Staffers at San Domenico Palace — the Four Seasons hotel featured in “The White Lotus” — have been working at the posh Sicilian resort throughout Europe’s triple-digit heat wave — and one worker reportedly passed out on the job.
A worker sweeping the San Domenico Palace’s palazzo patio told The Times: “A cook fainted the other day. He went completely pale and had to be taken home.”
A gardener added that landscapers tend to the property’s citrus gardens from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily without breaks.
“The automatic watering system isn’t working so we have to water them manually,” the gardener added, pointing to a useless tube on the floor.
“These are not normal temperatures,” he said with a pained laugh, The Times reported.
“Not for plants and not for workers,” the staffer added, noting that some greenery is noticeably drooping in the heat, which has soared to record-breaking temperatures across Europe this summer.
A spokeswoman for the San Domenico Palace assured The Post that “the hotel is thoroughly air conditioned.” She declined to comment further.
A waitress told the outlet that water bottles are in shorter supply these days as requests from guests have tripled, and the fruit selection has also been suffering.
“We change the fruit at the breakfast buffet five times every morning that way it remains fresh,” the waitress added, noting that “sometimes we don’t have enough strawberries and blueberries to go round.”
The server noted that there was “a big problem with a banana” last week, suggesting that a hotel guest was quite unhappy when they realized the heat wave meant the hotel wouldn’t be able to provide a banana at breakfast each morning.
When another guest also asked for a banana on a different morning, it was served sliced on a plate and garnished with petals, The Times reported.
A couple who served as a witness recalls the gust seeming “traumatized” at the presentation.
The couple — Tyler Peters, 36, and Olivia Austin, 34, from California, who were staying at the hotel to attend a friend’s wedding at a venue nearby — said they were spending their stay moving from the blistering outdoors to the air-conditioned hotel.
It’s “like moving from an oven to a refrigerator,” Peters told The Times.
When Peters and Austin went to the wedding, they noted that the church wasn’t air conditioned.
“The priest fainted at the end of the wedding ceremony and a family member had to deliver the blessings,” Peters told the outlet.
He continued: “We were in a church with zero air conditioning. An uncle who was also a doctor missed the initial cocktails at the after-party. He stayed with the priest because he was worried he’d have a heart attack. These churches get hot: so many robes.”
Though the 104-degree heat that plagued Sicily led to cases of heat-related illness, unlike the famed HBO series starring Jennifer Coolidge, there were thankfully no casualties.
Meanwhile, guests are also reportedly struggling to get to the hotel since a faulty air conditioning unit at the local Catania Airport forced it to partially close.
Travelers who would normally get to the San Domenico via Catania, which is only 35 miles away from the property, now have to reroute through the Reggio Calabria or Palermo airports, which are hundreds of miles away from the hotel.
A receptionist told The Times that some of the hotel’s wealthy clientele have opted to “arrive by boat or by helicopter” instead.
“There’s a launchpad nearby,” the concierge added, whose job sometimes includes helping guests book private jets.
The San Domenico is no stranger to dealing with wealthy customers — including the likes of Melbourne socialite Sarah Lew and her husband, restaurateur Chris Lucas, who have been honeymooning in Taormina and staying at the hotel since they tied the knot in Venice last month.
Lew told The Times that the newlyweds have been sticking around the hotel grounds due to the heat, and she’s been entertaining herself by people watching.
“When you spend a few days here you get to know everyone’s story and who’s married to whom,” she told the outlet. “You think you’ve got everyone’s storyline and then somebody else comes into the picture.”
Lucas chimed in, referencing “The White Lotus:” “All you need now is for somebody to be murdered.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
