there. (which by the way looks to have a broken shade on it.)
the two espresso machines on the counter in the back are ready to be sent back. we just need to call aeronautical services before 9:30 am and let them know to pick them up.
i couldn’t get the second floor computer to log on to the internet. can you call techi chris to see if he can fix. i unplugged the thingys a couple of times and rebooted both times and it still didn’t work. thanks
July 28th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
ESPRESSO MACHINES
we got the replacements espresso makers today and they are in the back office above Tory’s bed. They also sent an extra return slip in case we have another machine break or malfunction, Kaitlyn put it in the key drawer of the safe.
Cancellations
we have had a few cancellations for very relevant reasons heart attacks, one lady’s water broke 10 weeks early (so sad) so we have some availability I think we should start a waiting list for down here I know that some of these rooms.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:34 am
HEADS UP!!!
Cindy called this morning to let us know that Evening Magazine will be doing some filming here at Bird Rock between 11-3 Lina and I will make sure and have everything as spiffied as possible, cookies out lobby sparkling, the housekeepers will also be wearing their new uniforms (well at least Socco and Olga)
July 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
SKIPJACK & PATOS
Luggage is in the rooms
KEYS
It looks like there are some car keys on the back desk that need to be dropped off at post San Juan on Monday.
MATIA & SAN JUAN
The rooms are booked under the same name Rez # 1219240. They have stayed here before when it was Friday’s so when I explained the breakfast form the response was surprisingly “if you have a complaints sheet this is something I’d like to write about” ??? She was challenging me the whole time about EVERYTHING. to top it all off the Matia was on the list of clean rooms and actually wasn’t when we got up there the room was dirty!!! eeek! I apologized and offered to hold their luggage but nope they didn’t want that. Oh and before showing them up to the room I nicely offered to give her a comments sheet and she just said “We’ll see” anyways just a heads up that they are a little testy( well mostly just the lady) They also said something about noise being horrible the last times they said and thought the Matia would less noisy which I informed her was not true saying “you will get noise from all sides of the building” Just trying to cover my bases here. I have a bad feeling about them.
KEYS
the Bainbridge keys are switched out.
LOST & FOUND
I added an item to the lost and found today. A pair of white shoes from rez # 1168067 in case they call about them.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
SCHEDULE
New schedule is up, guest starring Amazing Elena & Extraordinary Tory in “night shifts” at ELEMENTS & Lovely Lilly in a special appearance as “breakfasts queen” at Bird Rock. RE: Seattle girl getaway: Tue 8/19 & Wed 8/20 would work better schedule wise.
Great job everybody, each and every one of you rocks my world.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Just to let everyone know the found ipod from the Lopez Suite is in the bottom of the safe in the money box. I asked the last guests that checked out but it was not theirs. All swipe keys were traded out for shiny new ones except the Bainbridge I have not seen them all day. Bye my lovelies I’m going on my days off. Heart, T
July 26th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
FRONT DOOR KEYS
Today was the day. Kaitlyn found that over 10 keys aren’t working and we redid them all (thank you Kaitlyn, for organizing the switch). Please remember, if you ever make keys for BR’s front door, always make a copy, never a new key.
July 25th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
PAY PER VIEW
So the pay per view is not working. Our account isn’t set up and we can’t order “free” movies anymore. Laura will continue the battle with the TV people when she gets back. Thank you, K, for letting us know.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am
res #1110167. says one kayaker at bottom of notes. this is correct.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:36 am
cancellation 216877539 called. this is the overbook that was blogged. i tried to be as helpful as possible in explaining the situation and called elements that he would be in touch. wanted to extend stay.
noise complaint:1162582 in speiden. see notes if complains again. cindy spoke with guest and kings about the loading dock in the morning. kings said there wasn’t much they could do but would speak to drivers about yelling in the morning.
kings noise: cindy says we should tell people when they book the speiden and the cypress they are on the side of building with store loading dock. may or may not be some noise in the morning. possibly book these rooms last.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Res# 1144947 is a no show. I went ahead and charged her and printed out invoices. I am spending the night tonight so if she shows up I will check her in. The contact number that we have for her is a home number. The lady that answered the phone said she is out of town so I suspect she will arrive I hope the dates are correct.
THE LITTLE FRIDGE THAT COULD
I discovered that the little fridge in the back has been defrosting itself because the door is not closing properly. The iceberg emerging from the freezer wont let the door close all the way. It’s on the back porch now but I will bring it back in and get it set back up when I get up in the morning.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
SEA & SKY SPECIAL
Hey guys, I was just going through upcoming reservations and noticed that several guests had booked the sea & sky, but their total due was only the room rate (but their rate said: sea&sky). I don’t know why that is, maybe WRP defaults back to the room rate. I will look at it when I have more time. For now: if you notice this upon check-in or when going through future reservation, simply add on a $75 dining credit and a kayak trip for $89 per person. Gracias!
July 24th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Overbooking
The shaw was overbooked for the 26th, Steffi will take one of the emergency rooms from ELEMENTS and set it aside for them. when the guests check-in please explain to them what happened and be very accommodating maybe even have the Elements shuttle come and pick them up.
INCIDENT
Today, while the folks in the San Juan were out I went ahead a made them a little hand written note apologizing for what happened last night and thanking them for their patience and understanding with a split of champagne and set it in their room.
July 24th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
#216877539
UNIREZ overbooking: I was able to put the guest in an Earth Place at E. This is a mistake on the travel agent’s end and they claim they don’t have any guest information, so all this will be news for the guest upon arrival. Be very kind and understanding, when sending them to E, give them the option to check with other hotels.
