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Posts Tagged ‘competition’

Steigenberger Nile Palace or Costa Del Back Garden, holidays in 2009.

Friday, May 1st, 2009

As the elusive British summertime begins its months long game of hide and seek, many of us begin to think of holidays and jetting off to sundrenched beaches and a brief escape from the rat race. In times of financial instability a holiday could be more than some can manage. For some, perhaps the annual break will be closer to home this year.

I was vaguely considering that I could begin to plan a holiday and musing over destinations when I began to think of the practicalities. My passport is out of date and my children don’t have one at all yet. There, in under 10 seconds is a cost of £164. £72 for my own passport and £46 for each of my children. I just don’t need that headache right now. I don’t need to leave the country.

So, my thoughts returned to good old Blighty.
Now, I’ve travelled the U.K fairly extensively, in caravans, tents, guest houses, hotels and friends homes. I’ve even stayed at a substantial number of English Heritage sites. I have children who think Dora The Explorer has the most exciting life and I love the idea of something new, so, wandering around the internet I found wigwams at Humble Bee Farm.
A lovely homey looking wooden building with real beds starting from £15.00 per person per night and just £8.00 for children. So, £31 per night and no great risk from weather conditions. There’s even a secure lock on the door, which might give me some peace of mind about midnight excursions by the gruesome twosome.

Or what about a Cocoon at Nostell Priory Park at £24.50 per night? A small building which looks like a rigid tent and again guaranteeing you won’t be blown away in the middle of the night. No escapees and the dubious pleasure of cooking outside every night, just like real camping.  It also means I don’t have to get up close and personal with nature, I can scurry back to the more-tangible-than-canvas-relative-safety of a plastic house. I’m warming to the idea.

I think my kids will love camping and it’s an adventure I want them to enjoy, though I worry about them getting out of the tent in the middle of the night in the same manner as they wander around the house eating chocolate in the wee small hours.
Still, I checked out the prices and venues. I remember staying in a lovely place in St Austell, Cornwall a few years ago and their prices for a tent are a very reasonable £4 – £9 per night depending on the season. However, prices vary around the country and during peak season. One site I found mentioned a £20 minimum fee per night during the peak season. You’ll often find money off vouchers in the back of The Camping and Caravanning Guide, available from CCC, Blacks and other similar shops.

Most of my childhood holidays were spent in touring caravans in Great Yarmouth and Skegness, or in static caravans in Cornwall, again, I’d quite like my daughters to enjoy that experience so I checked back to the sites we used when I was small. Vauxhall in Great Yarmouth would be around £418 for a week at the end of June in a dinky little 3 berth static caravan. The same week in Widemouth Caravan Park would be £322.00 as an online booking price.

I had romantic dreams of a cottage in the Lake District one year, all open fires and long country walks ending at cosy country pubs. The prices quoted were in the region of £350.00 minimum per week, for two people, in November! Unimpressed I quickly found a late winter sun deal in Majorca with Thomson for less and we skipped off to laze by the quiet beaches instead of the open hearth.
However a B&B begins at £60.00 per night and a weekend break might be just the thing.

I’ve never been entranced with hotels. They’ve always been associated with work related stays for me, though I confess, as a mental mum of two rampant children, I rather like the idea of no cooking and no cleaning up. Still, a brief search shows I could get a short dated booking for £42.50 in a 4 star hotel in Devon and share. I certainly couldn’t leave my little darlings in a room of their own…despite being far too young, remember the chocolate escapades I mentioned? Imagine a whole hotel full of adventure in the middle of the night. It would be Macauley Culkin Home Alone Part 4, The End!

So many people say that by the time you’ve finished, it’s just as cheap to fly elsewhere for a holiday. Perhaps the answer lies with Lastminute.com . The cheapest holiday I can find there is for £450.00 flying from Luton to Costa Brava and I’d still have to get the passports, bringing the total back up to over £600.00 without travel at either end, or insurance, or spending money. But the lure of no cooking and cleaning is strong.  I could even write a blog to enter the 99% off competition and win the chance to have my holiday for just £4.50!  No, I’d aim for the luxury of the Steigenberger Nile Palace in Luxor, Egypt. A snip at £489.00 per person. Still, that would be one paid for, a mere £4.89 from my pocket.

