Painting old bungalows

Since several weeks Sebas and Vadim are painting the bungalows in Sector C. The terrace was in a very bad state, partly because of the irrigation system that during the night throws water around. We are now using the same color and type of water-based painting that was used in the Sector B.

Christmas 2011

Here is our christmas card for this year, we just sent it yesterday by email. This year it is about the name change and the new bar that we introduced also yesterday in this blog. We wish you a nice 2012 new year and hope you will enjoy this new bar soon.

Preparing a new bar above the supermarket

Rumors have circulated during this last summer about the bar Amberes. Now we can say it for sure: bar Amberes is not going to open again in 2012. At this point it is still not decided what we are going to do in that building. It is possible that next summer that space is simply closed.
But we are right now preparing the alternative for 2012: a new bar above the supermarket. It is planned to be a kind of lounge bar, with rather confortable chairs or armchairs.
Decoration, furniture, painting... are still uncertain, as well as the name of this bar. It will habe a very BIG terrace, that some of you have already visited in its old state. We plan to open that space from early in the morning to late in the evening, probably until 12:00 PM. We hope that clients will use it in order to rest, to read a book, to hear some light music... At least until the evening it should be a quiet space. In the evening/night of the high season we may put some loud music, and so be atractive for young people.
We also plan to offer free WiFi inside this bar, in the rest of the campsite WiFi will not be free.
Comments, suggestions... are welcome. In the next weeks we will post updates on the project. And it should hopefully be finished by beginning May.

Building the new bungalows for 2 persons

The material for the new bungalows for 2 persons arrived a few days ago and the builders are busy putting all together. In one week they should finish. Afterwards will come some finishing touches like the air-conditioning, furniture, curtains. And finally to reshape the ground and put again grass on that area.

Third adjustment towards 2012

At the beginning of lane 20 we had two unnumbered camping plots, that we used by the young groups to park vehicles, store material and as the place for the monitors. Now we number those two places, we will install electrical and water lines. As a result, even numbers on lane 20 are shifted upwards.

Wheelchair users: why not try the pool?

We have just bought a special wheelchair for the swimming pool, it is designed to put and extract persons from inside the pool. Two large air-inflated wheels should keep it just a little bit below the water level. It is guaranteed to work for up to 100 Kg and only for overflowing pools. Our pool, with its long overflow slope is surprisingly ideal for that purpose. We are looking forward to test it next summer.

Preparing the base for the new bungalows

These last days, the old bungalows for 2 and 2/4 persons have finally been retired. And although we are having some very rainy days, the base terrain for the 5 new bungalows for 2 persons needs to be prepared. Next week the new bungalows will arrive, and by then new electrical lines, water connections... have to be ready.

Second adjustment

At the beginning of streets 20-23 there has been the 'Sector Grups' (Groups) the name coming from the fact that it has been used by groups of young people. From 2012 we change the name to 'Sector Cavalls' (Horses), because it will be used by normal clients and no more by groups. Outside the campsite, nearby, there is an area where horses pasture, and also a horses' farm, we simply apply that to the name of the sector.

From 2012 we are going to have much less groups of young people. In 2012 they will be restricted to behind the reception (as before), and to the end of street 19. That last place seems rather appropriate because they could be using mostly the small toilets building just beside.

First adjustment towards 2012

Campingplot 51 in lane 19 changes from 100 m2 to 120 m2. The size from this plot was changed 5 years ago together with the size of all the plots on that side of lane 19. At that time we did not have size 120 m2 as a possible category, and it did not make a lot of sense to have just 1 plot in a new category. Some 3 years ago in another change, we created all the 120 m2 campingplots in street 8 and then we classified those plots obviously as 120 m2 creating that category. At that moment we forgot then to put that other previous plot in the new category. We do it now ;-)

Follow us on Facebook

This summer, when preparing the name change, we anticipated having a presence in Facebook and started looking how to do it. In the last year Facebook has changed its policy for business and, instead of each business creating a normal account, wants them to register in Facebook Pages and the presence is then more limited than in a normal, personal account. The strange thing is that you have to associate it to a personal account, that I suppose everyone creates as fake since it is not practical to link to your very personal account. Anyway, we succeeded in getting a business page with our exact name, so you will find it in www.facebook.com/RubinaResort

This Facebook Page should be useful for posting informal comments, both from us and from you. You can, hopefully, post and share with us some nice picture of your holidays. Or ask us, suggest... in case you prefer Facebook than e-mails or fill the forms in our website. Any message will be welcomed and we will try to answer rapidly.