For now: whenever you have a second, go to the availability calendar and make sure we aren’t overbooked. If we are, try to contact guest right away, if you can’t, make a reservation at E or another place for the guest. Thank you guys.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:14 am
The sheriffs department stopped by to ask about the San Juan Suite guests. They were under the impression that there was someone on the balcony shooting a pellet gun at cars parked at Herb’s. I informed them that they had just returned from dinner an do not seem like the type of people that shoot things while on holiday. They investigated a little more and asked to be shown to the room so they could question the guest. The police left and said that it must not be them and I agreed. A while later the guest came downstairs and I apologized for the inconvenience he laughed and said “oh it’s no big deal”. Now that’s a Friday Harbor you don’t get to see on postcards!
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
2nd COMPUTER
will be shipped on 7/29 (order was canceled)
EARPLUGS
will be shipped on 7/26 (order was lost)
Both orders will come via UPS, please blog if, no when they come.
Much Love
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
RECONCILIATION REPORT
As of today, you don’t have to print a reconciliation report anymore. Cindy prints them daily up at E.
#5006
Left message with Terrence regarding refund (our system doesn’t let you refund after 120, so he’ll get a check). Please confirm mailing address on file.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:13 pm
just some heads up on the evenings events…
gal with cc: called and we got things squared. she would like to have matia all three nights if it becomes available from cancellation. res #1229342
matia: bed was made up wrong. king was reserved and two twins were made up. i gave them a split of champagne to apologize. roman and i put bed together after guests checked in.
skipjack: was priceline night before and travelocity tonight. i kept a copy of confirmation letter so adam, steffi, or cindy can take a look. its in the safe with the paperwork. was booked for four guests and program booked them into skipjack. guests checking in were two adults and two children. 8 and 12. moved them to elements.
porta crib: was missed to be put in room. perhaps our new housekeepers do not know what this is?? or where they are??
morning message: was from yesterday. i recored a generic message without a date. i think steffi or cindy mentioned this. if you want to change…ok with me. i tried to sound chipper. but my voice goes up an octive so it might be squeeky.
whale watch booking option: sorry elena. i didn’t really understand the notes. so i left it in the alarms.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
reservation 215480850 came with three adults. the reservation was made over priceline. guest quoted two adults on reservation and arrived with three. room too small. so i moved them up to elements in an earth room.
bike lock: is not getting unlocked in the morning.
matia bed: was not set up for two twins. olecia and i changed it after the guest checked in. we might all want to train on how to set that up and where sheets are just in case this happens by mistake.
July 20th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
post san juan alarms:
i was under the impression cindy would take care of these when we got our bill from post san juan.
guess no one could take my shift on monday. thanks for thinking about it. i may ask for the same thing next month. they only do drill on monday nights.
cheers
July 20th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
THIS MORNING
Went very well, Olga and I were here bright and early at 7:00am. Martha followed at 7:40 or so but I actually sent her away since Olga and I had everything well under control.
SAN JUAN & MARROWSTONE
I asked them this morning if everything had worked out okay for them and they seemed very happy said that they had, had a wonderful time. They just mentioned that the clothes rack we had given them was a little unstable.
POST SAN JUAN BILL
What is up with these alarms? they have been there for a long time have they been taken care of? I’d like to turn them off.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
would it be possible to make the office door to the lobby a hindged swinging door?? it gets left open all the time because housekeeping needs to go in and out to the laundry so much. plus it would be so much easier in the morning for breakfast too.
please think about it…hindged swinging door….
July 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
as a morning person a measly two days a week, i was wondering why we don’t have diana and olesia helping with breakfast anymore. they were very fast and efficient at this. i am still training housekeepers?? this isn’t working when i am scheduled to come in at 7:30 am and they are getting here at 7 and not knowing 1. how to enter the building and 2. what to do.
please help and give us back our experienced breakfast crew. (at lease until the busy season is over.) please????? if this will not work…then we need to change the schedule for the front desk to come in at 7 instead.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:24 am
i am ok with not serving apples. there are plenty of other fruits to fill a small plate. what if we just had that sack full for the lobby. the granny smith apples stocked. we don’t need a case of those…
it sounds like the apple biz is boomin’ should we change our professions??
July 18th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
STEFFI WENT TO APPLE SCHOOL
We just payed $100 for a case of organic Fuji apples from New Zealand. The produce dude, who used to be an apple broker (I’m such a sucker for stories like that) explained it to me: the combo of fuel prices and the weak dollar make things like foreign fruit out of season extraordinarily expensive. And once our apples will be in season, it won’t help us a bit because the Washington growers make such a high profit on selling overseas (weak dollar again). I also learned about internal apple pressure (14lb is optimal), storing temperatures and when to buy which size apple.
So, what does this mean for us? Don’t waste apples, don’t eat them yourself, every apple is precious and special.
I would like to hear your opinion Bird Rockers: shall we not serve apples right now, shall we serve non-organic, smaller servings?
That’s my apple story.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
our new water filters came for the lobby today. there are two of them. they are under the lobby sink in the baaaack.
i made an inventory of keys. this count will give us four keys to each room with two spares. this is what we need from the key dude when he comes:
bainbridge 5 keys
patos 2 keys
sucia 2 keys
orcas 3 keys
shaw 2 keys
skipjack 2 keys
whidbey 1 key
saltspring 2 key
marrowstone 4 keys
July 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
can anyone work my monday evening shift at bird rock on the 21st? i was hoping to participate in a heavy rescue drill at the fire department. it only happens once a month and is required credit for my emt certification. it is a 3-11 shift monday the 21st. please help me out???
kaitlyn
July 17th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
INPUT FROM BL (beautiful Laura) PLEASE
Laura, Seth put up the bike rack, kind of diagonal, I think it looks very nice. We might want to ask the gardeners to move one of the planters and one of the hanging thingely dingies. When you are back, will you have a look and let me know what you think? Also: where would you like the second bike rack? Also: do you still want us to change the message every night and day, even though we have the nights covered by the call center now? Maybe we could just have a short, strong day message which stays?
We miss you!
