AN INAUSPICIOUS ARRIVAL IN MYKONOS
When we as a family begin our vacation planning most of the arrangement drudgery is delegated to my work agenda mostly by default. I'm the one in charge of flights, hotels, transfers, passport updates, seat selections, museum visits and where the closest bathrooms are to all our destinations. One exception is usually food. This normally falls into Rick's domain, cuisine is his forte and he'll spend hours pouring over restaurant reviews until he's found the best places to eat in the most remote locations of our trips. This time he decided to get involved in a selection that would normally fall under my obsessive control anal planning. I am so anal I prepare and update a finite schedule for every trip we take with all the updates and additions and then pass them out to my traveling companions as the bible for our trip. This time Rick wanted to carry some of the heavy lifting and suggested that I let him pick one of our hotels.
He chose Mykonos. We let him.
He had enough free stays on his hotels.com site to make a hotel selection seem even cheaper than its listed price once he applied his credits. This was his raison d'être for being allowed to secure the one hotel reservation. He spent hours looking at new locations, prioritizing them in first choice to fifth choice lists until one seemed to rise to the top.
He showed us some general pictures and both Emmy and I agreed his final choice looked fine, better than fine actually. That's how we ended up at the Elysium.
What we failed to see was that The Elysium wasn't the full name of the hotel. The complete name of the hotel on the Hotels.com website is, get this, Elysium Hotel - Caters to Gays.
Now this shouldn't have upset us since we're gay but we weren't too sure of Emmy's comfort level. It's one thing to go to a hotel like this with your partner but maybe not so much with your parents. Now Emmy has plenty of gay friends so with a substantial eye-roll she acquiesced.
For starts our adventure to Mykonos started with a miscalculated error by the hotel's part switching our arrival time with our Rome departure time. No car, no person holding a sign with our name on it showed up at the airport at the correct time leaving us stranded in the hot Aegean sun. Several hours later a car was finally arranged to pick us up and we were off to the hotel with too much time to think about and then worry about what we had committed ourselves to.
As our driver pulled into the entrance to the hotel we all let out a collective shy of relief. The exterior looked inviting, respectable and not at all intimidating.
But once inside Emmy's eyes started to pop and the fear factor came pounding back in. Rick and I looked at each other and the "Uh, Oh" moment hit us both simultaneously.
From the pictures on the walls and furniture in the lobby, although interior designer perfect, left no doubt about the "Caters to Gays" tagline on the hotels name plate.
The people behind the desk couldn't have been more gracious as they summoned help to get our luggage to our room and apologized for the snafu at the airport.
They also upgraded us to a two-bedroom suite so Emmy could have her own room.
As with the rest of the hotel the rooms were a stunningly white-on-white design scheme.
It was the abundance of all the nude male artwork on the walls giving the room color but draining the color out of us.
Nothing is more uncomfortable than dealing with sex and your children. We've always been very open about sex with our daughter but that's always in the abstract and in terms of advice about its beauty and how we want it to be guiltless yet responsible for her. This did not entail the in-your-face moment like the one we were experiencing as we walked into our room.
Rick took on the guilty parent role and immediately began looking up alternate hotels still available in Mykonos. Emmy just went into her room cringing.
We didn't unpack while Rick frantically made a reservation at the first hotel that could fit us in. What we should have done is take a deep breath and let the hotel work its magic, because no sooner had we made the new reservation then Emmy came out of her room having adjusted to the art and said, "I think I can handle this"
We ended up staying but with rules.
The pool would only see us sitting in the bathing suits required section with our suits on as opposed to the "optional" up top overlooking the pool. This for us was never an option in the first place.
We were not to try to introduce her to any people her own age. If she wanted to meet any people she'd do it on her own.
We were definitely not allowed to flirt with any of the staff although being of certain age that possibility had sailed. We might go so far in the staff's estimation to qualify as potential sugar daddies but they'd soon find out we don't have the money to qualify,
and we couldn't wear anything more revealing than a mid-thigh anything anywhere. Speedos were beyond us at our age any way.
The last most important rule: we were not to embarrass her in any way, shape or form or she'd find the nearest exit and boat back to Italy
What we found out was the hotel clientele was anything but exclusively gay after all their signature is "The STR8 Friendly Hotel".
The food was delicious,
and the pool was not as intimidating as we first thought.
By the end of our stay we even took in the evening drag show and dinner.
Not so bad after all.
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