Well after returning from another wonderful and successful Wet, Wild, and Wicked trip and immediately starting work at a new job writing a trip report wasnt the most important thing on my list at that time. But now things have settled down some and its time to put things down on paper or at least on cyber-paper.
Im going to continue on my tradition of not focusing on specific events and activities. My fellow WWWers are handily taking care of that. Instead, I will share a few of my own thoughts and feelings with the intent on documenting the intangible aspects of the trip.
As the WWW crowd grew at the start of the week, I was involved in making a lot of new friends and catching up with old friends. All of you had a major impact on my personal enjoyment of the week. However, about half way through the week I starting thinking of the all people who were on one or more proir WWW Summer trips, but did not make this trip. To those in that group who are reading this I missed you. I guess thats one of the down sides of having a large group of friends. Not everyone will be fortunate enough to be able to return every year. I do hope to see you all again real soon. Every one of you WWWers has a special spot in my heart. Please dont drop by the wayside keep in touch.
On Thursday afternoon during one of the periods where the WWW gang had the nude pool going in full force, I had another one of those defining moments. It was one of the few times that I was keeping to myself and just observing things from an out of the way corner of the pool. Im not sure I can fully explain my feelings at that moment, but I will try. I was totally overwhelmed at the thought of what I was seeing happening in front of me. It was more than seeing a lot of smiling faces and hearing a lot of childlike laughing. I was seeing a large and diverse group of people who, for the most part, had never met each other face to face before acting like they were long time friends having the time of their lives together. No one had a care in the world. What ever stress and problems they were having in their own lives had disappeared. Whatever cares and worries they arrived with seemed to not matter now. Somehow any negative feelings had melted away to nothing. All that did matter was sharing the warmth of friendships old and new. The kinship I was observing was awesome. Somehow I think theres something like WWW magic that happens. I can only see its effects. I cant explain it, but I like it.
The last topic I want to cover concerns the stars of the WWW week. Who are those stars? It was each and every one of you. I need to share with all of you who were part of the group some additional observations. This time, though, its not my observations, but those of other guests and of the staff. I cant begin to count the number of times I had either non-WWW guests or various Hedonism II employees come up to me and comment on how wonderful all you WWWers were.
So many other guests came up to me and said that their trip was made so much more enjoyable through the acquaintances they made with WWWers. Its true, that we did have a couple of private events, but for the most part the fun and games and camaraderie was not limited to just our group. I want to pass along the thanks of those other guests that you offered your friendship to. It has been said that a stranger is just a friend you havent met yet. There were very few strangers that week.
I also talked to a lot of Hedonism II employees and others during the week for various reasons. I heard a similar story from many of them. From front office staff to bartenders to housekeeping to the catamaran crew to taxi drivers to wait staff to the entertainment coordinators to management - their story was that they really enjoyed the WWW group compared to other groups. I wanted to dig a bit deeper with them to make sure it just wasnt customer service BS so I asked for examples. In some cases it was as simple as guests smiling and saying hi as they passed. Or being as civil as saying please and thank you instead of being surly with demands for service of some type. Or being understanding when forces beyond anyones control (like the weather) caused a change in plans. Or helping clean up a mess rather than leaving it all for the workers. Word of our efforts for the children on this trip and others had spread throughout the workers and dozens of them let me know how much it was appreciated even though it might not have benefited them directly. They respected us for how we acted, what we did, and more importantly how we treated them with respect. We all know that respect is more than a word for them. I wanted you all to be aware of your impact.
I feel so fortunate to be associated with the people in the WWW group. I am proud to be associated with each and every one of you WWWers that I have been lucky to meet since 1998. The scary thing is that if things keep on growing like they have been I will have several hundred new friends by this time next year. Thats a great problem to have, though.
Humbly submitted with my deepest respect and love to all