July 17th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
FIRE ALARM / TELEPHONE
Centurytel installed the dedicated fire alarm line 1183 (after consulting with Guardian). The 0834 will be the back-up line (we can still use it as a phone line). According to Matt from Guardian, an alarm technician will come by on Tuesday and connect the system to the newly installed phone lines.
KEYS
Locksmith Kyle will be by Monday at noon to make back-up keys. Please have him make 4 Marrowstone, 4 Bainbridge and whatever else you see we are low on.
BATHROOM WINDOW
I had Seth frost the window in the guest bathroom.
FOOD
I will go to MP tomorrow for fruit. K, please let me know if there is anything else we need.
TORY
Rocks and is the best.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
FLOWERS
Talked to Susie, she will be mindful of the pollen and fragility issues the next time she brings flowers. If the flowers we have from SJ Florist are still nice, don’t throw them away. Keep me posted, keep supplementing with SJ Florist flowers if Susie’s die or try to reproduce in the jam (only Elena will get this, he, he, peludo!)
July 16th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
UNDERSTAFFED
Sweeties, over the next couple of weeks we are skeleton staffed. Please be on time, work hard, think ahead and make it easy on the person working after you. Especially at Bird Rock, do as much as you possibly can for the following shift. I won’t be around much, working the desk at ELEMENTS, but call me if there are issues. I can always do a store run, etc.
A couple of other random things: if you promise something to a guest (like an early check in), write a note in that guest’s file. Please don’t give out room numbers before check-in time, things can change.
This is it, this is what we are working towards all year. Be focused, keep your spirits high and be kind.
Much love.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I’m off almost a whole week
see you soon.. 
if anybody wants something from Seattle.. let me know 
July 15th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
CHECK FOR REZ # 1034392
I called and left a second message regarding the unsigned check that we received and left the alarm on because I will try her once again tomorrow otherwise we will need to ask Cindy what to do if we don’t hear back.
REZ # 1101561 “THE MESS”
I called her back once again to confirm that all of her activities as well as her stay were correct before we go moving kayaking and dinner reservations around. Hopefully she will call back. otherwise I will try her back again tomorrow. Cindy also said that because she has sooo many activities and she has moved things around so many times we will have to charge her an additional %10 deposit for our trouble.
LUGGGAGE FOR 1146049
They will be back again on Friday and will need us to put their luggage back in their room for them. The luggage is in the second floor luggage room.
I SEE YOU…
In the shared bath shower on the second floor there is a window and when there are people on the roof of kings they can look right in. It happened to a lady this morning, she was not upset or anything she just thought we should maybe frost that glass or something. Laura what do you think?
GC FOR GRACE CONSTRUCTION
The gentleman called back with the mailing information for the GC. CINDY should we just go ahead and mail it or is there something special that you wanted to send with it since it was a large purchase?
ALARMS
I just left them on for now for myself to follow up on tomorrow.
July 15th, 2008 at 12:05 am
reservation 1101561 called around 8:30 9:00 tonight to change reservation dates. this is a HUGE mess of a reservation. they changed their dates three times and had booking options each time. in the meantime…stuff was canceled or scheduled by guests themselves. this last call put us in charge of everything again. it was the friend that called…so could someone please call the reservation holder and confirm the newest dates and booking options with her. we need to confirm dates of kayak tour, dinner and massages if there were any. then we need to call all of our vendors to reschedule. new vouchers need to be made for everything. sorry to heap this on you but i go on three days off. if you have questions, you can call me. essentially just treat it like you are re-confirming with the original party the changes that were made to the reservation.
elena: the fellow that had the package sent to him that is arriving soon…just called to reconfirm that it came and we know what to do with it.
the clothes hangers that we got for the marrowstone and san juan…beware of putting too much stuff or making them too tall. the guest said that when they got to their room all the clothes had fallen off and rack was on the floor. for future reference…
July 14th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
PLEASE HELP??!!!:
i was really hoping to participate in a heavy rescue drill at the fire department for my EMS education credit this monday the 21st. CAN ANYONE COVER MY PM SHIFT AT BIRD ROCK FROM 3-11PM ON MONDAY THE 21ST?
LET ME KNOW. STEFFI TOO. SHE HAS TO APPROVE. THANKS
July 14th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
kayak mixup: res. 1168891 didn’t make it to san juan outfitter 5 hour tour. guest was under impression they were going out with outdoor odysseys because whoever they talked to over the phone said outdoor odysseys. (which makes me think we should no longer use abbr. when making our notes.)
odysseys had room so they took them. the room charge is still there. one charge was to room the other was paid POS. odysseys will be billing us without vouchers received and san juan outfitters was able to cancel with no penalty.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
reservation 1221975 arriving doesn’t want down or feather pillows of any kind in their room. raquel is going to bring 4 pillows to us tomorrow tuesday for their stay.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
hold on here…why don’t we have a birthday calender down here?!! and cake too.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
i think there was some confusion reservation 1168891 and their kayak trip. they missed their five hour tour today and i think they assumed they were heading out with outdoor oddysseys and they had a van pick up down town….well, mostly its my fault for not double checking the voucher i gave them…but they were scheduled to go out with san juan outfitters and never made it out there. so…i have learned a valuable lesson to look at the voucher i hand over and make sure the guest has transport or correct info on transport.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TORY AND PRISCILLA :):):):) I AM SORRY I AM NOT THERE TO GIVE YOU BOTH BIG HUGS THIS AFTERNOON.. MY NECK DECIDED IT NEEDED AN IMMEDIATE BREAK, SO I AM AT HOME WITH THE HEATING PAD.. HAVE THE MOST WONDERFUL DAY EVER, YOU BOTH DESERVE IT..
July 14th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
that last blog was elena
July 14th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
LUGGAGE
We have quite a bit of luggage in the second floor storage next to the Fidalgo. 1 box which was delivered for rez # 1117988 arriving on July 24th.
There are also 3 red suitcases which will be picked up on Friday, I will be here so no problem.
