Excellence Riviera Cancun - Footage

Here is some footage I took while on Honeymoon in Mexico, staying at the Excellence Riviera Cancun in Puerto Morelos.

I'm pretty much the opposite of professional when it comes to videos, but this shakey footage was taken from our room's balcony. It was on level 3 of building 9 in the excellence club.

This was an amazing resort, and a more in depth review will follow.

http://youtu.be/5xcscICxbdw

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Posted in: excellence riviera cancun,mexico,puerto morelos

Newport Mirage

The Newport Mirage is located in a beautiful spot, overlooking the Pittwater. It’s situated away from all busy roads, but close enough that even the country folk can find their way to the busier areas.

The rooms are well looked after, and kept very clean, while offering amenities such an iron and ironing board, a hair dryer, heating and cooling and a mini bar with tea making facilities.

Unfortunately after those facts, the Newport Mirage is lacking.

Is it just me? Or would this drive you insane too?



There... That's better...

Check in was fast and easy, and while the lady helping us wasn’t rude by any meals, she definitely wasn’t all that friendly either. I don’t begrudge her that though, who’s to say that she hadn’t just been abused by the last guest she served, and was no longer in the friendly mood that she’d started the day with. As I said, she was nowhere near rude.

For the amount you pay for what is quite a basic room – our charge was around $160 per night, staying with a group discount, for a room that overlooked the carpark/road - there is neither free internet nor a complimentary breakfast, however they do provide free parking.

In our room, room 307, we had two single beds pushed together and made up as a king size bed. This made the bed nice and spacious, and it was very comfortable, with nice fluffy pillows to match. Sleeping was not a problem.

I would not recommend this hotel for business travellers. We paid $5 for only an hours internet usage, and were told that it would only work for one log on, so if you accidentally logged off after only 15 minutes use, then you would be required to pay again to reconnect.

There is a restaurant on site, which offers at least breakfast and dinner (I didn’t see anything mentioning lunch, but I’m assuming they also offer it). However on both nights we were there the restaurant was booked out for private functions between 6 and 9:30pm. A courtesy note was left in our room advising us of this, and recommending the restaurant across the road.

Both functions being held the nights we were there were weddings. I am thankful for small mercies, in that the receptions were required to finish at 9:30pm.

There was very little sound proofing provided in the guest rooms, and it felt as though we had been invited into the event, as everything going on in the restaurant above was echoing through our rooms below. We were actually invited to the wedding on the second night – hence our visit – and were able to partake in the meals that the restaurant provided. Whilst I’d never consider reporting this to the bride, I once again found the hotel lacking in this department. My mind naturally travelled back to my own wedding, where the meals had been amazing and perfect, and any other synonym you care to add. I suppose though that that is the difference between a random hotel on Sydney’s Northern shore, and Walt Disney World…

The hotel is in a beautiful position for a wedding, with the ceremony overlooking the yachts in the harbor as the sun sets. Regrettably I do doubt that we will return to the Newport Mirage. There seem to be many more hotels that are much better value available.

Have you been to the Newport Mirage? Let me know of your experiences!

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Posted in: airport hotel,hotel review,mirage,newport,newport mirage,pittwater

Cheap flights from Australia to Japan

Jetstar are currently holding a sale for flights between Australia and Japan during September and October.

Be flexible with dates and you should be able to find return flights for around $500 between the Gold Coast and Tokyo.

Cairns to Tokyo (Narita) 01 Sep - 31 Oct 2011 $209

Gold Coast to Osaka 01 Sep - 31 Oct 2011 $229

Gold Coast to Tokyo (Narita) 02 Sep - 31 Oct 2011 $229

Cairns to Osaka 01 Sep - 31 Oct 2011 $249

Sydney to Osaka 01 Sep - 20 Sep 2011 & 12 Oct - 27 Oct 2011 $290 - Via Gold Coast only

Melbourne (Tullamarine)to Tokyo (Narita) 06 Sep - 20 Sep 2011 & 12 Oct - 25 Oct 2011 $303 - Via Gold Coast only

Melbourne (Tullamarine)to Osaka 01 Sep - 20 Sep 2011 & 12 Oct - 25 Oct 2011 $303

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Posted in: cheap flights,flights,gold coast,japan,jetstar,tokyo

Zuji Global Hotel Sale

Zuji are currently holding a sale - for 3 more days - they have on offer over 25000 hotels from all over the world for under $99.

Get in quick so you don't miss out!

Zuji Global Hotel Sale

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Posted in: hotel,hotel sale,sale,zuji

A Letter to Richard Branson

This has been circulating on the web since early 2009, but I saw it for the first time today, and thought it was a clever response to my own entry regarding flying with Virgin:

Oliver Beale


17th December 2008

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008 Flying Club number obscured

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit. Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:



I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, Which one is the starter, which one is the desert? You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:



I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn’t custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about. Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:



Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashedpotato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird. Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard. Jesus Christ.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:



It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point. Once cleared. I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:



I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:



Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:



Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff. Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly

Oliver Beale

I am proud to say that V Australia's food looks nothing like anything pictured! I don't think I could have eaten anything on that flight either.

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Posted in: flights,inflight meals,oliver beale,ref: mumbai to heathrow 7th December 2008,richard branson,virgin