Thomas Cook Closing 200 High Street Shops

Thomas Cook is to close 200 High Street shops and lay-off 1,000 staff over the next 2 years as it struggles to recover from a £398 million loss.

More here...

New Thomson Gold Promo Video Based On Playa Camp de Mar

A new video promoting Thomson Gold holidays has been uploaded to YouTube and features on the Thomson website. Filmed in and around the Hotel Playa Camp de Mar, you get an idea of what the resort is like and see some of the real hotel staff involved.

TUI UK to spend £8 million rebranding high street holiday shops

TUI UK will re-brand its retail branding by introducing “Thomson….. featuring First Choice”, to increase brand presence and further develop its position as market leaders on the high street. Over the course of the next two years, TUI will be investing £8 million in changing the look of all its high street retail stores, starting this month in the Exeter region.

A pool with a view...

Read the related blog here.

If you can smell french fries, then you're on Thomson Airways

Thomson Airways are conducting the first commercial UK flight of a plane today fuelled by a used cooking oil and jet fuel mix. The trip to Lanzarote by a Boeing 757 from Birmingham is a one-off until regular supplies of chip fat can be sourced for a full service powered by such a mix next year.

Vehicle hire from £11 per day claim Carrentals.co.uk

UK-based www.carrentals.co.uk compares car hire deals from up to 50 rental companies, including Alamo, Auto Europe, Budget, Holiday Autos and Sixt to offer you the best choice. In their latest press release - dated Sept. 28th - the company was claiming availability of £11 per day offers on cars rented at Palma de Mallorca airport.

Thomas Cook and Co-Op Travel to merge

The Competition Commission (CC) has cleared a merger between struggling Thomas Cook's UK retail business and those of the Co-operative group and Midlands Co-operative Society, to create the country's biggest retail travel operation.

The deal will bring together three of the biggest travel agents on the high street. Thomas Cook currently has 780 stores, while the Co-op has 360 travel shops and the Midlands 100.

"The CC has concluded that... customers are unlikely to suffer from significantly higher prices or reduced choice as a result of the joint venture." 

Rival TUI Travel, which owns the Thomson and First Choice chains, has fared better in recent times.

Thomas Cook plans to conduct its tour operator business separately from the joint venture.

New photos uploaded to Flickr

A selection of photographs taken in and around Camp de Mar in July of this year (2011) have been uploaded to our Flickr photostream. They include views of the resort, local bars and restaurants, and the new apartments being built. More information can be found in the latest review here.

Holidays 4 U goes into administration

With more than 12,000 holidaymakers currently abroad, Brighton-based Holidays 4 U, which also traded as Aegean Flights, has gone into administration.

The Foreign Office said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are trying to ensure that all customers are able to fly home as planned.

To whoever borrowed the Scrabble...

To whoever borrowed the second Scrabble set donated by www.camp-de-mar.info to the Playa hotel, we would like to say 'Thank you for spoiling it for everybody else!"

The hotel's original set is now down to 96 letters and is therefore unplayable.

A new review has been uploaded to the Camp de Mar Info website.

A review of our travels to Camp de Mar and Mallorca in July this year has been uploaded to the website.

Grupotel back on Thomson website

The Thomson website is once again accepting bookings for 2012 at the Grupotel Playa Camp de Mar.

Playa Camp de Mar hotel unavailable for 2012 on Thomson website

Earlier this month Thomson were showing availability of the Playa Camp de Mar hotel for next year via a new style of webpage. The room descriptions had changed to reflect the recent upgrade, and so had the prices!

We then heard from sources close to Grupotel that the contract with Thomson had not yet been renewed for the 2012 season.

Now the Thomson website shows the hotel is unavailable through them for next year. This may change, so keep watching this space.

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald features Camp de Mar in travel item.

We stumbled across a review of Mallorca featuring Camp de Mar in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald. It was a good read until the line "...dining options in Camp de Mar are limited to the hotels, which mainly cater for German guests on all-inclusive packages". No mention of the island restaurant, or the Petit Ambassador on the beach, nor any of the other fine eateries dotted around the resort.

The Gran Hotel may offer all-inclusive for some guests, along with the Lido Palace, but this generalisation spoils the article for us. 

A Camp de Mar regular - Sports Cruiser "Twisted"

Sea-watchers often note a regular visitor to Camp de Mar's cove that is the Sports Cruiser "Twisted". For only 42,000 Euros per week (peak season) you get a state of the art 25m yacht with 4 cabins, an additional speedboat with waterskis, a jetski, and on-board off-road buggy. What more could you want?

Beach service for disabled users launched in Camp de Mar - Video

After seeing a gentleman struggling to move a lad in a wheelchair on the beach in Camp de Mar this past weekend, we were surprised to see this video from Mallorca TV about a special service that allows disabled people to use the beach.

We have a reporter in Camp de Mar this week, so expect a full review soon...

Paintings of Camp de Mar by Tomás Harris (1908-1964)

Tomás Harris painted a number of canvases of subjects in and around Camp de Mar. Apart from being an artist and art delaer, he was also a famed agent who worked for MI5 during WWII.