PROBLEM SOLVED
Miss Raquel “The Queen” solved the problem with the folks in the San Juan & Marrowstone, she got them clothing racks for their stay afterwards they should be stored in the second floor storage next to the Fidalgo and offered to guests with long stays.
GROCERIES. There are plenty of groceries for now. I will place an order with MP on Wednesday or Friday we’ll see how things look.
FLOWERS
San Juan florists daisy bunches are about $10. We usually get two bunches and they last almost 2 weeks. What do you think Steffi? The flowers we get now seem to barely make it through one week.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:47 am
second floor wireless is not working. any home remedies we can try before we call chris t?
nothing else new. thank goodness!!!
July 13th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
might i add…that it looks like i have talked a couple of time with these guests before they arrived. it is so frustrating to look forward to a guest coming because you have established a relationship and then have them be so upset when they get here. relationship shattered and fear inserted. man…that really sucks.
July 13th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
flowers: were replaced because suzie dropped off fresh ones. thats the reason the others disappeared.
i rolled as many silverware as we usually do. i don’t know what happened there…
guests in san juan were very upset when they checked in (reservation number is under daughter) because there was not a closet to hang clothes. situation got stickier the more i tried to help. and guest said she would not stay if there was no place to hang clothes. so in a panic i tried to get steffi and couldn’t and called cindy. cindy tried to help and called raquel to see if we could think of anyway to hang their clothes. so i thought perhaps they could hang clothes on curtain rod and they thought to hang clothes on towel rack. raquel said cindy would try to get ahold of seth to come tomorrow morning to work a contraption out for them. last report is that they are ok and thank you for trying to help.
(but at the time it was very scary because guest was not quite so nice and threatening to leave.)
uhhh ummm well, uhhh hmmmm let me see….hmmm uhhh.
July 13th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
THIS MORNING
Was horrible…
dishes still in the machine
not enough butter and jam prepared
not enough silverware rolled
etc etc
FLOWERS
what happened to the really cute bud vases that Lina and I put together they have been replaced it seems by some wilted (and sorry) but very ugly yellow flowers that look like they are from outside. The bud vases that Lina and I made we got from San Juan florist so please do not replace them unless they are horribly wilted, they cost money. It was honestly really upsetting to see what they had been replaced with.
So I am not mad or anything and most definitely not trying to be rude. But please consider that this next week I will be without Lina. I will have A housekeeper from only 7-9am and I really need things to be ready otherwise every morning will be absolute insanity. Please, please consider this. thank you
July 13th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Called San Juan Taxi and they had the sunglasses. She was ecstatic! Res# 201196072 would also like to stay with us another night if we have any cancellations for Sunday. Diana has bike #10.
July 12th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
sunglasses from the san juan: guest thought she left sunglasses at the duck soup last night (friday night). restaurant called and said they didn’t find them. i let guest know. she may need some more help tracking other places down to see if they are there.
breakfast forms: don’t forget to double check the forms in the pm before you close. there were two saltspring tickets and in the rush this morning…we didn’t notice. so the saltspring got yesterdays guests breakfast about an hour and a half earlier than they wanted. oops. just make sure we don’t have any doubles up.
fruit: there were 5 cartons of moldy strawberries in the small refridgerator. i don’t know how to solve this. they get moldy or they get dehydrated. should we just go get berries every 2 or three days so we don’t have them go bad? i just look at them and think…i wouldn’t eat that. why would i give it to a guest? and end up tossing them. open to any and all suggestions…and pass it on to the breakfast ladies. they are not as in tune to checking the status of things in the fridge. so it may be a front desk duty to double check stuff daily.
cancellations: i have noticed a couple of times when we get these that there are other rooms arriving that would have liked to extend or stay in the same room if possible. when we get a cancellation can we start looking at the reservations before and after the arrival by a day to see if a guest wanted that room who is still coming. we missed an excellent opportunity to do that for a guest who wanted to stay an extra day in the marrowstone when we had a cancellation. its super easy to check if you go to the availability screen and just run the mouse over the days before and after the cancellation. the guest remarks come up with the name and sometimes you can tell if they wanted an extention.
thanks!!! have a super duper sunday
July 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
THURSDAY, JULY 17th - a Century Tel technician will come to do two things related to our fire panel:
1) Install a new “dedicated” phone line directly to the panel. This line’s telephone number will be 378-1183.
2) Tie into our existing line 378-0834 (the new line we just got put in) and hook this up to the fire panel as a “back up” or secondary line to the panel. This line should NOT be dedicated solely to the fire panel.
Whoever is working on that day will you please, please, please make sure this gets done correctly??
Thanks!
July 11th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
elena’s fridge came.
espresso machines: there will be two replacements sent to hotel that have shipping slips for the two additional machines under the desk in the back room. do not throw these away. we need to tape them to the boxes and call aeronautical services to pick them up. they will be with dhl and aeronautical can do this. but they must get the call to come get them.
then we should be receiving two additional units to replace the two that are in the back.
steffi and i both think that it is best to not open the machines up to try to fix them even if the tech tells you too. just because you never know about warranty and if one person in their company says yes and another says no.
(i figure the warranty is almost out anyway? do we know how long this lasts? one year two years??)
Tory: don’t forget to leave the hall lights ON when you close up.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Hey guys, sorry about the Shaw, that was my fault. The guy walked in and said it would only be him and his wife with their very young daughter (I didn’t know about the extra person charge…I thought kids were free if they were younger.) However when they arrived and I checked them in, I saw that they clearly had two daughters who were nowhere near “little”….so I kinda panicked and didn’t really know what to say to them because the guy was kind of testy with me. I’m really sorry
I promise I didn’t do this intentionally.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:34 am
well…and it kinda seems like A LOT of our rooms can only fit comfortably 2 people. really. mostly because of our “fire code” don’t feel bashfull to tell people that and secretly…if we get too many people in a small room…the noise from that room goes up too. so surrounding guests get a little “put off”
i experienced this first hand. and a neighbor guest was not happy to see so many people going into a room. don’t forget…we have a lovely sister property that has rooms not one but TWO fabulous beds. which would be best in most cases with families.
just my mini soap box.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Morning Kaitlyn!
