Of course I was inspired to start a blog after so many FB friends commented on my trip journaling from Club Med Columbus Isle last November, and from Cancun in April. The FB posts seem to attract more commenters than my actual blog, but that's OK..I still feel inspired.
Enjoy my random recap of Woodloch Pines..it's it our 24th visit since discovering it in 2004. You do the math and while you're doing it, tell me how it's mathematically possible to highlight just five events.
But try I will...
1) For at least five summers in the 2000's, we shared a beautiful home on the Woodloch property with our friends who shared our passion for all things Woodloch. Real life was a little different than vacation life, and many complications caused us to lose touch with these folks who still owned a big chunk of our hearts. We hadn't seen them in close to four years, so imagine this scenario: Our Woodloch Family(friends we've been gaming with since 2008) are known as The Woodloch Pickles, a name coined by a remarkably bright teen named Seth many years ago. So for every event we attend as a team, our name somehow incorporates this word. (Side note: the "kids" are growing up now, so when a staff member suggested "There's a Pickle in My Speedo" for the Pool Games, no censors were notified!) So anyway, we're attending our favorite event, the Scavenger Hunt, and we notice there's a team with a similar name to ours when the Social Director was giving out instructions. We laughed about it, of course, teasingly accusing them of stealing, but this was Scavenger Hunt, a chance for wordsmiths to shine as brightly as athletes, so all was OK. We were so excited to take third place..a bronze medal in a well attended event is an amazing accomplishment. And ironically, the other "Pickle" team got the gold..good for them! So we are all donning our medals proudly around our collective necks when Evan gets a curious text, congratulating him on his bronze and semi-apologizing for her team's Pickle name, even 'though they got the gold and she wasn't part of the naming process. The text was from Natalie, whom we've vacationed with all those years. Natalie could not have known we won the bronze unless she was in the room..wait..she was in the room?? We didn't see her, even after we commented that our team member looked like a young Natalie, or I told another team member how much I loved where she was staying, our rental house all those years ago? Natalie was in the ROOM???? Her family is here at Woodloch?? It was a long overdue joyous reunion and I was elated to see everyone. It's time to put my fragile ego aside and resume a friendship with this remarkable family. I just can't believe Woodloch provided the setting. Oh wait.. yeah, I can!
2) I have always been blown away by the brilliant mind and energy of Social Director Joey and his amazing staff. The thought they put into creating and conceiving these Big Games should be attracting the attention of major network executives who want high ratings. OK, so many other resorts know that there is a big summer movie release, "Jurassic World" , but who besides the Woodloch Social Staff could create such amazing games like a food eating contest with this theme(dino shaped nuggets, molten lava cake, rib bones) and that's just citing ONE of SIX events? And this was just ONE major game..so many others were in store! Pool Games, the messy and hilarious Double Dare, Olympics...it's more than Summer Camp for Everyone and it's more than "Dirty Dancing." or the "land cruise" it's been compared to.
Again, if the network suits discover this place....I'm afraid we'll never be able to book again!
3) I can't list trip highlights without mentioning Woodloch's arguably most beloved staff member, the unique and hilarious Randy Barnes. He's semi retired now, and although we no longer get to see him singing and dancing in the Broadway caliber show or clowning around in the less professional but equally enjoyable Staff show, he's still around and he's as hilarious as ever. He runs the "Scattegories" game like a professional emcee, and this is an example of how the guests can be as inspired as the staff! Randy gave a room of maybe ten teams the following challenge: The long-word was "Turnoff" and teams had to come up with a no more than two word phrase with each of the letters of that word to describe what might be a turnoff on a first date. Randy's reactions to the brilliant and unique answers was priceless. (They'd have to be unique..a duplicate answer of another's team submissions meant no point) I don't know what was more enjoyable..his reaction to great and clever answers..or to the hilariously insipid ones! I also have to cite this example of inspiration from the guests that's on the same level of the staffs', and that would be the Dessert Wars. Each "bakery" is given the same time constraints and ingredients and plastic carving tools, but even with a time limit and less than desired tools, masterpieces were created that I got to view. When the theme was "Independence Day" I saw a team
create a likeness of the White House, when it was "Summer Movies" I saw a replica of "The Dark Knight" that belonged in an art studio. Sometimes it's the little events that warm your heart too, maybe the ones that aren't as well attended as the major attractions. I went to a game of Trivial Pursuit where I was paired with a team of adults with special needs and they were awesome! We didn't win a medal, but their enthusiasm for every correct answer was contagious. Those high fives and smiles meant so much more than the gold! I also have to mention this as a week highlight, and that is Randy donning his judge's robe for a thought provoking game called "You be the Judge" where teams with legal-inspired names get to hear real cases and decide outcomes. Jim was the foreman of our team "Judge-MENTAL" (and yes, I liked the name I created!) and we won the gold medal for the most points, but that's not why this particular story gets a blog shout out. Nope, that's because of the pre-teen on our team who burst into tears, who has been coming to Woodloch for years and has participated in many athletic events, but this was her first medal. Oh, how I wish I could have captured the look on her face, but let these words suffice: she was on cloud nine!
4) Oh my..why did I limit myself when I created this blog to just five thoughts? There's so much more to say!! Like how I appreciate everything done for us by Guest Relations Manager Chris Bower, or how wonderful it was when the weather broke and we got into the lake. Or..oh..I know!! When we walked barefoot to the pool deck, which was obviously close enough to our room that footwear wasn't even necessary, to see spectacular fireworks that rivaled any we've seen in Philadelphia or Red Bank, but with the latter, we'd see the show and pay a price of two hours of traffic after. Woodloch offered fireworks without the stress.
5) Whenever my family heads home, we play the "high light" and "low light" game, something I recommended for every family who needs to unplug and recapture the week. We always have way too many highlights(what I've blogged here is just the tip of the Woodloch Pines iceberg) and we usually have to wrack our brains to think of a low light, but I've got one, a petty one but it's something that was significant nonetheless. We were teamed with some brilliant movie afficonados for the wonderful "Woodloch Salutes the Movie Game" and yes, we really wanted some Oscar gold in this one! We sailed through the first semi challenging category where we were shown 10 very quick clips of Richard Gere movies which we not only had to identify but put in the order of release without an electronic help. Part two was fun as well: Identifying sound tracks from ten movies..we even got the obscure ones! Parts four and five showed movie clips again, much shorter clips and some of the movies were obscure, but we prevailed. But it's that Part Three..oh man, I'm still smarting that our smarts were not acknowledged by some clueless judging! We had to guess the common bond of the ten film clips we were rapidly shown, and by clip number three("Working Girl") I recalled that Carly Simon's "Let the River Run" got an Oscar for Best Song..and soon concluded that the common bond would be exactly that..Best Song! Which we put on our board..which would have resulted in a 100 point bonus..which would have meant the gold medal for all the deserving adults and hopeful kids who made up our movie savvy team. Obviously I knew the answer but because we had simply written "Best Song" those clueless judges didn't give us the bonus! Yes, I am still REELING from the Movie Game, but I'd come back to Woodloch in an hour if I could!
OKAY..that's FIVE...
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