Many of the 475 political allies, celebrities and other guests invited to Barack Obama’s 60th birthday bash may be stuck with huge hotel bills, after being told at the 11th hour to not come to Martha’s Vineyard because the former president drastically scaled back his festivities.
The New York Times reported that a number of guests already were in transit to Martha’s Vineyard to attend the party at Obama’s island estate when they were told not to come, while TMZ said that a number of hotels have strict cancellation policies. That means that the hotels won’t be issuing refunds to any party guests who had rooms booked for the weekend, TMZ found.
Even a cancellation due to a recent surge in the delta variant of COVID-19 isn’t justification for hotels to refund guests’ money or to spare them huge administration fees, reported TMZ, after contacting Martha’s Vineyard hotels about their policies.
Perhaps losing out on the $800 to $1,200 per night charged at some hotels is no big deal for major Democratic donors or for expected celebrity guests Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey or George and Amal Clooney. But that amount might put a serious dent in the vacation budgets for less well-heeled former Obama administration staffers.
At the Winnetu Oceanside Resort, guests must pay in full upon booking. People reserving rooms between between June 25 and Labor Day can get all their money back only if they canceled before Feb. 1. The hotel says that “late cancellations have a significant impact on us due to our island location and seasonal nature.”
TMZ found that the luxury Hob Knob hotel and spa, which charges $800 per night, will credit guests a future stay, while another, the Harbor View Hotel (around $1,300 per night), won’t charge cancellation fees — but only if guests cancel within 72 hours.
The problem for Obama’s party guests is that many were expected to arrive Thursday, but only got word Wednesday that the former president and his wife decided to scale back his party to just family and close friends, TMZ said.
The potential mess surrounding guests’ hotel bills adds to the PR. muddle created by Barack and Michelle Obama’s party plans. Once news of the party began circulating this past week, the couple’s GOP critics gleefully accused them and their Democratic allies of hypocrisy for participating in what they said would be “a superspreader event” as the pandemic was raging anew across the country, a Los Angeles Times editorial said. Up to 700 people, including 200 locals staffing the event, would be descending on the Obamas’ estate.
The former president’s defenders insisted that the event was expected to be outdoors, and guests and staff were required to be vaccinated and tested, in accordance with local and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols. In addition, the estate spreads across 29 acres, which means attendees “would hardly be packed in,” the Los Angeles Times added.
Planning for the party had been in the works for months, as vaccination rates climbed, infection and hospitalization rates fell and COVID restrictions were being lifted across the country, reports said. But then vaccination rates hit a plateau, the delta variant broke out across the country, including on nearby Cape Cod, and the CDC recently warned that vaccinated people can transmit the disease.
Over the past week, even Obama’s defenders became concerned that his plans displayed “a casual disregard” for the “optics” of hosting such a grand event, the New York Times said.
“It’s one thing for President Trump to hold rallies with thousands of people and no evident precautions against infection — that’s normal behavior for a guy who downplayed the virus and lambasted state and local efforts to slow the spread of COVID,” the Los Angeles Times editorial said. “For the Obamas to do something that we all were told not to do for months on end, however — that smacked of hypocrisy, regardless of the steps taken to guard against transmission.”
But now it appears that the optics have caught up with the Obamas, or their defenders say they should be credited with reacting appropriately when the public health situation changed.
“They’ve been concerned about the virus from the beginning, asking invited guests if they had been vaccinated, requesting that they get a test proximate to the event,” said David Axelrod, a former top Obama adviser. “But when this was planned, the situation was quite different. So they responded to the changing circumstances.”
With those changed circumstances, maybe some of the guests suddenly uninvited to the party can still use their Martha’s Vineyard hotel rooms to enjoy a long weekend in the famous vacation spot. The Obama’s event has been limited to family members and close friends.
Unfortunately, TMZ reported that the sudden cancellation could have repercussions for other local hospitality businesses and workers. Other businesses had been left short-staffed due to the party, while up to 200 workers may be out of a catering gig for the night.