Will you please call Aeronautical Services and have them pick up our 2 broken espresso makers today? Thank you, thank you.
MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY & EXTRA PERSON CHARGES
Elena is right. All our rooms are priced for 2 people except of the Bainbridge Suite (4), any extra persons (kids under 4 are free) cost $20 per night. Please charge accordingly.
I wrote the maximum occupancy of each room on our front desk rack card, please have a look.
I will go to MP tomorrow, will check in for things needed before I go.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
REZ. #1213756 for the Shaw had 4 people! 2 adults a 15 year old and a 7 year old. This is NOT okay. And on top of that it looks like they were a walk-in and weren’t even charged extra person fees.
Refrigerator.
Anaco appliance is delivering a refrigerator for me tomorrow please call me when they come in so that I can let them into my apartment.
The bikes are now in numerical order please try and keep them like this.
I am off for my weekend YAY!
July 10th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I exchanged our last backup coffee pot in the Whidbey Suite. The full cup button is not working and water is coming out of the bottom. I placed it back in the box and put it with the other machine to go back to manufacturer.
THANK YOU STEFAN!
For coming down and helping the guest in the whidbey hook up their WII. Their son is really happy now that he gets to play his games now while on vacation.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Laura got us spiffy new glass carafes. Tory and I washed 16 each and stored some of the old style and the spares above the safe in the luggage room. Use those for OJ, please.
Also: please let Raquel know that I brought 50lb of earth friendly laundry detergent into the upstairs laundry room (it’s mighty warm in there).
If somebody has time & car tomorrow, please get green apples and other organic apples from MP.
ELEMENTS rate sheets are in the front desk in-box & resource.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
The Key to perfect cookies is…..
**Pre-heat the oven to slightly below 350.
**Once the oven is up to temp.
**Place very cold cookies straight from the freezer is best and put them in the oven right away.
**Bake for 15-20 minutes
** Remember don’t let them get too brown in the oven since they will continue to brown after you pull them out.
Why I’m blogging from ELEMENTS? Its slow, why not.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
We need to resell the Spieden for July the 17th. #1189336 called this morning and canceled it, so… let’s try to sell it.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:09 am
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RAQUEL….. Have a wonderful birthday Ms. Raquel..
July 7th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
The guest who has the Shaw booked for the 9-11 of july called wanting to cancel, I called her back and left her a message letting her know that we would have to charge her if we can’t rebook because she is canceling within t10 days of her rez. I didn’t actually cancel the rez. until we hear back from her.
GROCERIES
I ordered groceries and I will pick them up tomorrow.
July 6th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
whoops! that last one was from me.
we also have an overload of garbage if anyone can bring some garbage to elements for us that would be great.
July 6th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Thankyou!!: to raquel or whomever left us a couple of gideon bibles in the back room. i gave one to a guest tonight who asked for one.
Elements: could we get one of your quick rate cheat sheets for down here? the one with room descriptions.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
DO NOT DISTURB: Kaitlyn, thanks for mentioning that we don’t have those. I just assumed that we still had the old ones. I will see what I can find out.
July 6th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
378-0834
Elena installed our third line phone today. It sits sleek and black on your left when staffing the front desk. Front Line will forward calls only we can deal with to that line (I hope, Cindy?)and we can call each other on that line when we really need to talk to somebody immediately (as in: “How long have you felt that way? Drink 2 glasses of water and take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning.” or: “He said what? No, he didn’t! Eat 2 boxes of chocolate and watch ‘Steel Magnolias’ and call me in the morning.”)
I took 2 mini tongs, an old baking sheet, the large cooling tray, and the mini muffin forms and brought them to Gio, who is creating the most amazing baked concoctions for sale at Cafe Zia.
July 5th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
DANIIL & ROMAN
Please let the guys know that I brought their time cards down here. Please show them how to clock in and out.
Thank you, my Bird Rocking team, for all your hard work. This was a big weekend and you were excellent.
Much love.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Lilly: the gal that left the cell picked it up today. so we don’t have to worry about it.
July 5th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
fyi: it smells awfully musty in the saltspring. should we be looking for a leak??? i have noticed it before but not every time i go in there to check someone in. does not smell that way in the whidbey.
July 5th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
laura: thanks for the new napkin stickers. it is much better with the bigger sticker. and…do you plan on getting “do not disturb” and “service please” tags for the room doors?
July 5th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Hey guys, so the Patos cell phone…sorry I totally forgot to put the rez number, it is 1154673. I have called her and left a message telling her that we have her cell, but I also sent her an email in case the number we had on file is belonging to the phone that we have. So hopefully we will hear back from her soon! Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th
July 4th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
P.S. The $20 was Soco’s! She came downstairs asking if we found 20 bucks laying around. Also I have to apologize the camera lady called on Wednesday and said that she found her camera when she was unpacking. I just didn’t put it in the blog. I noticed Kaitlyn asking about it this morning in the blog…my bad!!!
July 4th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
IPOD is working just fine now. I think it needed a little nap. Thanks Laura!
July 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
IPOD: I’m assuming it’s working since I haven’t heard back. If it isn’t let me know.
July 4th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
lilly: can you give us a little more info on the phone from the patos so we can do a follow up call while you are not here? thanks.
July 4th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
elena: i haven’t heard anything about the camera. but what do i know…i have been off for three days. so i guess…probably….they called the sheriffs office directly.
seeya!!
July 4th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Happy 4th of July to everybody!
