The dark secret of owning an island vacation Home
Poop, water, I want to go snorkeling, I heard a noise, electric, hurricanes, trash, the trash stinks, problematic guests, broken air conditioners, locked out guests, no hot water, no water at all, I need more towels, the pool pump is broken, my child doesn’t feel good, my bed’s too soft, my bed’s too hard, and more poop. You’ve got to be ready for all of this – because you know “what” happens.
Caribe Property Management is the exclusive provider of services in Caribeville. Over the last 10 years, they’ve seen it all, and they’ve dealt with it all. It takes scores of highly trained professionals to deal with these type of problems. These professionals must be supported by expensive and complicated physical infrastructure. We’ve been doing it for 10 years, we’ve already made the investments, we know what it takes.
We have one mantra, if we can’t trust it, we do it ourselves – we don’t trust many. It is hard work.
What you read below exists today. It is not a plan, these are not stock photos. These facilities have been painstakingly developed over the last decade to the benefit of Caribeville, Grand Caribe, and Sunset Caribe.
Water
In order to ensure ample supply and quality, we make our own water. Redundant onsite reverse osmosis water treatment plants process groundwater into potable water which is then stored into massive water storage tanks. As you might imagine, these water processing plants are expensive and complicated machinery. Our staff has over 10 years experience maintaining them in top condition so that when you turn the faucet, clean water emerges.
standby Electricity
All resorts within Caribeville, including the new Sunset Caribe, maintain standby power generation with automatic start and transfer. This means that during power outages here on the island you’ll experience nothing more than a few seconds of outage until the generators switch in. Sunset Caribe and Grand Caribe are sized for “full load”, meaning that you’ll be able to use your AC, electric hot water, etc. – even when the resort is full to capacity. This is an important distinction and not all plan and invest the money required to generate this much electricity. Once again, as you might imagine, the machinery is not only expensive, but also requires highly trained staff to monitor, perform preventative maintenence, and repair – The staff at Caribeville has decades of experience between them. We keep 2 days of diesel fuel for all generators onsite. Caribeville has a private barge dock that allows delivery of fuel from the mainland should 2 days be insufficient for a power outage event.
THE STINKY STUFF
As they say, what goes in must come out. Disposal of waste product on the island is not a fun nor glamorous task. Caribeville, the builder of Sunset Caribe, and the board of Grand Caribe feels it is important to deal with these issues in an effective and environmentally responsible manner. To that end, Caribeville has constructed their own fully redundant state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plants. If you’ve traveled the region before you’ve undoubtedly seen the signs at local establishments “Our plumbing is fragile, please do not flush paper”. Caribeville plumbing is not fragile, it is state of the art. The condos and Sunset Caribe and Grand Caribe have garbage disposals and dishwashers because we have planned for and implemented US quality wastewater treatment. As custodians of this prime section of Ambergris Caye known as Caribeville, we must also ensure that we responsibly handle the problem of trash that our resorts create. To that end we operate our own trash pick up teams, constantly making sure no trash stays stagnant within the resort. These are then consolidated to our trash truck for responsible disposal.
HOUSEKEEPING / Laundry
What is one of the most important component to a successful resort? Plenty of guests. What do guests create? Lots of laundry. Caribe property management has extensive experience in effective housekeeping strategies to to ensure rooms are turned over quickly, efficiently, and to the delight of our guests. In order to deal with the sheer volume of linens, pool towels, and guest laundry we have instituted a commercial laundry facility. The commercial laundry at Caribeville utilizes the latest in low energy commercial washers and dryers and environmentally responsible eco detergents.
Security Team
Security Shift Change
Radios, Patrol Vehicles, Camera Systems, all components of a good security system …. and all useless without the most important component – a highly trained and dedicated team of security professionals. Through their early efforts at Grand Caribe, Caribeville, and Sunset Caribe will enjoy the benefits of scores of security team patrolmen, mentors, and managers. After over 10 years experience, this team knows how to keep Caribeville safe. Teams placed both on the borders of Caribeville and as roaming patrols are in constant contact with each other through state of the art radio technology. Headquarters maintains constant video surveillance of the critical areas. Caribeville is a safe place for your family.
Maintenance TEAM
Carpenters, Plumbers, Certified Electricians, HVAC technicians – When we need these highly trained professionals, we don’t call a subcontractor. They are all on the payroll. What this means to you is that all maintenance issues are dealt with quickly, efficiently, and without impact to your hotel guests or revenue. Our maintenance crew can handle something as simple as a clogged drain all the way to replacing a complete central A/C system. We constantly invest in these critical team members training and equipment so that you don’t have to think about maintenance.
stores / spares depot
You’ve just read about the highly trained team of maintenence professionals we have on staff. The other component to a successful program is availability of goods. We are on an island in the middle of the ocean. Nothing gets here fast. To that end, we have established a spares program for critical backup items that need to remain onsite. We have spare air conditioning units, spare pumps, spare hot water heaters, spare electrical components. If it is critical to the resort operations, we have a spare in stock and waiting to go. This can be the difference between you losing weeks worth of vacation rental revenue and having a problem resolved quickly and without the loss of revenue.
Reservations
One of our jobs as the property management company is to maximize return for you the homeowner. While we utilize all forms of booking such as Expedia, travel agents, etc – we have a particular focus on maximizing direct bookings. Bookings that come through third parties such as a Hotel Chains, Expedia or Booking.com have an expense associated with them. These booking channels can cost you as much as 25 percent of your revenue. While we do accept reservations from these third parties, the resorts of Caribeville leverage our direct booking strategies developed over the last decade to ensure we get as many bookings as possible for your unit without the associated costs of third party booking agents. This means more money in your pocket. Our in house developed IT systems and tools carefully monitor yield and allow us to quickly react to changing rental markets. In addition, we are one of the only properties that allow the homeowner to rent their property both through the management company as well as owner managed bookings such as VRBO or Airbnb. These channels will help you increase occupancy and enjoy a larger percentage of the profits from your unit.
HURRICANE PREPAIRDNESS
Ambergris Caye is an area which is susceptible to hurricanes. There we said it. Nothing to be afraid of as long as you know how to be prepared. Over the last decade we’ve learned a lot. While others are busily nailing up plywood over their windows, we take comfort in knowing that all of our glass is Miami Dade rated for 150 mph impacts. This adds significant costs to building expense, we think it’s worth it. During an approaching hurricane our resorts are sold out. Why? Because the resorts of Caribeville are generally considered the safest place to be during a hurricane. While the concrete buildings, roof and hurricane rated glass keep the buildings secure, what about the grounds? Storm surge can be devastating to the landscaping. The smart guys at Caribeville came up with storm surge barriers for the beach. We built them. Out of concrete. Each weighs over 3 tons and there are many of them. How do we get them in place? Read about heavy equipment below.
Heavy Equipment
The Skytrack and Backhoe are not here “as needed” and are not rentals. We own them. They live in Caribeville 24/7. What do you think the chances are of renting one of these during an approaching hurricane? Slim to none. That’s why we have them here all the time. The Skytrack makes short work out of deploying our storm surge barrier. During our last hurricane preparedness drill (yes, we run drills) we were able to deploy the barrier in 2-3 hours. Should there be an extended power outage, diesel fuel is delivered in 500 gallon tanks from the mainland via barge. The Skytrack quickly gets the diesel from the dock to the generator houses so the flow of electricity never stops. Problems with an underground utility? No problem, our experienced operators can reveal the underground infrastructure so that our maintenence team can make quick repairs.