DavidLedger
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Food isn’t a major priority when we’re on holiday. Mainly it’s ‘food to stay alive’ rather than ‘food to die for’. When we have a car we tend to use small local restaurants, and bars with food. The everyday things the locals eat. We often don’t know just what it was.
David
For those at Emerald I would add the Guantanamo.
Although it’s not really a restaurant and the range is small, the food at Bob Gorman’s pub and music store is very good. And you get the music too. (€5 cover charge to pay the band).
David
The papers had to be sent out 14 days before the closing data. It can depend on the precise wording of the rules and how that is interpreted. It can either mean that papers have to be physically leave Anfi 14 days before, or that the papers have to be in a ‘sent out” state 14 days before. The latter means the same as ‘at least 14 days’, which makes more sense. I know that in UK Parish Council nominations it means ‘at least’ because I’ve fallen foul of that with a secretary who thought it meant ‘on the day’.
Our wording will be in Spanish and so who knows what it really means.
Anfi publish a graph of ‘Occupation by Entities’ on the noticeboards. It has sections for Owners, AVC, RCI and Anfi Sales. ‘Owners’ means owners of fixed weeks using their fixed week, or possibly banking and booking. AVC is all floating and points bookings made through AVC. ‘Anfi Sales’ is occupation given by Anfi Sales – promotions, taster weeks etc, allocated from their ownership of unsold weeks. They pay the maintenance charge so they have use of those weeks.
At Emerald ‘Anfi Sales’ is huge, almost 60% summer last year because there are lots of unsold weeks. RCI is tiny at 0.5%, as is ‘Owners’ because there are very few fixed weeks at Emerald. You should be able to check at any resort you have access to.
RCI do not have exclusive use of the ground floor at Gran because that is where the disabled access apartments are. My in-laws have used one. I suspect that this is just the lower orders at Anfi making things up as they go along.
RCI should only be able to offer weeks that have been banked with them by week owners.
Robert
Both Continental Trustees and Anfi should be able to tell you, but persuading them to do so may not be easy. It’s generally best to just turn up at the office down the walkway to the right off from the first turning point under the Monté gardens (reception being the second) – but not at lunchtime. You may need proof of identity.
I think they will end up having to change all floating weeks to fixed, but they’re not ready to admit to the need in public yet. There are two problems (at least).
They are currently appealing against all decisions against them as far as they can take them. This is partially a delaying tactic and partly to put people off from taking action. As soon as they mention replacing contracts they are admitting that there is a problem with floating/points and those appeals will be weakened or collapse. The were advised years ago (but after 1998) that by registering the resorts as having floating/points they were allowed to continue selling them (or some very similar arrangement). That was their lawyers’ interpretation of the law in 1998. The judge in 2015 decided otherwise. Anfi are appealing that their initial interpretation is correct.
Secondly, how to allocate apartment/weeks so that everyone is happy. All floating and points contracts do have an apartment and week against them in their database and that is recorded with Continental Trustees who safeguard our holiday rights. They cannot reasonably just fix weeks to this week without allowing some free way to float apartments and weeks around their home resort for current floating owners and to float apartments and weeks around all resorts (including Emerald) for current points owners. This is what AVC does for a joining fee plus an annual membership fee. AVC (or a replacement) would have to be made free for this all to work. Some of those who paid to join AVC may object to others joining for free, but in the light of current circumstances I think they are just going to have to put up with that.
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That message is worse than most. Usually they try to frighten people with the fact that their contracts don’t comply with Spanish law, claiming, wrongly, that they need to sue Anfi. It’s true that Anfi is now 50% owned by someone who is very big in the hotel business, but the five Anfi resorts are all held in trust by Continental Trustees which ensures that it all remains as timeshare.
Even if there were a problem, the company making those claims about the future should be the last to consider using.
The Ancora Centre is a little nearer to Anfi than the Arguineguin Spar. It’s in the angle between straight on and left at the whale tail roundabout. There are lots of local shops in there. It’s a bit of a warren but worth exploring. You could lose an adventurous child in there for a while.
If you go away from Anfi past the Spar to the next (and last) roundabout and turn left, you’ll find the Hiperdino which I’m told can be cheaper still. It looks an ‘industrial’ shop intended for locals rather than holiday makers.
David
I personally feel that the lack of an obvious tree structure makes the new forum more difficult to navigate too, but having started installing computers in banks in 1969 I realise that my feelings for what is easier on a computer may lag behind the times a bit, so I don’t push for what I like. I use the command line on my Mac a lot.