July 4th, 2008 at 10:23 am
lilly: the post san juan bill is a reminder for us when cindy gets the account bill from post san juan for us to charge the appropriate amount of postage for this gals box. there is another lady Res# 14790 to get billed as well. we sent their luggage to them and didn’t have the three number security code on the credit card that hamid requires of us.
also FYI: tory didn’t set the garbage out today because he was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a pick up being that it is the 4th of July. so….we will probably need regino or seth to come and help us out tomorrow or sunday if the transfer station is open. we will have A LOT of garbage by then.
also: i put all the spare keys we had up on the peg board behind the actual room names. we have plenty for the whidbey and a couple of other rooms. but if we get a pro in to make spares…we should do that for all the other rooms too.
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
JUICE DECANTERS: Okay. I blew it. I ordered some beautiful new juice decanters and they came and they are beautiful, but they are plastic…yuck. So, I ordered glass ones which will be coming the end of next week. In the meantime, feel free to use the plastic ones as needed and they will make good back ups for later.
IPOD: Is it working now? I went by this morning to pick it up and fix it, but it was working. The battery was almost dead so Lilly put it on the charger this morning and I’m wondering if it is still working. Let me know.
TV: I picked up the tv.
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
So I found $20 just lying next to the door by the front desk…did anyone lose 20 bucks? Or could it maybe be a guests money? I have left it on the front desk for someone to hopefully claim it….
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 am
I created an alarm and a maintenance request but will someone please make sure Seth takes a look at the toilet handle in the Marrowstone Suite.
Also the Ipod is frozen we have been using the two little ones in the meantime and charging them when the die. No biggie.
And the Shaw coffee maker sucked the pod rest into the top chamber. I removed it and it is in the luggage room. AKA my room! Guest didn’t want to bother with getting another one. Said they do not drink coffee…hum. I don’t understand it either.
See you in the afternoon Lilly!
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 am
LOPEZ
I have reopened the Lopez on the 25th, I think it is a better idea to leave the floor the way it is until we are slower. Dave has unplugged the cables, and nobody will no any different except for that they will not have an extremly hot floor to walk on. Dave does not need a whole day to fix this, he will only at lease 3 hours to fix it, but there will be no need to close the room off for the entire night. Steffi, let’s give Dave a call (like the night prior)when we see a day that does not have anybody staying in it.
Thanks,
Cindy
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
FOOD
I’ll go to MP tomorrow to get us through the 4th (granola, fruit, etc.) and will pick up a big fruit order on Saturday.
PHONE 1
Elena just brought by a simple phone (with cord) for our emergency line.
PHONE 2
Cindy will email instructions about how to forward the phone lines to Front Line in the evening and how to cancel it in the morning. Very Very important, so our phone lines will never go to voice mail. I’ll print out instructions and put reminders everywhere. And I mean everywhere:)
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
KEYS
I have a call in to Kyle, the locksmith. Please have him make duplicates (4 each) of the Skipjack, Saltspring & Whidbey keys. He will be here within the next week.
LOPEZ HEAT
It being summer and all, why don’t we wait until the shoulder season to have that repaired and leave the bathroom heat turned off? Adam? Laura?
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Gosh I am just blogging away today…one last thing, our ipod in the back seems to be broken!
The screen is frozen and it won’t do anything. So we’ve been enjoying all the interesting music on the blue little shuffle.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
There is an alarm in the New Bookings section about a guest who was having some boxes shipped, does anyone know how much we are supposed to charge her? Rez # 1040663
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I have closed off the Lopez for 7/25 (the only day it is open from now) so that Dave can work on repairing the heated bathroom floor. We will need to call him the morning of 7/23 just as a reminder…however if we start getting really busy for that date, or sold out, please release the room to be sold and call Dave to let him know. Thank you!!
Hopefully there will be no complaints, Dave just shut off the heat altogether in the Lopez bathroom. So if people are worried that it isn’t working this is why!
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Adam, I just checked it and it was already set to the lowest temp. But I will go back in a few hours and see if the floor has cooled off at all. Thanks for the tip!
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
LOPEZ HEAT: If the heat is turned off in the bathroom and the heat is still on, there is a problem. Lilly, can you please make sure that the heat in the bathroom is set to it’s coolest, 50, and then test it 2 hours later. If the heat is still on, please call me. I do have a call in to Dave already to see if he can swing by and take a look.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
A guest just made a really good point, our honeymooners staying in the Lopez pointed out that the heated bathroom floors were a little uncomfortably warm this weekend with the hot weather that we had…is there any way that we can turn them off?
Patos…left their cell phone in the room! I called and emailed them so hopefully we will hear back soon!
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 am
Can someone bring down some more time cards for the boys and girls who do not have a swipe card. Also I think it makes more sense to print off alot of breakfast cards up at Elements in Cindy’s really fancy laser printer and then bring them down here for us to slice in half. We seem to be burning through about 1 ink cartridge every two weeks. Also I had a guest check into the Whidbey suite tonight and there were no keys. I went ahead and improvised.But noticed we are getting low on our back up key cards.
Also res# 1126239 wanted to cancel the last night of his stay. July 3rd. So there it is ripe for the taking. I reminded him of cancellation policy. He would like to stay if we do not resell the room and need to charge him.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:07 pm
SPIEDEN LEEK
So this morning Olga noticed that there was a pretty substantial leek coming from the tubes under the Spieden. I called Seth to Have a look at it and it appears the tubing was disconnected at one of the joints, elbows whatever its called. But that was not the only problem… the caulking around the Spieden bath tub was in pretty bad shape so he re-caulked and this should relieve the issue but this may happen on a smaller scale again if the bath tub is overflown or the shower heads are pointed too far onto the shower wall.
KEYS
Kaitlyn left some keys that have not been working on the rooms and it looks like they are some of the newer ones. This sounds like a job for Steffi and maybe a locksmith.
SILVERWARE
were are all out of the little stickers we use on our silverware rolls so miss Raquel
EMPLOYEES ONLY
Lina and I have been experiencing a lot of very snoopy guests barging in on our breakfast prep to see if they can have their breakfast 5 minutes early. Or to see if they can just get something out of their luggage. So we made a tasteful little “employees only” sign to try and prevent this.
