El Roble Holidays Official Blog

On Friday 5th June we flew to Chester to attend the tourist board Awards Dinner at the Chester Race Course and we were very pleased to be presented with the new Gold award for our Wharton Lock Apartment, the ONLY gold award self catering property in the City of Chester and one of only two in the whole of Cheshire!

We got back to Spain last night after 4 rather wet, but eventful, days staying in Chester.

On Thursday, we spent the day at Simon and Lisa’s new house just outside Chester – someone had asked if we were going to help them decorate …………however they are still at the knock down and clear out stage! Graham had fun smashing a very pink bathroom suite, our 6 year old niece says its very pretty but Simon and Lisa have understandably opted for a more traditional white one!

Friday brought a rainy morning and a trip to the tourist board offices of Visit Chester. As Wharton Lock Apartment is one of the 4 finalists in the Chester and Cheshire “Self Catering Holiday of the Year 2009″ we were to meet the judge  Kate Simon, Travel Editor of the Independent on Sunday.

Sadly we had not been able to show Kate around the apartment, as the guest who is staying there at the moment would not allow the apartment to be viewed during their stay – and in respect of our guests wishes we had made alternative arrangements with Lucy, from VisitChester, to meet Kate at their offices.

Hopefully showing our apartment “virtually”, with the help of our website, gave her a good idea of what we offer our guests…….and thankfully our new “Gold Award” certificate arrived in the post during our visit and so we were able to proudly show this to Kate during the presentation.

We then travelled to Tarporley, to celebrate Grahams mothers 83rd birthday with her.

Saturday and Sunday saw us back at the new house, Keith had by now joined us from Bristol and Christine, Lisa’s mum, was also there. In the afternoon Michelle, Lisa’s sister, Simon’s Uncle Richard, Auntie Anna and 6 year old Jennifer arrived too! Good job they bought a big house! There was dust, noise and many discussions on the plans…………..together with lots of cups of tea, bacon sandwiches and cakes!

Then back onto a flight to Spain and the peace and quiet…………..but it did remind us how we lived for the 13 months it took to build this house while we lived in a motor-home on the land!

Fantastic news announced today!

Wharton Lock Apartment has been presented with a prestigious Gold Award in self catering accommodation. 

The apartment is the ONLY Gold Award self catering holiday in The City of Chester and only one of two in the whole of the County of Cheshire.

This new award, launched in May 2009, is awarded annually to the top scoring properties in each star rating and is in recognition of the very best of the ”Enjoy England” holiday properties.

So next week we meet the judge for the “Self Catering Holiday of the Year” armed with both our 4 star certificate and our new Gold certificate as well. Fingers crossed!!

We are pleased to announce that we are one of the four properties that have been short listed for the Chester and Cheshire Self Catering Tourism Award 2009. This is the second year running that we have been selected as a finalist for this award.

Thank you to all the guests who wrote complimentary comments in the guest book, as this was used as supporting evidence in our nomination, and also to everyone else that supports us with the upkeep and maintenance of the apartment.

Particular thanks to Simon Tiplady for his hard work in providing us with our wonderful ‘Chester Canalside Holidays’ website and also to Sue and her team at Poppies who keep the apartment so beautifully clean.

There “fried” onto the control board was a slug, so always beware if your electric circuits stop working it could just be because a slug curled up for a sleep on it and got fried in the process.

Well what a change we have had over the last few months, Simon finally left home and moved permanently back to the UK, he now lives back in Cheshire and is getting used to the chilly weather again. Graham said it would never happen, but he hadnt taken into account the effect Lisa would have on him!!  

After years of him living at home and us chatting over breakfast and lunch about tweeks and changes to our websites it seems very strange to have to call him or chat on MSM about it. Despite this, we have managed a complete relaunch of our Chester Canalside Holidays website http://www.stayinchester.com we hope you like it. We have bookings for Wharton Lock Apartment right through to 2010 and have over a third of guests book a second, third or fourth holiday, so hopefully the new website will help us continue from strength to strength! 

