Polaris Future

Hi Guys & Gals

Just spent a day over at Condado and two days at the Mar Menor Resort and we used the free night and discounted night vouchers from the Polaris World "club hotel" card. We had a lovely time and made excellent use of the facillities on offer at MM Resort.

The Boulevard is now populated with bars and restaurants and from what we could work out the Night club, Bar and restaurants near the entrance are all "Polaris World (BANK)" owned or at least we could use our discount card in them. The other pub, Route 66 Diner and Flavours bar are independently owned. These were cheaper to use but we found the route 66 diner to be nicely done out but the food was abismal. Take the kids for shakes and burgers but we would not recommend much else. 

The thing that we noticed the most on the resort was that there is absolutely no mention of Polaris on any literature, sales office or anything else for that matter only the supermarket remains with PW branding. The official property sales centre is called IM and the independent estate agents MGP have there offices in the boulevard now too.

We know the banks took a most of the resort properties and land etc and OLA run the golf but it is almost like PW never existed there....

Looks like from what we're reading on here the only place we're going to be not able use our club card is Condado!!! Still the vouchers are still worth it.

As for Polaris the Fat lady has well and truly cleared her throat!

Jay & Lisa

and good riddance

Anyone who has visited La Manga Club will know that it is possible to have independently owned and operated bars/restaurants/shops etc without compromising the overall resort quality.  I truly hope that this turns out to be the case on our resort.  I would hate the place if it ended up like a little Britain with crappy shops, tacky bar furniture and loutish antics etc.  Polaris did have a great vision which, had it panned out as planned, would have given us something very special to be proud of.  They had rules such as no football shirts and, indeed, no access to the bars etc without a shirt/t shirt which I think are both sensible standards.  Now, before anyone goes kicking off about footie shirts - I am a football fan but, coming from the south west of Scotland originally, I have seen the needless pain and aggro that some - not all - football fans inflict on others.  Nearly always exacerbated by the consumption of alcohol.  Of course the kids may well want to wear their football shirts but at least they don't get p***** up and lairy!!!!!  Arlene.

Football and Scotland!! Now theres an oxymoron

It's a fair cop!!

That's my fear as well Arlene. The last thing we want is Al Kazar being populated with lairy blokes in football shirts (and I say that as a football fan myself). If you want that kind of thing Camposol is just 5 minutes away.

Hopefully there will be rules in place by either the community or the owners to prevent this. I'll hold off celebrating until we know how this pans out though, without some safeguards I fear the resort may decline. We need quality, not quantity.

Time will tell, hopefully my fears will be unfounded.

Cahddyowl, fair point. A bit like England and tennis, in fact. ;)

No No Cappieflow when its tennis its British

Hee hee, true Chaddyowl, he's only Scottish when he loses, I forgot. :)

On both the Friday night and the Saturday night at the Boulevard both the Polaris bars and the independent places were alive and doing good business. The non Polaris places were smartly done up and had a nice mixtureof English and Spanish customers. If our CDA centre ends up similar to that then I for one will be pleased. Our potential is even better than the boulevard because of the size of the place.

Jay

Do recall seeing this week some posh blokes at ROYAL ASCOT kicking seven bells out of each other. They used  table legs, champaign bottles etc to blood curdling effect.  All were wearing very nice suits, shoes, shirts etc.  All this in such close proximity to innocent bystanders, that they were forced to flee for fear of injury.  It took intervention from the Military near the scene to stop it.

Moral of the story?  Its not the shirts but the person inside it.

Its a HOLIDAY bar. Let people wear what they feel comfortable in. When (yes when) we get a clubhouse then invoke some form of dress code there.

Frank

A prat is a prat - whatever they are wearing and wherever they are.  The combination of alcohol and football shirts are - I'm more than sure - responsible for a hell of a lot more 'incidents' than some neds at Ascot once in a hundred years causing a bit of a rammy in their suits.  I don't see the point in tempting fate. I'm sure a normal t shirt is every bit as 'comfortable' as a football shirt???

Jay I also went to the boulevard at Mar Menor this weekend and was impressed. 

I dont believe Condado has the same potential, at Mar Menor there are thousands of properties and tens of thousands of residents all within their catchment area. They neighbour large towns like Torre Pacheco, Las Alkazares and San Javier. They also provide (or used to) free transportation between other resorts.

