The Great Toilet Rapture of 2020; Or a few days away in Goa

It was January 2020 and I was so ready to return to the world of running water, electricity and toilet seats. Mainly toilet seats. Clean toilet seats would be ideal. We had been on holiday since Christmas Eve in Bangalore, India and as usual the hustle and bustle of being in a big city was wearing on our nerves. We needed to get out of the crowded congested city and chill on a secluded beach somewhere, maybe on the west coast of India?

We spent months and months, okay more like most of a year planning out our international Christmas plans for the 2019-2022 holiday season. Flying into Bangalore after forty-eight hours of worldwide travel would begin our holiday plans. Yes, after forty-eight hours of traveling from Los Angeles to London to Dubai, and finally landing in Bangalore, India on Christmas Eve you may say we were all a bit exhausted and feeling crazed. But even so, once upon a time when we left southern California on that chilly winters morning, I remember leaving behind a world full of toilet seats. I watched a fantastic movie on the plane during our around the world journey, Yesterday about a world where the Beatles did not exist. Well, something very odd happened on December 22st when we stepped on a plane bound for Bangalore. We flew out of California in a world full of clean restrooms and more specifically, toilet seats.  The first time I used a public, absolutely disgusting, I don’t think I can even call it a bathroom, toilet in India, I noticed something very odd. There was no toilet seat. But I’m a camper and I can make do. At least there was a toilet and not just a hole in the ground, which is saying something in the rural jungles of India.

A few weeks later, we checked into our seaside cottage style hotel in Goa and once again; No toilet seat. Then we spent ten days traveling in Italy. None of the restrooms once again had toilet seats. I’ve traveled to Indi before and to Venice in 2002 and I think I recall there being toilet seats. I began to think The Rapture has happened while we were on the plane from Los Angles. When I woke up, stepping off a crowded cumin smelling plane in Bangalore, all the toilet seats in the world had been raptured!

Soon toilet seats would be the least of our problems

I bet just about now you are asking yourself, can she really write a 2,000-word blog just about toilet seats being raptured? Well, no, I can not. But what i can do is tell you about our stay in Goa, India at a joke of a hotel in Morjim.

It was basically camping

But back to our adventures at a hotel that was basically camping for three days. When you check into a hotel that costs a hundred and thirty American dollars a night, even if that hotel is in a third world country, you don’t expect to have to clean the toilet yourself. This isn’t a hostel I’m talking about! I hate to sound like a spoiled traveler but I’m not twenty and sharing lodging with six of my closest friends. Traveling in your thirties is supposed to be a little more classy, a hell of a lot more fun and way more sanitary in my opinion. Cleaning some strangers piss off a toilet two minutes after check-in is none of these things. And yes, a hundred and thirty U.S. for a hotel in India is a lot of money. I would expect a clean bathroom.

Welcome to beachside Ciroc Hotel in Goa India. What it lacked in clean toilets with seats, it made up for with the herd of ridiculously friendly mongrel dogs we made friends with throughout our stay. It’s hard to be upset about where you are urinating when you also get to spend an afternoon beachside with a cocktail and playing with this pup. When planning an international vacation our family requires vacation pets to keep us truly happy. We also require beachside cocktails. Ciroc Resort did deliver on these two items.

Our beachside hotel was in an excellent location but just turned out to be a travel disaster. When we made the reservation we were told we had booked their brand new renovated cottages. Except the brand new cottages were not exactly done being renovated yet. Soon we would encounter no running water during our stay and when the water did work the hot water had not yet been connected. There was no electricity at times and also our room didn’t even have a mirror. And obviously there was no toilet seat either. I mean those were the biggest issues of about twenty different problems we faced during our stay. It was basically camping on a beautiful beach in Morjim, which was not crowded like hectic nearby Panjim and the beaches of Goa did have a nice laid back vibe. The empty sereneness of the beach is one good thing I can definitely say about our stay at Ciroc.

I realize we were staying at a hotel in India but we paid over a hundred a night for our stay in these “Shacks” It wasn’t a hostel, it wasn’t cheap. I would definitely expect to have running water and electricity during our stay. A mirror in our room is something one normally has in a hotel room and definitely having a toilet seat doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. But the times we spent swimming in the ocean and relaxing with our vacation puppy at the beachside cabanas were heavenly and just what I wanted out of my Goa vacation.

But then there was the shit-show that was Ciroc; I’ve never in my life stayed at such an ass backwards hotel. Preem, (The hotel manager, I think?) had no idea about hospitality, how to run a hotel and basically lied to our faces the entire stay. He said he would bring us hot water since there was none, he never did. He said he would fix the toilet, he never did. He said he would bring us a remote control for the air conditioner that barely worked and never did. One of our rooms ( We has three booked) had a terrible odor from a broken air conditioning unit and at least he managed to move that family to another room. All of a sudden all the toilet seats in the world being raptured was the least of our problems.

When we booked this hotel months ago it had great reviews. A month before our stay the reviews all of a sudden were terrible! We were very concerned and had someone in our party call the hotel talked to Jeet, the manager who told us we would have newly remodeled rooms when we checked in.

On our second day they moved us into a newer room ( the room with no hot water and no electricity) Preem told my brother in law he would also move them into a newer room (the old rooms are so dark, dank, musty, like caves and not well built, the doors do not open and close correctly) My BIL waited until 3 in the afternoon for the new room to be ready. It never was, what a waste of a day of our vacation.

Are you still looking at staying at the seaside Ciroc?

Well let me tell you more! The food on the menus was just so, so. I would suggest eating elsewhere. The continental breakfast was God awful. Whatever you do, don’t get the porridge. The honey chicken, a starter was actually pretty good and the best thing we ordered during our stay. We did enjoy having the restaurant and cabanas right there at our resort. The hotel staff even built bonfires for us in the evening. This part of the stay was fantastic. Basically any time we were not in our rooms, our stay was fantastic.

Oh also watch your belongings if you are ever thinking of staying at Ciroc. We had a thieve steal an iPhone from our table in the middle of dinner our third night here. Yes, that’s right, not only were the toilet seats raptured but now we were missing a brand new iPhone!

The beaches and the sunrises at Morjim were just fantastic. The ocean was so warm in January for swimming, like Hawaii warm. It almost made me forget I was living in a world where all the toilet seats had been raptured!