Planning new bungalows for 2012

There are 5 bungalows for 2 and 2/4 persons, located in street 6. They have been repaired year after year, but now they are simply too old, so in 2012 we are going to replace them by new ones, all 5 of them for maximum 2 persons. We have choosed the Gitotel Tonga model, with some modifications to make it more spacious inside. There is a rather big terrace, and we hope that it will be a success.
You can see the detailed floor plan in our new website for 2012 www.rubinaresort.com.

Testing soap dispensers

Soap dispensers were surely badly needed in the bathrooms, so starting today we are testing some units both in the bathrooms near the campsite entrance and also in those near the beach. We have chosen foam soap dispensers, so they give foam instead of liquid soap, since this seems more practical.

If the test goes well, in about 2 weeks we could install them in all the other bathrooms.

Belgian mafia moves fast

A surprising event, Philippe and Marc have been seen in the campsite wearing misterious shirts. While they wouldn't talk, someone tells us the belgian mafia has been involved.

Looking forward to 2012 with a new name

At the end of this 2011 season we will change our name, from 'Camping Internacional Amberes' to  'Rubina Resort'. A lot of thought has been put into this change and we hope it will be convenient in the long term.
The name 'Internacional Amberes' comes from our particular history: initially, there was a 'Camping Internacional Mas Chalet' and a 'Camping Amberes'. When joining both campings, the new name 'Internacional Amberes' was chosen as a simple way to adapt to old clients. However, 'Amberes' is the spanish translation of the belgian city 'Anvers', but just a few belgian people know about this translation, for them it is mostly a curious word without meaning. For the spanish clients and for the people living in this area, it is really odd to use that name in a camping. Also, there is a zone in Empuriabrava named 'Alberes', therefore a common mistake is to think the name is 'Camping Alberes'. About the word 'Internacional', too many campings have this word in their name and this leads to confusion, and it makes the whole name too long so people normally abbreviate and say 'Camping Amberes' or mistakenly 'Camping Alberes'.

'Rubina Resort' comes from the fact that we are situated in the beach called 'Platja de la Rubina', so it seems a natural choice. The 'resort' is because it is a lodging company, with a big surface. It also expresses the objective towards a better service.

Anyway, this name change is only that. It doesn't imply any ownership change at all, nor does it come because  of the need to clean a dubious reputation. On the contrary, we think that right now we have the best reputation of the last 20 years, surely due to continuous improvements year after year.

We have used this opportunity to introduce a new logo, hopefully better. The new logo has just two colors, two fonts, and a simple symbol.

Zoover 2011

Zoover, the holidays' review web site from Holland, has again given us the 'recomended 2011' price. At this day, we are scoring a 8.4 out of 10, based on 124 reviews. While there are still things to improve, it is for us a significant achievement.

Camping groups, Sunêlia and us

Well, if you are interested in camping groups and our relationship with Sunêlia, there is a report in the May 2011 issue of the 'Panorama camping' magazine. Since several years we are collaborating with the french camping group Sunêlia and we intend to continue in the future. The collaboration results in joined promotion campaigns and it rather guides the way to ammeliorate our quality of service.

Street delimiters 2nd version

At the end of last summer we designed a new street delimiter, now we have combined it with a shorter version, ant these two types have finally been deployed in the road in front of the supermarket.

The result may still need some adjustments, but we can rather easily move the pieces. Street delimiters are always aesthetically and functionally rather horrible, but maybe these ones are not the worse, we will what clients say...

New plants for the entrance

These last days the gardeners have changed the plants at the campsite's entrance, near the playground area. We have chosed rather autochthonous plants, and together with the low-consumption irrigation system, they should grow alright. Previous plants were more 'exotic'.

Preparing the swimming pool

In two days, friday 15 April, we will open the swimming pool. Until 15th June the opening times will be from 10:00 to 18:00, like last summer. Life guards Fede and Bernard are also coming back, so everything as usual.

These last weeks we have been busy cleaning the water deposits and, of course, also inside the pool. With so many trees around us, birds, dust... it has been a long task. Also one month ago we modified the overflowing channel, wood pieces covering it now have more space between them, thus more water falls inmediately inside the channel. We also added custom-made filters inside that overflowing channel, in order to catch as many dust and leaves as possible before the water enters the water deposits and then later the machine room. This should help also to keep pre-filters less dirty in the machine room. So... it seems we are ready for this new season.

Unpacking trees

The swimming pool is almost ready to be opened again on 15 April. Meanwhile, the gardeners are unpacking the new trees that have been planted this winter. This summer the grass will be denser and the whole pool area should look nicer. More about that in the next days.