Little Dix
 

Does anyone happen to know how the people were compensated who had reservations at LD and were subsequently bumped for the (Necker) wedding this weekend? Or had the resort simply never booked "regular" people into the resort to begin with? Just curious how all this was handled.

I dunno. Haven't heard a thing about this. Can you tell us more?

I read an article on some site yesterday noting that Virgin Gorda and Necker Island have been completely rented out for the Larry Page (Google co-founder) wedding this weekend. All of Little Dix is rented for his guests.

I wish I had friends like that!

Friends of ours were notified about 3 weeks in advance that they could have an upgrade at Caneel or select another in-season date with an upgrade plus LD would pay for any documented air fare penalty plus a $200 on-site allowance at either site. They stayed at Caneel at Hawks Nest and loved it.

Fair nuf, I suppose-- though I'm not sure how I'd've felt if I'd been one of the "dispossessed." I think it would've been an especially bitter bummer if it'd been a honeymoon destination long in planning. Startling how the rich and/or famous wield that kind of power. I guess it would've taken some sort of superhuman moral principles on the part of the Rosewood Group to tell the Larry Page crowd where to put their money. Twould have been refreshing to hear of that sort of honor code for a change.

Happy holidays and trails to everyone.

And for this reason I will now boycott these properties.

i duuno. Guess I'd rather be displaced than overwhelmed with all kinds of people and events. Think it is a bit tacky to erect plastic palms trees (with the fonds raised to the sky no less)where the real ones keep getting washed away. Seens the Secret Service is flying in too - so can you imagine the rest of the security set up for 600 people - not to mention the blight of white air conditioned tents! The private planes buzzing in and out of VG, ferrys have been rented, someone mentioned at least 60 containers! http://valleywag.com/tech/exclusive/...ing-330795.php

Yea, time to abandon ship

LilRickey: I wish I had the moral strength to boycott also. We love Caneel, so not sure whether we've got that kind of principled capacity-- I like to think so, but time will tell. Btw, I don't think boycotting will make one bit of difference unless one writes to and/or telephones Rosewood and makes very clear why one is avoiding it. If a person has been a visitor of those resorts in the past, and now chooses to avoid them, I suppose it'd be even more meaningful (though, again, only if letters are written to that effect). The whole thing really does rankle.

I find all of this very interesting. I've never stayed at either one and probably wouldn't stay at Little Dix anyway because there are other places on VG that I would prefer to stay. But in the future I would not stay away from Caneel based on this incident, should my travels ever take me to St. John.

With proper compensation (and it seems to me that the compensation to Little Dix guests was fair) I don't think I would be upset if I had to change my vacation plans beause a tremendously wealthy person needed to book the resort privately.

EJ: For us it'd not be a terrific problem. We're seasoned travelers, retired, have time to hunt around for alternatives, etc. I"m trying to put myself in the shoes, say, of a young married couple who'd had their heart set on Little Dix, who have a million and one other things to think/worry about in the weeks right before the wedding, who don't have the resources (experience) to decide where to go instead. It seems terribly unfair to me to boot such folks from their dream honeymoon. (And it's not as it is with overbooked airlines, e.g. where people can decide to give up seats voluntarily for whatever compensation-- and I've seen that compensation get higher and higher.) In fact, even barring such circumstances, I find it morally repugnant that people with big money can yield that kind of power; can cavelierly (at the last minute, at their whim) impinge on the plans of "regular" folk. Everyone understands when plans are ruined because of "natural" events-- hurricanes or whatever. This kind of thing is so very different-- and, imo, plain wrong. As I acknowledged, though, I'm not sure that I have the moral backbone, the genuine strength of character, actually to act on my conviction.

I think it's pretty strange that the co-founder of google, a company that posits that people are equal and is trying to be more democratic than say, Microsoft, would displace all of these people.

money does funny things.

The properties probably hoped that these high-rollers will become repeat business in years to come. My experience tells me, however, that many people with resources will not return... they will simply cross the property off of their wish list and travel to the next "it" resort.

The people with whom they could have built a solid, repeat, relationship have now been turned off and will go elsewhere.

rumors that there will be three presidents attending the Caribbean wedding of Google cofounder Larry Page and his bride-to-be, Lucy Southworth. The Times Online is reporting that Bill and Hillary Clinton are expected to attend, which leaves two presidents unaccounted for. The likeliest candidates: Dubya and his dad. Here's why.

The evidence: Lucy's sister Carrie Southworth, pictured, is an actress whose latest appearance was in an episode of CBS's Rules of Engagement. She is married to Coddy Johnson, the field director of George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign. Johnson is the son of Clay Johnson, Dubya's roommate at Yale.

Coddy Johnson is also the godson of George W. Bush, according to a classmate at Stanford's business school, where Johnson graduated this past spring, putting him on campus at the same time as Lucy, who recently passed the oral exam for her Ph.D. in bioinformatics.

Larry and Lucy are hosting a reported 600 guests on Necker Island. Surely the couple could make room for her sister's husband's godfather -- maybe even his dad. The presence of a sitting president would also explain the extraordinary security measures Page and Southworth are taking.