[Glenn]

Hi Randi,

My dear fellow Canadian; I was glad to hear you had a great vacation. Loved your trip report. As I've said many times before, it's the little personal things, both good and bad, that separate our trip reports from information you could find on the tourist office web-site.

People reserving huts, chaisse lounges etc, whether on the beach or at poolside, by putting their towels on them, then disappearing for 4 or 5 hours for lunch or shopping expeditions are just plain selfish. I think it's a problem at most resorts. It certainly is at The Mill. Thanks for bringing it up.

GIANNI'S. This place seems to have been a major disappointment, at least for those of us who take the time to write about it. Like you said Randi, the food is good. As I said in my trip report, It's not the over-the-top decadence of SOLE MARE but it is good Italian food.

It is the sound and service which continue to be the Achilles heel of GIANNI'S.
The service, when we were there this past January was, to be charitible, disjointed. There might be 3, 4 or more staff attending to your table, but no one seems to know what their job is. That's why, within 2 or 3 minutes of each other, 3 or 4 people show up to fill up water glasses that are already full to the brim, then you're almost ignored for the rest of the evening. If you eat inside , as we did, you'll also see anywhere froom 4-6 wait staff just kind of hanging around the kitchen area.

Again, contrast this with SOLE MARE. At SM, you'll have perhaps 3 or 4 different staff members, attending to your table, but each person knows what their job is, so they don't get in each other's way. Also, the wait staff are very knowledgeable about the menu, both the evening's specials and how various menu items are prepared. At GIANNI'S, asking the person who takes your order about any given pasta preparation is likely to be met with silence and a blank stare.

And to repeat the matter about sound. We normally sit inside. At SM, the low ceiling and soft surfaces such as carpets, table cloths, chair upholstery and cloth napkins all muffle sounds in the restaurant and add to the general elegance of the place. By contrast, GIANNI'S two-storey ceiling, tile-on-cement floor, and bare wooden tables and chairs, turn the inside of the restaurant into a large echo-chamber. All sounds, a dropped spoon, someone stirring their coffee, or even what's supposed to be a quiet conversation, are heard by everybody, everywhere. As I said ealier, it's Italian cuisine with the ambiance of Air Canada's maintenance hangar.

Lat thing Randi, whereabouts in Canada do you live? It's a horrible, gray, drizzly kind of day. Like Vancouver, but without the mountains!!

Have a good one!


Glenn