Maybe there is more to be said for Costa Del Back Garden. I think I’ll leave it a little while longer and bag a last minute deal, crossing my fingers for extra savings with vouchers on BView.

Tags: BView, camping, caravans, competition, holidays, hotels, vouchers
Posted in Business, Competitions, Features, Findings, General | 1 Comment »

Are you the most worthy of 99% off?

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Savings, savings, savings. Everyone’s tightening their belt; buying no-name; downloading coupons, and hunting for bargains.  BView wants to be a part of that: we’ve got savings from the big boys and the little guys (or girls). We might even have savings for your neighbourhood… check out your local area here. But enough of that, you’re probably here because you want the daddy of vouchers. I’m offering you 99% off ANYTHING in the world (up to £500). That’s right, anything. But you don’t get this big lovin’ for free, you gots to do a bit o’ work for it!

*The work:

1. You write a blog post telling the world what you’d do with your 99% off.  Make sure you have a link back to www.bview.co.uk.
2. Send an email to competition@bview.com and give us a link to said posting.
3. All entries have to be received by midnight GMT on Saturday, April 25, 2009.
4. I’m going to shortlist my top 10 favourites, and then the lovely attendees of Social Media Camp London will vote on the winner, which will be announced by 8pm Sunday, April 26, 2009 GMT.
5. You can enter as many times as you like (if you have multiple blogs, then go for it!).
6. People from anywhere in the world can enter, but the prize will be awarded in pounds sterling.

So that’s it.  Now it’s time for you to get your creative hats on (I know I’ve been singing, “If I had a million dollars” in my head while writing this)! To get you started, us folk at the BView office have come up with what we’d do with the savings. You’re lucky our boss won’t let us enter, but hopefully they will inspire you to think of some great ideas.  Good luck, and I look forward to reading your entries!

Dan (the developer)

If I had 99% off anything, I imagine I would take a trip down to the picturesque village of Bray. With no wallet to burden me and a crisp £5 note in my freshly ironed shirt pocket, I would walk purposefully into The Fat Duck with my girlfriend and ask for the finest table (Norovirus be damned). After enjoying one of the finest meals in the world, I would personally hand Mr Blumenthal the £5 note and ask him to bill the rest to BView.

Huw (the developer)

I would like to invest £375 in the UK stock market; strategically selecting shares in struggling companies within the financial sector (such banking and insurance based companies).  Following this, I would spend £100 on premium bonds, and squander the remaining £25 on a new jumper (NOTE: I may purchase 2 jumpers, depending on the price per-jumper).

Colin (the product guy)

I’d take my wife away for a week in cornwall. Just a bit of a break from the norm, just a little something to break the monotony of all that child care that has gotten to be a little bit out of control. It would be cool to to be in France but what about a beach that soothes, that reignites romance? A bargain for a fiver.

Simon (the community guy)

With 99% off I’d have to go for a Canon EOS 40D to replace my beaten up and practically ancient 350D. It would be a shame having to replace it if i won (I’ve had it for so long) but something tells me I’d get over it….

Kat (the web designer)

I have a problem: I love goats, especially baby ones, and so I’ve made up a character named safetygoat, who, sporting a fetching red lifejacket, has become my little mascot.  I had this idea that I could make plastic replicas of them, but minimum quantities means it’s expensive (and I’d end up with hundreds, maybe even thousands of the little guys).  So, I’ve been making them on my own by making a silicon mould and pouring polyeurathane and then painting the result.  You can see the adventures of safetygoat here.

They’re pretty cute, but they’re not exactly the most refined looking toy. So, with my £495 (with a fiver of my own cash) I’d like to make proper vinyl safetygoats.   I’d get them properly made in some third world country, and I would get loads of them, so anyone who wanted their very own safetygoat could have one! It would be a dream come true!