On our last trip to Chester we enjoyed some wonderful sunny days with blue skies, so out came the camera and now we have some really lovely views on the website. Borrowing our 6 year old neice and giving her a loaf of bread to feed to the ducks certainly helped with the river and canal photos. 

Simon has really done a good job with the website, it looks so much brighter and behind the scenes we have a new backoffice system which makes our life a lot easier. So thanks again Simon for all your work. x x

We opened our emails a few days ago and found out that, thanks to our fantastic guest reviews on one of the Spanish Tourist Board websites, we have been awarded a “Top Rural” Quality Distinction Award.

We are now the proud owners of two metal plaques, one for La Bellota and one for El Corcho Villa, stating we are a “Alojamiento recomendado en toprural.com”.

So thanks to all those who submitted reviews after enjoying a holiday at El Roble Holidays……….the hot tubs certainly are popular.

Simon volunteered to “look after” everything and encouraged us to go away for a short break – we could even leave the laptop behind and he would deal with the enquiries and bookings. We didn’t need much encouragement, so after a quick look on the Internet we chose to stay at Hotel Cueva del Gato and what a fantastic place to stay!

We stayed in the “Gato” room, beautiful style with drapes over the bed. We could choose anywhere in the hotel and grounds to have our table for dinner and so chose a nice spot on the terrace, a peaceful area in the dappled shade of the over hanging tree. The food, service and wine could not be faulted – Dinner (wine and G&T’s included), bed and breakfast was just 104 euros!

The next day we followed a walk Graham had read about. It started in the village of Benaoján Estación just a short distance from the hotel and follows the train track and river through the beautiful countryside until you find you are in the sleepy village of Jimera de Libar Estación. We stopped at a venta in a converted train shed for a very welcome bottle of water, then had a walk around the very quiet village until the train came along to take us back to Benaoján Estación. It had taken us 2 and a half hours to walk there and the train got us back in just 10 minutes!!

All in all a wonderful break away – thanks Simon!

Well we are back from our quick trip to the UK, we flew in on Friday lunchtime and rushed straight to the suit shop for Simon to buy himself a new dinner suit – dont know quite what has happened in the 3 years since leaving uni but the suit he had there no longer fits and when he got his bow tie out of the cupboard it fell to bits – it must have had a lot of use in York University!!

Then we quickly had time to sit by the canal at one of the canalside pubs, so that Graham and Simon can enjoy an English beer, then off to meet Keith who had travelled up from Bristol – off to the apartment with just 3/4 hour to spare before we had to go to the VCC Awards Dinner at the Race Course.

Once we arrived we soon relaxed in the fantastic warm evening sun sipping our glasses of bubbly, we caught up with friends Karen and Alan and enjoyed a lovely evening – we didnt win the Self Catering Holiday Award but as we were delighted to have been shortlisted, we just see it as a run up to next years entry – hopefully better luck next time!

Saturday saw a shopping day around Chester for the four of us then off to Grandparents house in Heswall for a family get together – thanks Mum and Dad it was a lovely roast dinner. After a full cooked breakfast it was back to the airport and to our guests in Spain.

Monday morning brought us right back to normal with a check out, clean, check in and two sets of laundry to do!

Look on our facebook page to see all our photos.

Hey .. it was all worthwhile Wharton Lock Apartment in Chester has been shortlisted for the Self Catering Holiday of the Year in Chester and Cheshire So all the work setting it up getting the four star grading and keeping it busy together with the DHL payment of 104 pounds for submitting the nomination has paid off.

The judges will visit the apartment next week on the same day as our annual grading by Quality in Tourism – so hopefully all will go well!

Then both Graham and I, together with our sons Simon and Keith, will be going to the Gala Award dinner in June at the Roodee Racecourse in Chester to have the winner announced.

So fingers and everything else crossed!!