10-30-2007
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#1 (permalink) |
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añejo
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hull, UK
Posts: 1,676
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TR: raquelle261 & colleagues do Cuba
Right then chaps and chapesses… hold on to your hats. This isn’t Playa and it isn’t this year, but it was an action packed (and freebie!) trip for which a few of my forum buddies have asked me to write up a report. This is my first attempt at writing a TR, so if I blather on and bore the underwear off of ya, I apologise in advance, but at least I am getting in some practice for the Playa one to come in a couple of months!
So, settle down, get comfy, and…. be nice to me… I am a newbie at this!  (btw: pic tally is gonna be light until we actually properly arrive but there’s zillions to make up for it once we get there, I promise!) Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…… Background: There is a thing described by our company as the “annual ‘High Achievers Club’ incentive trip”. By way of background…. those that know me on here will testify that I have insomnia that kicks all other insomnia’s ass – which is just as well, because my job requires me to work some bloody dumb hours.  But, still, I love it and love the guys I work with to bits and love the laughs we have along the way. Anyway, sorry, I am digressing….. (oops! back to the background info you need – honest, it’s important, bear with it…)The sales lot (that I work alongside) have a league table running all year grading them against each other as to where they are against their sales targets. At the end of each financial year, the top 20 or so (who also have to have done 100% of target or more too) are awarded a place in that year’s “Club”. In addition, for those (like me) that don’t have sales targets, there is a system almost as complicated as the US Elections where eventually, after round upon round of nominations and votes, a couple (yes – only 2) of “wild card” entries are also awarded. Each year the entire company gets together for an end-of-year conference and part of it is an oscar-type ceremony where they announce the final league table and announce the wild card awards. So, now you know all that shite, lets get on with the show..…… 
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10-30-2007
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#4 (permalink) |
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añejo
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hull, UK
Posts: 1,676
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Day Minus-16
I sometimes don’t bother going to these “end of season” do’s. They are mostly boring as crap, but this year, for some reason, the organiser had kept badgering me. Thinking it was just some kind of 3-line whip I just shrugged and resigned myself to a several hours drive to be bored nutless and a long drive back again. Oh well, hey ho. At least there’s a stop-over with a free bar at the end of the event….. Day Minus-15 (pt1) Its late into the afternoon. My ass has gone numb. I am suffering a slow and painful death by Microsoft Powerpoint and have almost lost the will to live. Ooh, goodie, the league table bit is coming on, we will be out of here soon. Day Minus-15 (pt2) Its night time. I have now recovered from nearly passing out with shock a few hours earlier during the awards ceremony thingy, I am drunk as a skunk and busy partaying darn hard girlfriends, celebrating my wild card place. Yeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!! We leave in 2 weeks. Oooer. Jesus bloody shite!!  So…. here’s the gig: 19 guys (from “sales” – am saying nothing), 6 girls, colleagues only, no partners, 7 days, 5-star, all expenses paid, off on our jollies (well, off-site meeting as far as the taxman was concerned…. we didn’t even have to take leave entitlement) to Cubaaaaaaaaaa…..!!!! 
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10-30-2007
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#6 (permalink) |
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añejo
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hull, UK
Posts: 1,676
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Day Minus-1 (Weds 18 May)
Well. If I hadn’t realised what I was letting myself in for from one of the guys last week answering my question “is this off-site meeting they keep describing this thing as, actually a meeting meeting?” with “nah, it’s just a piss up on the beach”, this pre-trip night at a Heathrow airport hotel should have given me a clue. We check in for our long haul flight at the airport at 8am. It is 4am and I am still in the hotel bar with the 4 sales guys (which includes the “nah” fella) that were also staying over the night before having driven down from the north of England. Oh god.  Day 1 (Thurs 19 May) Pt1 Next to no sleep and a bit of hotel breakfast later, one by one the 25 of us meet at the designated point at Heathrow and are guided through our private check in (we were treated like kings throughout) by our private tour guide – the lovely Caroline – who would also be accompanying us on our trip (it’s a tough job, hers, isn’t it). Bags are checked all the way through to Havana, which is no mean feat considering how many there are of us, and by the time we are finished with the bags we are almost ready to board our flight. To Paris. Yep, the only direct flights to Havana – to the east – available at the time of year we are travelling, is with Air France. From Paris. So off on an itsy bitsy teeny weeny plane headed west to Charles de Gaulle it is then. Zut a-bloody-lors. <<sigh>> Has anyone here ever been to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport? It is horrible. With a capital “H”. Trust me. Anyway, to pass the time during our long* overlay in gay-Parieeee (* the French very kindly are on strike in solidarity with farmers over something to do with sheep or something…  …so we are to be delayed by around 3 hours), paper cups appear out of someone’s bag and round the corner come some of the sales guys gingerly hugging several bottles of champers under their arms.GAME ON!!!
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10-30-2007
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#12 (permalink) | |
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añejo
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hull, UK
Posts: 1,676
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Quote:
(btw: pic tally is gonna be light until we actually properly arrive but there’s zillions to make up for it once we get there, I promise!) |
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