By now, you've probably seen the headlines. The Wall Street Journal ran a story about a corporate retreat we planned for Plex back in 2017, a Survivor-themed week in Honduras for 120 remote employees from 17 countries. The internet had a field day with it. The words 'disaster,' 'nightmare,' and 'calamity' got thrown around a lot.
Okay, that last one I actually said myself, to the WSJ reporter (Ellen Gammerman). And I meant it, but as a badge of honor. Despite all the things we had to overcome, the trip was one of our most memorable ever.
Here's what the clickbait headlines missed:
- The CEO and team members of Plex called it a "home run", and still talk about this today.
- The post-program survey was full of glowing feedback, even from those who went through the Navy SEAL Training (seriously).
- We were recognized by our industry’s top award for the trip, for how we handled things, and overcame all the adversity we faced during the retreat.
- Plex came back to us the following year. And the year after that. And the year after that, and 10 years later, we’re still working with Plex on an annual basis. And the majority of those folks from Honduras are still around.
- And what about the CEO, Keith, and CPO, Scott? We've been friends for nearly a decade (they even attended my wedding!)
PlexCon Honduras is one of the corporate retreat case studies we’re most proud of in nearly 15 years of corporate retreat planning. It highlights all the challenges people in our line of work have to face behind the scenes, and the value we bring to the table when our clients hire us to plan their retreats.
So let’s set the record straight. Here’s what actually happened:
TL;DR Details
- Client: Plex (an online media streaming platform)
- Location: Honduras (Indura Resort, a Hilton Curio Collection Hotel & Utila)
- Attendees: 120 employees from 17 countries
- Format: Survivor-themed team building retreat
- Duration: 5 Nights
- Outcome: Award-winning incentive travel program and long-term partnership
Why Honduras Was the Right Destination Choice for This Retreat
Honduras is not what comes to mind when most people think 'corporate retreat destination.' That was exactly the point.
Plex came to us with three very specific criteria for their 2017 retreat. They wanted a tropical beach destination where "you couldn't see another building or soul in either direction". They needed a central location geographically to accommodate a team traveling from Asia, North America, South America, and Europe. And they needed a property with roughly the exact amount of rooms that they would need, so they could have a ‘buyout’, or exclusive use of the property, without paying for empty rooms in an oversized resort. Oh, and Keith, their CEO, made it clear he was looking for a place that would lend itself naturally to hosting a “Survivor” themed week, which if you’ve ever seen the series, tend to be set in remote, idyllic tropical settings surrounded by rugged untamed nature.
After systematically evaluating beach destinations around the globe (the Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, Mexico, Hawaii, the Caribbean) we landed on Indura Beach and Golf Resort on Honduras's north coast. It's worth pointing out that this wasn't some rickety beach-bodega... it was a 5-star Hilton Curio Collection property set on 26 miles of pristine, completely private beach inside a national park. Hilton doesn't just put their name on any property, and especially their Curio Colleciton, whose properties offer tailored, locally inspired experiences and distinctive design.
To dispel one of the biggest myths going around the internet, we actually did fly down to check it out ahead of booking anything. Twice actually. We spent 3 nights in February 2017 (the retreat took place in October) to scout out the property, meet with the staff and team, visit some of the locations we were considering, and talk with some of the vendors we were planning to hire.
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I also went back down with our Moniker team a second time to make sure they were familiar with everything, and also had first-hand experience of the property, and relationships with the vendors we would be working with over the coming months to plan it.
Was Honduras an unconventional choice? Yes. That was the whole idea.
The best retreats don't happen in generic hotels, or where your team would stay for a conventional holiday. They happen somewhere that makes people feel like they've been taken somewhere genuinely different, and unique. Honduras delivered that in spades.
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Building a Custom Survivor-Themed Team Building Experience
Our client Keith Valory, Plex's CEO, is a huge Survivor fan. Actually, ‘huge’ is an understatement - he claims to have watched every single episode of Survivor ever produced. He came to us with a vision: a full week built around the show's format, with tribes, challenges, immunity idols, and a final tiki-torch illuminated showdown. He wanted his team to compete, bond, and feel like they'd actually been on the island; or as he eloquently put it:
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Most agencies would have handed that brief to a third-party facilitator. But our team was thrilled at the opportunity to come up with something truly unique, from scratch, and fulfill Keith’s vision.
So we did what we always do. We built it ourselves.
350+ hours of internal creative work. Custom laser-cut wooden immunity idols. blacklight UV ink puzzles, scratch-built ciphers, escape room-style challenges spread across the entire resort grounds. A full week of programming built from scratch. We even got custom Survivor "buffs" (bandanas) and matching flags. We went all out.