Here comes Rubina Resort

This monday we have finally changed our name to 'Camping Rubina Resort'. In the last days some camping guides have already been updated, but it will be a long way to update most guides, websites, blogs, and also the physical signs on the road, in Empuriabrava and inside the campsite. Apologises to all the clients that may feel that the old name was better, we hope that in the long term it is better to be identified with the name of the area (La Rubina) around us.

New brochure for 2012

We have just received the new brochure for 2012, with the new camping name and, new pictures of the swimming pool, and the details of the new bungalows for 2 persons. You can find it in our new web site for 2012, and in the reception they have replaced the old brochures.

Electrical heaters for the bungalows 4/6 persons

There are 17 bungalows for 4/6 persons located near the beach. These bungalows have relied on a nearby toilet&showers building to get the heated water. The distance from the bungalows to that building is not big, but anyway having a continuous circuit of heated water pass through all the bungalows consumes a lot of energy, and it doesn't matter whether the bungalow is full or empty. Additionally, having to supply heated water to the bungalows reduced the flow of heated water available to the showers in the building, and that is important mainly in high season when at peak hours .
Now Antonio modifies that system and installs an electrical heater on the outside wall to each bungalow. In that way, each bungalow will have its own heater system, it can be turned off when the bungalow is empty, and it should alleviate peak hours in the showers building. We hope it will work better than now.

Painting the pool deck

Lifeguards are just now painting again the pool deck, they are using a natural oil-based paint, without toxicity. After all the high season is over, with the people, a lot of sun... the wood needs some treatment. This time we are also trying an anti-gliding paint around the showers, in order to prevent accidents.

Repairing playgrounds

The children's playground near the Bar Amberes had a slightly damaged cord, and Vadim is now replacing that cord as well as the other cord beside it, in order to be easier to climb.

Gardeners early at work

Each year, around the end of the summer, the gardeners try to improve the grass, most of it in the campingplots. This year we are going to concentrate in the public zones, and as early as now the gardeners are already planting seeds of grass around the swimming pool, replacing areas that have been rather wasted. We hope that next year the swimming pool area is perfect from the beginning and that no more work needs to be done at the beginning of the season.

Beach as usual

The high season is just over, looking around the beach looks wonderful and we have 30ºC... still ideal conditions to stay here, so we hope this low season will be agreable for the pensioners that are now arriving.

Meanwhile, improvements for 2012 are well underway and in the next weeks we will announce them, please check this blog from time to time ;-)

Painting the entrance road

These last weeks have seen an improvement in the traffic at the campsite's entrance, thanks to the explicit painting of bicycle lanes, with their corresponding icons and arrows. Once the painting begun, two big direction arrows for the cars were also added. The result of these changes ;-) is that now bicycles and cars enter and exit the campsite at a more orderly manner, there are always exceptions but there is an obvious improvement.

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.

Wifi 2011 Prices

This summer, WiFi will continue with rather the same conditions as last summer, with small improvements. We try to cover the public areas, like the swimming pool area, inside and terrace of the internet cafe, and (new) the terrace of the restaurant. Prices this year are the ones shown above. As you can see, you will get 14 days for 25 euros.

Gardeners still busy

These are the last days before spring, the gardeners are now busy cutting branches from trees. This year we are renting an beautiful elevator for that whole task, instead of from time to time, and it goes much quicker.

More places to sit

These last weeks we have been preparing more park benches, 6 of them in total. Two of them go to the minigolf and will replace the old benches, and the rest will go near the children's playground and central area. Here in the photo you see Vadim building the fixations in the ground.

Changing trees

In the swimming pool area, some trees we moved last year have not survived. Now that the weather is still cold, the gardeners are substituting those trees, in some cases by other tree species that offer more guarantees in this area. We will also put some additional trees in order to increase the shadow during the high season.

Sports playground now finished

Here a picture of the playground, now finished, in the best view I struggled to find. It is a shame the place that has been chosen, so near the road, there is absolutely no privacy, but well... at least the devices seem to work well and are of quality.

Changing our address

In the next days we are going to change this blog address, from the current campingamberes.blogspot.com to platjadelarubina.blogspot.com. Please change your bookmark accordingly.

This is just a marketing shift, otherwise nothing is going to change, and in the next weeks we will continue posting entries as normally.

New sports playground near us

The city council of Empuriabrava is building a playground very near the entrance to the campsite, by the river 'Salins'. It is intended for adults, to do some physical exercise, and it can be a great complement to jogging along the bicycle road.
While the exact place is a bit small for these sport devices, and surely too near the car lanes, it is nonetheless an improvement.