Working at Thavorn Resorts

Just yesterday I arrived back in Phuket town, so back in the marketing office. Shortly there is only to say, that six weeks training in the properties “Thavorn Beach Village” and “Thavorn Palm Beach” were over too fast.
But surely I will let you be a part of all these 6 weeks! First I was training at “Thavorn Beach Village” at Nakalay Bay, close to Patong, the party center of Phuket, but concerning this, I will tell you later on some details.

So after arriving at “Thavorn Beach Village” the nice front office staff there let us check-in to one of the amazing “Ocean View Villas”, which are situated up the hill, so we had to take one of the cable cars to reach our room ! At the room we all (3 girls) thought, ooooook exactly like this must be the paradise. We had 2 huge beds and one not so huge extra bed, gut still a very comfortable one, really a spacious bathroom with separated bath tub, shower and toilet, it was simply one of the most beautiful bathrooms with all the beautiful stones on the floor and on the wall, the wood and the large space! And I even didn’t tell you the best, on our balcony with an astonishing sea view, we had our own private Jacuzzi! Simply beyond words!!!

But rest assured that we were not only relaxing the whole day in this wonderful villa or at the separate beach, we were also working in a lot of different departments. For my case my first department was the kitchen. First I had the possibility to learn in the bakery how to bake donuts, muffins, pan burger and also pastries filled with vanilla cream. On the afternoon I was assisting the people in the cold kitchen with cutting a lot of fruits and trying to carve roses out of carrots. So my first big job there was to prepare a big bowl of fruit salad. Then we were arranging the fruit plates with different kinds of fruits for special room service. Before finishing this day finally I had the possibility to watch how to prepare handmade Japanese Sushi.

On the following day I was in the morning at the Thai kitchen mainly for cutting vegetables and also for watching the staff how to perform during the little stressful morning hours of the breakfast time. After closing the breakfast I was cleaning up the breakfast area of Marisa Restaurant and then the Thai cooks showed me how to cook a Thai spicy soup. After the lunch break I was at the “Old Siam” restaurant for preparing some Chinese antipasti and for learning again how to carve the fruits in a beautiful way, not that I could do it!

Then my time at the housekeeping department started. During the 4 hours of my morning shift I had to clean 7 “Ocean View Villas” of the 4th floor. There I realisised how hard the people of this department are working. In every room I was first sweeping the floor, then the balcony, after that we had to make the beds, which was also first of all not easy and secondly a very power-extracting work. After this hard job it was time to clean the bathroom, certainly including the toilet. After this I had to clean the whole area of wood in the main room including all surfaces, like tables, cupboards and drawers of dust and of other dirt. Then I had to sweep the floor again with the mop and then finally with the broom.

At the end we had to put all the curtains in the right order and check all the lights and the TV stations. At this day I finally had to do this procedure all in all 9 times before I could get finally the important rest in our private Jacuzzi after such a exhausting day.

On Thursday I was responsible for cleaning 15 bungalows with the same procedure like in the Villa, only the bed is a little smaller and the bathroom is also not so spacious and without any shower. During the afternoon I was leaving the beautiful and idyllic situated “Garden View Bungalow” and “Sea View Bungalows” in order to go to the laundry. There I had to sort out the sheets from the pillow covers and the towels. After that I had to insert the covers for the pillow inside the huge steam roller followed by all the sheets.

On the following Friday and Saturday I had the late shifts at the housekeeping department starting at 3 o’clock. My first task was to sweep the floor in front of the “Marisa” restaurant. Then I had to do the turn down service in 6 “Pool Side Villas”. This service consisted of putting flowers again at the rooms, opening the beds at one side and putting sweet desert on the room, sometimes also changing of the towels. After this I had to clean 3 more “Pool Terrace Villas” and one “Pool Access Villas”. During the rest of my shift I had small extra tasks, like putting an extra bed in one Villa, bringing adaptors to guests, delivering the laundry and changing one light bulb.

On Saturday I was cleaning the public area of the “Old Siam” restaurant. First I had to sweep the floor, then we started to wash all the glasses of the lights and after that I was sweeping the floor again. After this I had to do again the turn down service but today only in 5 rooms. Finally after preparing all the bags for the room mates for the following day I finished my work at this department.

On Monday and Tuesday my new department was the reservation office. First they tried to make me familiar with the new booking system there (FROMAS). After learning how to search bookings I learned how to make new bookings, change rates and comparable challenges. My next task was to check the bookings for all the arrivals for the following day. After preparing the today activity report, and putting all the new bookings from these two days inside this booking system I also finished working in this department.