Our team watched dozens of hours of Survivor footage. We created custom tribes named after fauna native to the Honduran rainforest. Each tribe received a backpack at the start of the week filled with tools, documents, puzzles, magnifying glasses, compasses, and a few deliberate red herrings to use across the week's challenges.
Daily puzzles were introduced at breakfast. UV markers and black lights revealed hidden clues. Word problems, ciphers, and physical challenges were designed specifically to play to different strengths, making sure the introverted engineers on the team had just as much opportunity to shine as the extroverted sales and marketing teams.
The final challenge happened on the island of Utila…a fire-making competition on the beach, with the entire company watching. It was the kind of moment you simply can't book off the shelf.
The Survivor program was cited as one of the top highlights of the week across every post-event survey.. And we didn't bill a single extra dollar for the creative development or time that went into all the planning and execution of the challenges. That's just how we work.
What Went Sideways (And How We Managed It)
Now for the part everyone wants to know about.
Yes, things happened on this corporate retreat that were not on the run-of-show. That’s the reality of corporate retreat planning (or any travel, for that matter) at this scale, especially in remote destinations with 120 people from 17 countries.
Here’s what actually happened.
The CEO and the Salad
The planning team (comprised of our team of 4 from Moniker and the CEO & CPO from Plex), arrived 2 days early to prepare ahead of the group’s arrival. We revisited all the spots we had set to include in the agenda for the third time , including the island of Utila off the coast of the mainland, where we were hosting the final main event. Our hosts graciously brought us to a local gem to treat us to lunch. We specifically told Keith to avoid anything that might be contaminated with unfiltered water, like our hotel used. Keith asked about a salad. We told Keith no. "Come on, just one little salad?". No. We all had fresh crab, fried fish, and hushpuppies. Keith decided he wanted to go for a walk to ‘work off the heavy meal’. He ate a salad. He got E.coli. He spent the first 2 days of the trip on an IV in his room. This was not something any retreat planner on earth could have prevented (believe me, we tried). Keith himself laughs about it now. His co-founder, Scott Olechowski stepped into the role of Jeff Probst flawlessly, and ran the opening ceremony. The show went on.
The Hotel Management Situation
Weeks before the trip, we received emails from the hotel informing us that both their General Manager and Head Chef would be departing ahead of our arrival. Not ideal 🤦.
We flagged this immediately to Plex and put additional contingencies in place. We increased our on-the-ground team presence and worked directly with the new staff to ensure service standards held throughout the week. I personally ran the morning standup with the hotel staff. My colleagues spent time in the kitchen, working with the replacement chef (plucked 1 week out of culinary school) to help him prepare meals for our group of 120.
Were there moments of friction? Yes. Did people have an incredible time regardless? Also yes. And Keith got his salad.
The Food Challenge
One of the most talked-about moments of the week was a food challenge inspired by Survivor’s eating competitions, or ‘Fear Factor’ if you’re more familiar with that series.
The format was intentional: dishes started approachable and got progressively more adventurous as the challenge went on. Teams had to decide who among them would step up for each round. The dish was presented with the lid on, and then revealed. The nominee could decide if they would ‘pass’, or eat it. In the various rounds, we served gummy worms, flan, a cupcake, and of course the infamous dried tarantula.
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What most headlines missed is that (A) the tarantulas were ordered from an FDA ‘approved for human consumption’ store. And (B), they are actually considered a delicacy in parts of Central America (and Southeast Asia). They are eaten by choice, celebrated as a local food, and not remotely the shock-horror item the internet made them out to be. We leaned into the destination and its culture.
When Shawn Eldridge, Plex's Head of Business Development, lifted the cover off his plate, he did not hesitate.
His review: 'Pretty horrible, not going to lie. Those hairs.'
Was it comfortable? No.
Was it safe, culturally grounded, and entirely in the spirit of the theme the client asked us to build? Absolutely.
Ten years later, people still bring it up. That is exactly what a great team-building moment is supposed to do. Shawn is a legend.
The Customs and Logistics Battle
Honduras has a notoriously difficult customs clearing process. Several of our shipments, materials for the Survivor challenges, including our custom-printed immunity idols…got stuck. We tried everything to free them from customs. Eventually one of our team members just drove to the airport, paid some bills in cash, and trekked everything back to our resort. Problem solved.
Accessibility Planning for All Attendees
One of our attendees used a wheelchair. Honduras is not a particularly accessible country. We sourced and shipped Mobi-Mats, specialized beach wheelchair mats, directly to the resort, and planned every single event around ensuring full participation. Nobody sat on the sidelines. We made sure he was able to be a full participant in everything we planned.
Getting to Utila
Plex wanted their group to see and experience more of Honduras, beyond just the resort. We identified Utila, a small island 60km off the coast, and one of the world's best scuba diving destinations in the world (and a genuinely magical place). The problem: there were no commercial air or sea connections between Tela and Utila that fit our dates and scale of operations.
