Morning Ross,

May I thank you for the excellent organization and support you provided to us. The Borgata Lodge was quite superb and the courses challenging. All in all - a great holiday. We did try to call you directly to say 'thanks' but could not get through. Ah well, back to work.

Hi Ross,

I greatly appreciate all the assistance in setting up our 35th "Okanagan Master's". Four rounds, three nights of a golf extravaganza for our 28 guys from Nanaimo! As usual, we had a blast! We stayed one night at Quaaout Lodge, played Talking Rock twice before moving on to Kamloops, staying at the Ramada Inn and golfing at Sun Rivers then The Dunes. (Would have liked to play Rivershore but it was not available). Here's our input:

Quaaout Lodge is an outstanding facility with great rooms, great hot tub, pool and steam room. Fantastic views. The staff were friendly and helpful but the food and beverage service was "wanting". The F & B staff were not overly busy but they seemed disorganized and untrained. It took (and I'm not kidding) one and one half hours for three of us to get our dinner meal on Sunday June 5th. Also, several of our participants commented that they objected in principal to paying 12% HST, 7% B C Liquor Tax AND 5% First Nations Tax! Some of our group participated in the Sunday Brunch, which received high marks, and all 28 had dinner, breakfast and lunch after golf before departing. The quality of the "from the menu" meals was good.
At Talking Rock we found the staff friendly, welcoming and very accommodating. Our guys rated the course as excellent and very suitable for our diverse handicap group (8 - 28). Very good practice facilities with driving range having grass tees. The greens were slower than they looked! Many said they would enjoy playing all four rounds at Talking Rock and stay at the Lodge if the F & B dept. could get their act together.
At the Ramada Inn in Kamloops we found the staff friendly and accommodating and the rooms adequate for our needs. June 6th.,26 out of 28 watched game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals in the 3rd floor lounge, had dinner and enjoyed a few cold ones. The lounge staff was fantastic and the food good. Tuesday, June 7th was our wind up hosted banquet which was held in the same lounge. We had arranged to have a NY Steak Bar-Be-Que. Steaks were cooked to order then salad, vegetables and fixings, along with apple pies and whipped cream were set up buffet style. It was extremely well handled and our guys raved about the meal. Once again the two lounge servers were outstanding and the young gal who cooked the steaks did an outstanding job.
Breakfasts were buffet style in the 2nd floor restaurant. Great for golfers in a hurry.... handled well and we very much appreciated the kitchen and serving staff opening at 6:30 a m (instead of the usual 7:00 a m) enabling us to meet our 8:00 a m tee time at the Dunes. Food was tasty and plentiful. The Ramada is an older style hotel/motel but has been up-dated and generally suited our needs well. Very good large hot tub!
The Pro Shop, starter and restaurant staff at Sun Rivers were friendly and most accommodating. Good practice facilities. Some of our high handicapers found the course harder than most and struggled with the many "blind" shots. Lower handicapers generally enjoyed the challenge. Likely would select a different course next time.
The Pro at the Dunes requested that the event organizer sign the "waiver" for all power carts which was politely refused....instead each power cart driver signed the waiver accepting responsibility for bodily injury or property damage and we were on our way. Staff and owner Bill Bilton Jr were very friendly and most accommodating. Great new Clubhouse. The golf course was enjoyed by all even though some greens had been heavily fertilized that morning and a few greens were damaged. Seven foursomes....and the round took from three and a half hours for the first group to just under four hours for the last group. The course is very playable and suited our guys very well. We shall return! FYI our rough calculations indicate that our group spent between $38,000. and $40,000. for the entire 6 days most of us were on the road.
Thanks again Ross. Cheers!
Dave