Finally my last department at “Thavorn Beach Village” was the Front Desk. In my opinion this department is simply the best, as I love everything which is connected to guest relation and all the handling of special guest requests. For example few guests wish to change the room, in order to get an upgrade, organizing the transportation to Patong or somewhere else for the guests, or also solving problems, like handling a not arriving tour pick up service. For me assisting guests with explicit questions is just always a pleasure. I also had to escort guests to the room, or assist the front office staff during the check-in and check-out mainly with preparing and filling out all the necessary papers for the guests. Furthermore I was also responsible for handling walk in guests and show them around in the hotel as well as explain them what facilities they can use and give them an overview of the resort and all the existing environment.

But now like promised also to the nightlife part at Patong! If you should come once to this wonderful island Phuket, you really need to spend at least 1 night out in Patong, as here on the island there is no other comparable place. Nowhere the nightlife is as crazy, varied and colorful as there. You can find there everything what could came in your mind, starting with small bars, to really nice restaurants, a lot of street vendors with food, cloths, CDs and DVDs, to huge discos with 2 floors and billiard cafes. Simply everything is possible there! I definitely will remember all those unforgettable nights in Patong for a really long time!

As this 3 weeks full of work and also a little of leisure time passed by soooo fast, it was now time to change again the property of the “Thavorn Group” to arrive at “Thavorn Palm Beach”. The first nice surprise when I arrived there at the wonderful Karon Beach, was that we arrived at the same time there as the “Phuket Music Festival” with a great choice of different local musicians as well as international ones. Of course I was there, what do you think? It was really simply amazing, such a lot of mixed people, from Thai, to Chinese, American, Russian, Columbian, German and Austrians (my friend Fabienne and me, I do not think that there were more), but definitely everybody was there dancing and enjoying the nice music! The best thing about this festival was that it was located directly at the beach, so everybody was dancing while having the wonderful white Sand under the feet. Unfortunately around 4 o’clock the party was over.

The training at “Thavorn Palm Beach” was slightly different from the training at “Thavorn Beach Village” as at “Thavorn Palm Beach” the training was more focused on the management basis of hotel work, so our main tasks changed from really working with the staff there to observe how they are working and how it could be possible to improve this work.

But back to “Thavorn Palm Beach” my training continued at the Front Desk for 6 days. The main tasks there were similar to the Front Desk at “Thavorn Beach Village”. So I was again handling special guest requests and also complaints. One big and important task was there to handle a lot of check-ins including preparing all the papers for the guests, escorting them to their rooms and showing them around in the resort.
After this department I was again in the reservation office, seeing how the other system works at this property and how to take care about all the reservations and special wishes of guests.

After all these experiences it was again time for the next department: housekeeping was exactly what was expecting me. At my first day here I was in the office handling all the incoming calls and getting familiar with the system and style of cleaning at “Thavorn Palm Beach”, which is slightly different from the system of “Thavorn Beach Village”, as the whole room structure is totally different.

Another part of my work during the first day was to fill out the new order form and to bring it to the pertaining department. On the second and the third day I was again cleaning the rooms. First I started with the “Standard Rooms” and then I continued with the “Deluxe Rooms”. It was again simply the most exhausting time at the hotel and really hard work from the beginning of cleaning until the end.

The next department was the kitchen. At this place it was again time to cut a lot of fruits for the fruit salad as well as a lot of herbs and vegetables. Furthermore I was there again watching and trying to carve vegetables in a beautiful way, which is not my main talent, there is now no doubt any more. Preparing a lot of decoration for the plates, which were presented at the following breakfast, roasting bacon and cooking small sausages were also part of what I did during my time in the kitchen.

My last department was the food and beverage department. There I observed how to organize the whole restaurant for the breakfast and how to make sure that there is always enough food available. Then after finishing the breakfast time it was time to remove everything connected with the breakfast and arrange the whole restaurant for the coming lunch time. So we were putting new table linen on, as well as all the necessary cutlery, glasses, plates and napkins. The only thing which was now missing for a perfect lunch were the guests, which arrived after a short period.

At the same time I could observe how to handle a big event with more than 150 people in house, as there was a big congress of justice people at the conference rooms. So I also learned how to set up the tables and how to arrange the buffets for a group with such a size.

All in all, I can only say, during this 6 weeks I had a very nice time with a lot of new things to experience and I am very glad that I have worked with this great team! Thank you again!