If you just click ‘My Club’ rather than use its menu, then select the ‘Latest Forum Activity’ tab, you get a list of forums with the latest posts down the right hand side under ‘Freshness’, with the most recent at the top (mostly). The old forum used to keep track of every thread each member read and when. That way it could tell you which posts had been added since your last visit to that thread. That system was also very expensive. Instead, this system tells you when the last post to a thread was made – ‘4 hours ago’, ’17 hours, 55 minutes ago’, ‘1 week, 3 days ago’ etc., and relies on you remembering roughly how long ago you last visited. The same information is available on the right when viewing forum threads, but they come below the list of forums. The tree structure is still there, but the top level is brought out into the ‘My Club’ -> ‘Member to Member’ links which obscures them a bit. When viewing threads links to the top levels also appear as the very bottom part of the right hand side column, below ‘Forums’, ‘Active Topics’,and ‘Recent Replies’.
I don’t know what facilities are available for subscription settings and the like, but we can look at it.
The website framework is WordPress, and there are thousands of people who know how to make sites in it. The number of people who understand vBulletin (our previous framework) is small, and they are all too expensive for us. If, heaven forbid, our current designer stopped working, we would survive; with the last system we wouldn’t. The forum is ‘bbPress’. We can only present a selection of what the developers of WordPress and bbPress decided to include. Choices have been made, but they may not be the best choices for our members. It’s feedback like yours, Liam, that will help us to move over time to a better set of choices.
David
Just tried ‘Places’ in the ‘My Club’ menu under ‘Member to Member’ and it worked fine. As with the previous site, if you hit it while a backup is happening some things fail, but it should be ok a few minutes later. Please try again, and if it still gives a ‘404’ then come back here or email webmaster@anfiukmembers.co.uk with details of where you clicked and when. If we know the time, ideally to the minute, then we can check the log files and hopefully see what happened. I only know of one ‘Places’ link, but there may be another problematic one that I haven’t noticed. We’re all still getting used to this and spotting oddities.
David
The latest is at the bottom because the whole thread is a sequence of posts in time order and we naturally read from the top of a page and down.
Until tablets and smartphones came along, email conversations were all in time order too. You can get away with top-posting where there are only two participants, but it can get very difficult to follow with more. Some email based discussion lists reject top-posted replies.
You may also notice that if the correct ‘REPLY’ button is used, the posts are indented, showing which previous post a new post refers to. This also makes more sense if new posts go below older ones. (This is where I may reply using the wrong reply button 🙂 )
Good question Robert.
Hopefully people will reply to this and say if they too find the forum difficult or less intuitive than the old one – or otherwise.
What do you most miss that we had with the old forum? I miss the branching tree structure myself.
David
As someone else with no personal interest in taking legal action I can quite understand Robert’s thoughts. But as you say, Robert, this is only one forum thread. In fact ‘Claims’ is only one of eight threads (or ‘Topics’) in one of five main forum sections. The forum is still a ‘tree’ of sub-sections within sections, but we’re not shown the top level as such. The sections appear individually in the ‘My Club’ pop-down.
And we do need more posts on other topics. Gran has a new restaurant – what is it like? Monté’s bar will be changing – we will need to be told what it’s like too. How is ABC’s pool? Can someone please tell us… Other members are interested to hear from people they ‘know’, even if they haven’t met.
David
Anfi will tell the resort committee reps when something is going to happen when what they mean is, when it is planned to happen at that moment. We don’t necessarily know in advance when it will happen, and neither do they. This isn’t all their fault, Apparently they need local authority permission to refurbish a pool, and all sorts of other things that we would expect to just happen. Normal buildings seem to be treated more like listed buildings are in the UK.
I raised this with Anfi and received the answer that there is no fee, but that it is only one each way per year. I’m emailing you to see what we can do about this.
I believe Monte Anfi has on-site storage and maybe others. Emerald does not, and we (the Emerald committee) have been discussing the possibility of installing some. Because of lack of space they would have only been available of those with four or more weeks as they are the ones with greater need. That’s when we learned of the Monte (?) storage. At our October meeting we were told of the external service instead. I have a leaflet somewhere – I’ll try to find it. There is a fee per month plus a collection and delivery fee. Your property is stored away from Anfi. Large items like golf clubs can be stored there, which the Anfi storage can’t take.
David
La Cascada
Originally posted on 9th December 2008Menu is the same as Gran Bahia. At the moment as there are not many guests at Emerald the food is excellent but it is slightly dear. Would recommend the Cesaer salad at midday unless you are allergic to nuts and at night the fillet or chateauxbriand is superb.
Denis & Maggie
23-08-10 10:52 #2
Posted on 14th December 2008Hi
Had the sole fillets on Thursday night & was very disappointed but the Grouper looked good.
Friday back to the good old Chatauxbriand (excellent)
Denis & Maggie
23-08-10 10:53 #3
Posted by Bippo 15th December 2008
Hopefully when we are there over Christmas and the New Year things will have approved but I have to say that I am expecting that we will need to eat elsewhere. Having said that we are hiring a car for the first time which will give us the ability to wander off without relying on feet or taxis!Bippo
23-08-10 10:55 #4Posted on 15th January 2009 by Bippo
La Cascada was obviously fairly well supported whist we were there last week but I would expect that at a busy time of the year. We always ate off site until the last day when we had breakfast there. Jolly good it was but I do miss the buffet breakfasts that you get at Puerto Vista and Gran Bahia.