THE CAMERA
Have we heard back from the lady about the camera? updates… anything?
FLOWERS & CHOCOLATES
Rez #1120560 had a request for flowers and chocolates on the 4th of July but Robin’s Nest will be closed so the flowers will be delivered on the 3rd around noon. if there is any refrigerator space they should be refrigerated so that they look nice and fresh. Chocolates are ordered and we will need to pick them up around noon tomorrow.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Well folks, we didn’t make our June forecast. I’m sure that we’re all pretty bummed about that. I have been very carefully analyzing why we didn’t make it and I think it has mainly to do with the poor weather. Which, despite my wishes, remains out of my control. Both Elements and Bird Rock came in under expectations even though our advanced bookings were really high. What does this mean? Unfortunately for you it means no June bonus. For us, it just means we still can’t afford to pay all those darned bill collectors. BUT, it doesn’t mean we need to give up hope. Quite the contrary. I really do think that it was the weather and not the ecomony (which depsite my children’s wishes, also remains out of my control). So, let’s just all keep those beautiful smiles flashing and dazzle our guests, future, current and past, with our wonderful hospitality. Any questions, comments, ideas or dreams, just let me know. Happy July!
June 30th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
whoops.
keys: there is a key in seth’s box for the saltspring that does not open the saltspring. we will probably need another copy. i don’t believe there is one in the spare bag. and the skipjack had 2 new keys made that do not work either. we will need two more of those made as well. so far…i believe we only have one of each of those rooms.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
speiden: the window in the speiden is broken (not the glass) the two rods in the side of the window that keep it up have come loose or are broken and the window is loose in its frame and won’t stay up. i managed to prop it open for the guests in there (it is very warm) and will still close. they were concerned. i didn’t act concerned so… i think they are not as concerned now.
screens: we are missing two screens for the lobby. one for the desk window and one for a window above the couch. would be great to have so the buggies don’t come in after we close down for the night.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
LABELS: Oh, the internet is a wonderful thing. I just ordered the labels and they are new and improved. They are 100% recycled. Cool, huh?
June 30th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Oh Elena, you are SO brave and athletic and agile and helpful and and and…. Good job. I can’t tell you how many times I hopped the back fence by King’s back in the days before you could walk through by the propane tanks. Yes, I would lock myself out of the kitchen, inevitably on one of the rare days I would be wearing a skirt. You can picture it, can’t you? I’d plop over the fence with some poor King’s worker looking at me like I was a crazy nut job.
CYPRESS TV: I’m imagining that Seth will be there tomorrow and he can put the new tv in. When that gets done, will you let me know, pretty please??
CIRCULAR LABELS: I will order some more tomorrow.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
FENCE HOPPING
Yes, thats right FENCE HOPPING! Little old me jumped the fence in the Marrowstone in a heroic attempt to rescue the ladies who could not get the gate open. They actually got it open though just as I was coming down the other side, hey its still heroic isn’t? And if you don’t believe me ask Lina she was witness to the whole thing. Now that is called going above and beyond (the fence) for our guests. The ladies were real good sports about the whole thing and we had a good laugh afterwards.
Cypress T.V.
Its here and in the kitchen just waiting for Seth! I also called Laura and left a message.
STICKERS.
We are all out of the round stickers that we use on our silverware rolls. I put a call in to Laura since I think that it is all on her computer.
LOST CAMERA
The lady Rez #1159623 Lost a Sony Camera while on the Island. She thinks she probably left it behind in one of the shops. I put a call into the sheriff’s office and they do have a Sony camera that was turned in but need a better description than just the Sony in order to get it back, model number, the pictures on it. I called the guest and left a message to either call the sheriff’s department directly or us.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
TV: dead TV bracket is in lower file cabinet, with all screws, etc.
June 28th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Check out Steffi’s FRESH MOUTH EMPORIUM for the front desk staff. Enjoy luscious organic gum and assorted organic mints and have breath fresh as a dewy Spring morning in a meadow. Not only those of us who still pray to the tobacco gods (you know Laura’s heart hurts every time you smoke!), now everybody can enjoy fresh breath when talking to our guests. And remember: you can “hear” on the phone not only when you smile but also that you have fresh breath. Eat ‘em up!
June 28th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
TV: the dead tv has a metal bracket screwed to the back of it for mounting it on the wall. will someone please remove that bracket and the screws and put them someplace safe for the next tv before sending the dead one back? thanks…
June 28th, 2008 at 11:48 am
JUICE CARAFES: I just ordered 20 new 1/4 liter and 20 new 1/2 liter carafes for juice. Hopefully they’ll work well for us. They should be here in a week.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:48 am
steffi: the driftwood was dropped off yesterday. all done.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
SCHEDULE
I put up the schedule for 7-7 to 7-20. Due to day-off requests we are all working all kind of shifts on all kind of days, yeah, summer! So please look closely. You guys rock, keep up the good work!
June 27th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Kaitlyn:
What information to we need from the guest who wants the driftwood mailed?
Thanks for being on top of the coffee machines.
To print out a reconciliation report from any other day, just go to the date you want to print out, click on reconciliation and print (don’t worry about it, I’ll print it when I reconcile the entire week). Does the printer work o.k. today?