We can’t win (unfortunately), so now it’s your turn!

So get out there and write your entries

Tags: 99% off, competition, discounts, free money, Savings, voucher, win bview, win £500
Posted in Announcements, Competitions, Events, offers, Savings | 9 Comments »

November's Fashion Challenge

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

To celebrate the Fashion Awards which are taking place this month,  the cheesecake competition topic is ..fashion and beauty!

Coco Chanel once said, ‘fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.’ We want you to share what fashion means to you!

What’s your style? Do you have a favourite vintage store? Which high street shops do you think are a hit? Which online stores are a definite miss? Share your advice and experiences with the BView community and you could win a delightfully delicious cheesecake from The English Cheesecake Company!

Entering is easy, all you have to do is login to BView and find the company you wish to review.

How we choose the winning review and what we look for:

- a catchy title

- a detailed description of your experience

- pictures! It’s fashion so we would love to see some pics with your review

Not sure where to start? Here are some names that you could review Asos, Body Shop, Marks & Spencers, Selfridges&Co, MAC, French Connection, Topman, Topshop or you could check our Online Health & Beauty categories for more ideas! You can find more help on review writing here.

Submit as many reviews as you like but don’t forget to send us a copy of your reviews so we know you wish to enter: community@bview.co.uk.

October’s cheesecake winner

Finally the boys beat the girls! The winner of last month’s topic on technology is William F from Brixham. In his review titled ‘SVP- Super Value Products’, William advises ‘if you buy media mail order then I would recommend them, as they are efficient and not expensive’ but highlights as a local he isn’t impressed that he can’t just collect his goods anymore.

Congratulations William! Enjoy the cheesecake, which you should find on your doorstep soon!

Tags: BView, cake, competition, fashion, fashion awards, reviews
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Cake 1.0 is over. Now releasing Cake 2.0

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Hi there. It’s your friendly neighbourhood kat here, Thanks for all your entries to our first site-wide cake competition! The winner is…

Joy W from Sheffield for her review of Gullivers Eco Park Ltd entitled, “Not for genuine Lilliputians (toddlers)”!

Loved the title, and you can really sense Joy’s rage at her little ones being slightly too tall to fit under the 90cm restriction for getting in for free. She describes the venue beautifully, and goes through the entire park, describing eating and toilet facilities. Great review Joy!

In close second, we have Kelly R from Newbury!

She wrote a review entitled, “Definitely not exhausting going here!” of Ats Euromaster Ltd. I loved her ‘car pun’ in the title, and it is an extremely well written, and extraordinarily detailed review. She tells you what products they sell, how the service was, and by the end of reading it, you are left feeling as grateful as her for the excellent service!

Hope you enjoy your cake, Joy! (and Kelly, I will be sending you a little prize in the post soon as well! Hopefully both will take some photos so we can show them to the rest of you.)

And now for next month…

Write your reviews of Animals!

That’s right, write anything about animals. It could be a pet store, farm, zoo, or just your local convenience store that happens to have a dog that sits on the counter. Here’s a little inspiration… Huw L’s review of Mudchute Park & Farm. As you can see, he has a great title, and, most importantly, fantastic photos and lots of personality in his review.

• Contest closes on September 30th
• You can enter as often as you like, but make sure you share your review with kathryn.neville@bview.com (or send me a link to your review)
• I give extra marks for photos, witty titles, and dialogue in your text.
• Make sure you give relevant information about the business as well!

If you need some more inspiration, I will send you photos of fuzzy animals. I’m quite partial to goats.

And, as promised in the email current bview members receive, here’s your animal haiku!

• bah neigh rawr moo oink
• Write your animal reviews
• But please in English

P.S. If you can write a better haiku, post it on my wall!

Tags: animal reviews, cake, cake competition, cake contest, cake winners, competition, reviews
Posted in Announcements, Competitions | 1 Comment »