The last few days of January each year are traditionally spent with Virtoso to kick off the year ahead. As the location for this year’s event was the newly reopened historic Pier 66 Resort in Fort Lauderdale, it only made sense to extend our stay over the weekend with a short Friday to Monday cruise aboard Celebrity Silhouette.
Our illustrious Direct Travel gang consists of two regional directors Nicole Goodheart and Michelle Ferris, office manager Tom Mullen (accompanied by his wife Mary) and Jared Hanel (director cruise operations) as well as Linda Walker without whom our organization would stop functioning. Much fun was had aboard from sail away to ABBA sing-along and anything in between.
Key West offered us a chance to reconnect with the southernmost point of the US while our stop in the Bahamas offered the opportunity to tour the Ocean Club – a Four Seasons property. Four of us made the trek over the bridge to the resort where countless celebrities have hidden from paparazzi over the years.
The Ocean Club featured prominently in the 2006 remake of the James Bond’s Casino Royale, in which 007 (Daniel Craig) swims on the beach, plays a masterful game of poker in the bar, and spends a romantic night in a villa residence.
Acquired by A&P supermarket heir Huntington Hartford II in 1959 with a vision to create an international resort destination, he renamed Hog island, as it was called at the time into Paradise Island.
Hartford hired Palm Beach architect John Volk to design the original Ocean Club, a luxurious 52-room hotel, along with an 18-hole golf course. (The original rooms are now known as the Hartford Wing.) The opening party in 1962 featured such guests as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Benny Goodman, William Randolph Hearst, Burl Ives, and a host of international dignitaries. Fireworks for the event were flown in from the South of France. Those were the days!
PS: I see a future White Lotus season taking place here with intriguing historical links to former stars and their entourage.
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