Condado stands all alone, there are no major towns within 10 km. Excluding Totana, Alhama and Camposol the nearest major towns are Mazarron and Murcia, both of these places have plenty of great bars and I cant see people traveling 25-40 km to visit a new bar in Al Katraz.

Although I personally travelled all the way to Mar Menor to try their bars, its not somthing I would consider doing on a regualr basis as I cant drink and its a 40 minute drive each way, just wanted to see what was on offer from other former polaris developments.

Oh and on the subject of Football shirts, who on earth thinks these look smart? 

Travel to Camposol, you will fit in better!

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves trying to sort out the dress code for all the future bars on the resort.

But I do agree with the sentiment behind it. 

Don't think we have too much to worry about in the short term. 

And if people want to wear football shirts, I say let them.  I'm sure there's plenty of responsible supporters who can have a few pints without turning into football hooligans.

It's those rowdy golfers in funny outfits that you have to worry about!

Well said SMV. Live and let live. We dont even have any new bars etc and we already have people on this forum wanting to set out a dress code of what people should wear.Everyone who has bought on the community has the entitlement to wear what they like.As far as i was aware we dont live on some state run development where we all have to wear what we are told. Im fed up listening to people on this forum running down places like Campo Sol as if they think they are better than the people on Camposol.At least they have bars,restaurants, banks etc and im pretty sure if it wasnt for Camposol there would be even fewer people visiting our so called 5 star resort. These people on Camposol have villas worth far more than any property on Condado yet we have people on this forum looking down at them as if they are some kind of low life. As i mentioned earlier live and let live i dont see the residents of Campo Sol having a go at our 2 star resort.

Rant Over

No one is running down the people on Camposol as a whole. I have friends there. It is just such a shame that pretty much every time I go down there in the evening all I seem to see are drunk teenagers, graffiti'd walls and swearing shirtless louts and my heart goes out to the good people who probably bought into another '5 star' resort as we did but allowed a minority to 'live and let live' and ended up with the aforementioned!  It's not the people who are being 'run down' simply the state that the resort has been allowed to get into.  A large proportion of Camposol residents are working their butts off at the moment to try to get the place back up to scratch.

Some folk are awfully sensitive on here.

Anyway, spot on Arlene, I couldn't agree more.

If folk like the town centre of Camposol, that's perfectly fine, personal choice and all that. It's just not for me, that's all, sorry if that opinion upsets anyone. So personally I'd be very disappointed if Al Kazar turned out like Camposol town centre because I bought into a multi-national family friendly resort, not 'Little England'.

I hope that opinion doesn't offend anyone, it's not intended.

Cappielow

Good Point Well Made!

Our resort is on the verge of getting re-started.  Unlike Darren I feel that although our resort is not as close to towns like Torre Pacheco/Los Alcazares as the Mar Menor resort is you only have to look at La Manga club for the possiblities. It only has two small towns of Los Belones and La Union but over time has blossomed into the resort that all others aspire to. 

I'm not suggesting for one minute that CDA will be a La Manga club anytime soon but it sure does have the potential to be in the long term. In the short term it is vital that who ever is granted permission to trade in the Alkasar, they must have the right ethos and philosphy that fits in with our resort image. The bars and restaurants at the boulevard that are not PW(bank) owned are quality set up's with the right image that befits the resort. I'm sure that can be maintained at our place. We have the potential for a 5 star resort and with a world class golf course on it we should at last be feeling very positive.

As for the the football shirt debate.....being a life long gooner most anti-social/voilent behaviour that I have witnessed is usually caused by people not wearing their football colours. I think like golfin Jim said earlier football shirts in pubs and bars is fine especially if the kids want to wear em whether they're British or Spanish shirts etc. When we get eventually get our majestic club house then obviously a smarter and more formal dress code should be applied.

Come on one all lets embrace this new begining it's just what we need and I'm sure we wont end up with chinese bazzars and the like (mind you they're handy, but not on our resort eh!!)

Jay

The bars and restaurants at the boulevard  at the mmgr are dead in the day time, ive been there a few times in the last week, its a night time thing .A lot of people on all the polaris resorts are thinking outside companies will come in and trade, i personally dont think they will, because there will never be enogh footfall on the resorts 4 months worth of trade out of 12 months is the killer. . The boulevard at the mmgr  has lots of outside passing trade so in time will do well.