Bippo
23-08-10 10:56 #5Reply by DenisM on 7th January 2009
Hi Bippo
You surprise me. Every time we have had breakfast it has been a buffet style with all the usual choices that you get at Puerto & Gran costing 11 euros per person.
Denis
04-10-11 04:39 #6
drjohnArrived late night at Tauro (12th Sept) and went for breakfast following morning.
At 8:30 we were the only customers – I now know why!
The breakfast menu was a laminated sheet with 4 pictures, 3 variations on eggs and bacon, one cold cuts. My wife asked for scambled agg instead of fried and was told ‘thats the menu (ie take it or leave it). Eventually got the scrambled egg (at an extra charge). Tea and coffee came first followed by a long wait. When the breakfast came it was wheeled out on a trolly implying it was piping hot – it wasnt. We could have got a taxi to/from P Rico and bought a better breakfast – it would have been quicker, cheaper and better.
We didnt eat there again. There again not many other people did. Through the day the majority of customers were sales reps.
The evening menu was a book of laminated pictures with a brief description in 4 languages (not all translations were acurate). Talking with other people, only heard complaints.
Its the only on site bar/resaurant – either needs a godd kick from Anfi, or kicking out!!
17-04-12 21:15 #7
ANDREW_MORGANHaving read the above they have obviously improved their game there. We had a week at Emerald and ate on several occasions at the restaurant. Overall the food was very good, service excellent, staff wonderful with kids, and good choices. Wine list is expensive with the Vina Sol about €16 a bottle (cheapest) so be prepared to pay a bit! We had the BBQ on the Friday night which was disappointing, as not a patch on the one at Tropicana Beach Club and as above had breakfast one morning which was adequate but not a patch on Puerto Vista Restaurant. Entertainment good on all three nights although singers had a habit of belting out songs in same order every night! Would definitely go to Tauro again and certainly use the restaurant on a multitude of occasions as we did this year. We had a 9,5,2 year and two adults with average bill with wine about €70/80 including deserts. Half the time the kids had ice creams from the freezer and they never charged us! Also if you get bored with the food here and cooking in apartment, Lun Chinese in Arguineguin do delivery as well as the Happy Valley Indian in Puerto Rico. Again both fantastic service and price and have menus here if people want me to email one to take with them!
15-05-14 19:52 #8
Anne hobbsAug’15 – I’m not sure if this is a regular thing now but Anfi are advertising a ‘Chill-out’ buffet dinner at La Cascada every Thursday. A coach runs from Monte reception at 20:00 hrs (from memory) for anyone in Del Mar that fancies it.
Jon – ABC fixed week owner.What if the hokey-cokey really IS what it’s all about!
Haven’t heard anything, and a search only reveals 4 day golf packages without accommodation. One recommends 5 hotels, only one of which is on the island. Another thinks that the Canaries are off the coast of Spain. Plenty of Anfi pages of course but nothing linking to offers of accommodation, with golf or otherwise.
David
RichardFixter
Anfi UK Newbie
Join Date
Mar 2001We have been told that the beach will be complete within one year and you can see the publicity shots on the Anfi web site.
RichardFixter
Anfi UK Newbie
Join Date
Mar 2001An artists impression of the new Tauro beach / development, look forward to seeing the real thing!
Anne hobbs
Anfi UK Junior MemberJoin Date
Jun 2010Hi David we have just returned from 2 weeks in Emerald which we really enjoyed! The shuttle bus runs more in the evening which is great if you want to go to anfi. As you pointed out 5 palm trees were decked while we were there. Not sure if the spring fest will happen next year!
I moved the drop-pin for Ayacata on the Ayacata place page so that it is on the main road as per the description rather than in no-mans-land. The address in the map box changed to the map reference. What is the proper way to keep the map without the 34 digit MR appearing?
David
Two ‘Facilities’ flags we could add to the categories for towns – ‘Has a petrol station’ and ‘Has restaurants’ (suitably reworded of course).
David
I did the same deletion and re-creation of adverts. I can see all three adverts in My Adverts and the public Rentals.
I started all three advert creations from the My Timeshares page.
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Re 1483 & 1488 Agree too.
I’m not sure if price is sufficiently relevant to merit a filter entry. There will rarely be more than a few adverts for any week and the prices will be similar. There’s no ‘real’ value. We just have to look at what other people are asking, which tends to clump the prices.
The Resort would be better as a checkbox. In other places people ask for things like ‘not Emerald’ (because it’s separate), or ‘ABC or Puerto’ (because they’re closest to the beach and plaza).
I wish I could come up with a way to make week numbers more transparent. People will think ‘August’, have to translate that into a number range, and search on those weeks. Doing it in WP is a further complication. In free coding we could colour the weeks for different months differently – or make hover show the date; but beyond the scope of WP.
David
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