We connected directly with the Mayor of Utila, and committed to a social responsibility project to demonstrate our goodwill intentions for bringing the group to his island. We rebuilt a local baseball diamond which had fallen into disrepair after a recent tropical storm, provided funding, materials, and even played a game against the local team when we arrived (Keith threw out the first ceremonial pitch). The mayor worked with us to navigate the proper channels to arrange five aircraft from one of the main carriers in Honduras, Lanhsa Airlines, navigating a very complex bureaucratic and approval process to make it happen, and get us to his island. It was a genuine partnership with the local community, built on value exchange. And it was an incredibly memorable day…and night;
The Overnight on the Island
The runway at Utila is a small airstrip and has no lighting. We were well aware of this ahead of time, and heading into the day. All planes needed to depart before twilight - which isn’t unusual for small islands. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, two aircraft didn't make it out in time, which left a small group of 6 attendees and 2 from Moniker on the island overnight. Realizing we weren’t going to make the last flight out in time, we made the most of it. We hopped into some golf carts, rode into town, and booked 8 rooms at a beachfront B&B. It was awesome.
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Matching shirts. Local divebars. Live Reggae music. Conversations between colleagues who had never connected before. We had a great night in Utila, were on the first flight out at sunrise, and walked into Indura by 8:00am, to cheers and applause from the rest of the group. It became one of the most memorable parts of the trip. Scott Olechowski said later there were probably hundreds of inside jokes that came from that trip. The overnight stay on Utila was one of them.
The Porcupine Incident
Okay, this was the cherry on the cupcake for the week. One of the guests (Rick) heard a ‘bang’ early in the morning, and awoke to find a new furry little friend in his (fully glass enclosed!) shower. Turns out a mexican hairy-dwarf porcupine fell through the ceiling panel of a guest's hotel room and ended up in his room. He seemed rather confused. Rick messaged us on Slack. We rushed to his room with some staff from the maintenance team. The hotel safely removed the porcupine. Rick was fine. The porcupine… a little startled, but overall fine. He was safely returned to its natural habitat. We have since named him Gerald, and he is one of our most famous alumni.
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Corporate Retreat Results: What the Survey Actually Said
We submitted PlexCon Honduras for the SITE Canada ICE Awards in 2017, the industry's top association for recognition in incentive program excellence.
Here’s what attendees said:
“Amazing job with a lot of moving parts. Available to solve any issue.”
“Everything was so awesome. Perfectly planned and organized.”
“The Survivor challenges were really well done. I loved the team bonding.”
“Impressed it went so smoothly in such a remote location.”
And from CEO Keith Valory:
“PlexCon Honduras was a home run. On budget, on track, and full of incredible experiences.”
We won the SITE Canada ICE Award that year.
It was one of three SITE awards Moniker has won for programs we’ve planned with Plex. The same Plex trip that broke the internet this week was recognized by the incentive travel industry's most respected award body as a program excellence winner.
Community Impact: What Plex Did for Utila
(The Part That Didn't Make the Headlines)
The part no one covered?
During planning, we learned the people of Utila have a deep love for baseball, but their field had fallen into disrepair, following a tropical storm that hit the island.
We brought the story back to Plex. Their team raised over $30,000 to rebuild it.
New equipment. Fully restored field. A ribbon-cutting ceremony when they arrived. They even brought out the local school's marching band to celebrate
Keith threw out the first pitch. A few of the elder Utilians had tears in their eyes, seeing their children head back on the field for the first time in year, due to the kindness of strangers.
It was one of the most meaningful moments we’ve ever seen.
And it didn’t make a single headline.
What This Case Study Really Shows
Here's the honest truth about corporate retreats at this level: things outside of your control happen. A CEO gets sick. A flight is delayed. A hotel changes its GM. A porcupine makes an unscheduled appearance.
The question is never whether something unexpected will happen. The question is whether you have the right partner in your corner when it does. Someone who has seen enough, planned enough, and problem-solved enough to keep the show going regardless.
We have been flooded out of an 11th-century abbey outside of Paris. We have had seagulls take out one of our charter plane engines en route to Mykonos. And both of these incidents were also with Plex!
And we’re still here. Still winning awards. Still delivering unforgettable programs.
Planning a Corporate Retreat Like This
The Survivor theme we built for Plex in Honduras was not a one-off. The creativity, the in-house development, the commitment to doing something nobody has seen before, that is how we approach every single program. We have done it in Morocco, Patagonia, Iceland, Bali, Tuscany, and Colombia. We can do it anywhere.
Ready to plan a corporate retreat your team will never forget?
Visit monikerpartners.com or reach out at ciao@monikerpartners.com.
We’ve been doing this for nearly 15 years. We’ve seen it all. Seriously! 😂