June 27th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
cindy sent us an email with the hideaway pictures. i made a file called Hideaway Pictures in MY DOCUMENTS that has these. the e-mail is also saved in cindy’s folder in the inbox in outlook.
the tv that is broken is going to be shipped back. i assume we will put it in the box that the new one will come in so save the box and put the broken tv in it and label it so we don’t get confused.
i called soltazza today and they are going to replace ANOTHER machine. its a black one that prays water on the counter and into the basin below. when we get the slip for dhl…we need to tape it to the box and give it to aeronautical when they come. if they don’t come…we need to take it to the office at the airport. there is ONE spare black machine on the top shelf that works. it has a sticky on the box that says “this machine works!”
elena: can you call the company and get the part for the machine that you took apart so we can get it back in circulation? thanks
June 27th, 2008 at 10:12 am
tori:
i am not sure how to print a previous reconciliation. perhaps cindy or steffi knows how to do this.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:48 am
tory: the second ipod is plugged into the back of the computer tower to charge. maybe it could stay there so we know its charged up if someone wants it?
steffi: did you ever find out what you needed to know about those two big boxes that we sent our guests. (the kayak gals?) i have one more box for one of them. (she knew it would arrive later. it is a stick she picked up on the beach and is a weird size.)
June 27th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Reconciliation report failed to fully print out 3 times. The last 3 pages printed out all screwy on one page. I logged out and in and still nothing. I know we need this report for our records so can someone please try to reprint this in the am maybe the computer needs a little break.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
KAITLYN
Morning. I’ll bring by a produce order around 3.30 on Friday, call up to E if there is anything else you need. On Saturday when Katie comes with eggs, would you please give her the empty cartons we collected on top of the fridge.
Have a great shift:)
June 26th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
BAD
One of us made a reservation for a guest, but for the wrong month (#1178028). We are able to host her tonight, but not tomorrow. I’m holding a sky place for her. Guys, please, pay attention to the dates, always, always, always.
GOOD
I got carded for buying beer today, yeah!
June 26th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Ok so I talked to the Nexus TV guy today and they accidentally sent us the wrong TV :(…so it came via UPS today but the package is now being sent back and they will have the correct TV in the mail asap
Pretty quiet day…only two check-ins for the evening, wow.
I am excited for our second computer though! That will be so nice to have that when we are super busy. I agree with Laura about putting it in the back office, there is a good amount of space and it would be a nice place to be on the phone taking reservations when there is someone else in the lobby checking guests in.
We are almost out of strawberries too…props to Lina on doing such a great job every morning with breakfast, you’re awesome Lina
That’s about it. See you all next week!
June 26th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Cypress TV
Lilly sent the 26″ TV (they sent us by mistake) back right away and the company will send us the right size 32″ ASAP, probably by Monday. Thanks Lilly.
June 26th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Lavendera Spa is closed on the 4th of July, For those guests that would like spa services please call spa d bune at 370-5027, they are going to be open to us only. spa d bune does not need our vouchers with it, they will charge the guests there and we will facilitate in making the appointment and directing our guests where they are located. If someone inquires about spa services on day of the 4th we will have an on call number to call. I will post that next week. But for spa reservations prior to the 4th for the day of the 4th call spa d bune directly.
Thanks so much.
June 25th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
FIRE INSPECTION: Yeah!! Thanks for taking care of this Steffi & Cindy.
NEW COMPUTER: Yeah!! Again. I think it should be set up by the safe. That way it can feel a little more like a back office which I think could be really good in some situations (e.g. at check-in/out, etc. if someone’s helping a guest in person and the other person is helping a guest on the phone, the front desk won’t be so chaotic.
NEW PHONE LINE: Perhaps this should be the number that we call in on ONLY when it is really important to talk to the front desk staff right away?? Kind of like the 5800 number at Elements?? That way our front desk staff can have a hotline phone for very urgent matters AND the front desk staff would know to interrupt what they were doing to answer that line. What do you think?
June 25th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
FIRE ALARM
We passed our L&I inspection. Guardian will call the fire marshall and set up a date with him. Dave from Guerdian will contact us soon regarding the status of our system (we wanted monitored, but it is currently not monitored). If you hear from him, give Laura, Cindy or I a holler.
SECOND WORK STATION
Cindy ordered us a new computer, yeah! I want to set it up by the safe but it is small enough to be set up at the front desk. What do you guys think?
THIRD PHONE LINE
We will have a local phone line on or about 6/27/08 (Qwest will show up and install a third jack, let LCS (Laura, Cindy, Steffi) know if that happens. Since our phones only have 2 lines, we’ll probably get a completely separate phone for that line. The number will be: 378-0834.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
FOOD
Wednesdays the food coop order comes (everything but produce).
Thursdays: eggs from Synergy Farm
Saturday: eggs from Lacrover Farm
On Friday we will need to pick up a produce order from MP (I ordered kiwi, melon, strawberries & blueberries, I will go there today to get us through Friday).
COFFEE
We are out. Steve from the San Juan Coffee Co will bring by 2 small bags tonight and will bring 2 big bags tomorrow. When you see the coffee getting low, please call San Juan Coffee at 378-4443 and order more.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Steffi or someone, who will buy groceries…
We need:
granola/out/
yogurt/we have just 1 plain/
grape/out/
bananas/out/
orange juice/we have just 4 left. I don’t know whether they’ll be enough for the breakfast tomorrow/
strawberries/just 1 small box/
Thank you
June 24th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
We had other ipods here in the safe. Where are they at now? There is just a small electric blue one now. So I think one is missing or has been moved.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Breakfast was really, really busy and we are tired.
BUT…
We got a lot of stuff done today,
we made eggs, lots of dishes, Lina swept, we bought flowers from the SJ Florist and made new vases since the old ones were… dead:(. I called Susie Wampler and let her know that we don’t need any delivered.
We got the spa checked today and added a few things everything else looked good.
There was a reservation that came in online (1190640)that had a note saying “Our friends all booked for the same nights 4 rooms and received 10% discount, what do I need to do to get that?” I called and left a message asking that she call us back becuase there aren’t 4 rooms staying on that date, and none that have notes about discounts. Her reservation is still in the new section for now until we hear back from her.
WOW The kitchen floor is sparkling clean (thanks to Lina) We mixed up a bottle of floor cleaner and labeled it to keep just for the kitchen.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
guest comment: from lopez
shower heads (there are two) they don’t spray into one spot if you try to make them. you really only get one showerhead spraying on you at one time. perhaps a different nozzl