The picture shown left is entitled Farm and is in the Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.

You can see some of his other work and read much more about him here.

Lido Palace now an H10 Hotel

Formerly with the BMC group, the Lido Palace is now owned by luxury hotel chain H10.
 
The H10 Lido stands right on the sea front, leading directly on to the magnificent beach of Camp de Mar. It has a large terrace with two swimming pools with excellent sea views. The Hotel also boasts comfortable rooms, all of them with sea views, plus restaurant, free wi-fi, two bars and a wellness area with gymnasium, sauna, Jacuzzi and Turkish bath.
 
You must click on this H10 link to see the cheery smiling faces of the staff!

Camp de Mar gets prestigious Blue Flag for clean beach [Video]

Camp de Mar's beach has met the 32 criteria, including ones for cleanliness and water quality, that the Blue Flag organisation impose before they will award their coveted symbol. Here is a video of the civic ceremony showing the 2011 flag being raised:

More information about the Blue Flag Organisation itself is here.

Thomson Couples Brochure Launched

Thomson Holidays has officially launched Thomson Couples, an all-new adults-only holiday experience aimed at couples who want to spend time abroad in a child-free environment. With the first Couples customers flying out in June, Thomson is the first mainstream travel company to offer 100% child-free holiday resorts worldwide.

All hotels in the Thomson Couples range are part of Thomson's Premier Collection, which include the company's very best 4T and 5T hotels. Couples customers will also enjoy complimentary benefits including increased luggage allowance, priority transfers, day-before check-in and dedicated holiday advisors when overseas.

More information on Thomson's adults-only holidays here.

Majorca Magazine: Ex-pats Online

The Majorca Daily Bulletin is fine if you want to know what's going on in the Balearics, but for lifestyle articles and more, look no further than the online Majorca Magazine.

Put together by British ex-pats, the publication contains articles on home & design, food & drink, local history & culture, health & beauty plus news & sport.

Tax experts to gather at Hotel Dorint Royal Golfresort & Spa in September

Leading consultants in the art of tax reduction and accountants for businesses, hedge funds and wealthy individuals from across Europe will be gathering at the Hotel Dorint Royal Golfresort & Spa in September for their annual conference.

Organised by the Swiss-based ISA, the internationally recognised congress on "International tax planning, estate planning and asset allocation" will look at the best ways for the wealthy to reduce their tax burden so that the rest of us can do our bit to save the economy.

Superyachts can be moored at Port d'Andraxt or Palma space permitting.

New development or overdevelopment?

Fifty-five more houses valued at over half a million euros each are to be built on the outskirts of Camp de Mar.

More details here.

Hans Wolters Photo Album

Hans Wolters has been touring the south west of Mallorca and has been taking some excellent photos of the region including Camp de Mar.

This particular picture is an unusually good view of Claudia Schiffer's old villa high up on the peninsula.

Anita Trappitt offers evocative artwork of Camp de Mar for sale

Artist Anita Trappitt is offering, for £160, an 11x14" watercolour entitled Holiday Memories, Camp De Mar, Mallorca via The Society For All Artists website.

Taylor Wimpey de España releases more town-houses in Camp de Mar

Taylor Wimpey de España have also just released a selection of 2 to 4 bedroom townhouses - from €505,000, with spectacular sea and mountain views, situated in Camp de Mar - one of the most exclusive areas of Mallorca.

For more information visit www.taylorwimpeyspain.com

Extra photos now hosted on Flikr

Although there are a number of photos available through the galleries on our website www.camp-de-mar.info and also our Facebook page, additional pictures from Camp de Mar and elsewhere on the island can now be found on our Flikr page.

New Thomson brochures as First Choice goes 100% All Inclusive

Leading tour operator, Thomson has launched three new May Edition Summer 2012 brochures; Summer Collection, Faraway Shores and Florida. Following on from sister-brand First Choice’s move to 100% All Inclusive from next summer.
 
Thomson continues to add to its exclusive differentiated product offering, with six new Thomson Couples hotels and three new Thomson Family Resorts for next summer. Thomson has also introduced 12 new regional flying routes from next summer, to increase flexibility and choice for customers.
 
More info from www.thomson.co.uk

Thomson get their dates wrong...

There are a number of travellers who booked the Hotel Playa Camp de Mar for a holiday in April even though the hotel does not open till May 1st. This would appear to be the mistake of the travel company involved.

The result was that coachloads of holidaymakers were taken to the resort and ended up staying at the all-inclusive family-orientated Hotel Camp de Mar across the street.

More information can be found in their reviews of the hotel at TripAdvisor.

Camp de Mar: About Us

There was very little information about this excellent Mallorcan resort on the Web back in 2002 when the website www.camp-de-mar.info was first created and now there's no end of online review sites detailing the woes and delights of holidaymakers around the world. Holiday brochures of the time also only had a few paragraphs extoling the virtues of the hotels and surroundings, but no real detail. Camp de Mar Info was inspired after our stay there and we have been back nearly every year since. If you would like to know more about Camp de Mar and the area, then hopefully we have something for you. We are independent of any hotel group or travel agency and do not have any sponsorship or axes to grind.