Reflecting on the year that has passed.

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2013 has not been the best year for Portugal, but here at DDBC we had a fantastic year and we would like to share some of our best times with you all as we say hello to 2014.

January – The year started off with us having a few professional football teams, including FC Utrecht, stay with us. 

February – We had the resort filled up with professional cyclists from all over the World,including Team Sky Pro Cycling as well as several participants from Volta ao Algarve (Tour of Algarve –the largest cycling event in the Algarve). This February was particularly warm reaching highs of 18 °C!

March - 200 tennis players visited the resort from schools all over the U.K. They all stayed for one week  each, so overall they stayed with us for 6 weeks. The resort was very lively during this period. The sun was shining with great temperatures reaching as high as 21 °C.

During this month we also had a Norwegian Jazz band staying with us, this resulted in the restaurant being fortunate enough to host a lovely Jazz evening.

We also celebrated the Easter holiday, with the kids club creating a great Easter egg hunt for all the children around the resort.

April – As usual the resort had several golfing groups, as well as families trying to soak up the good weather. (22 °C)

 

May – On the 7^th of May, we had our yearly ‘a day in paradise’ day for special needs from central Algarve. Every year we offer the resort for this event and provide, food, drinks, games and all our other facilities for the day. Our suppliers are wonderful contributors providing us with all the food! Our fantastic staff, all work for free and it really is a memorable day open to the public to join in! They even make paintings that they sell themselves. The highlight of this day is always the Karaoke, where they all take turns in singing for us all!

In May, as usual, we had a fantastic 17^th of May celebration (the 17^th of May is the Norwegian national day). We celebrate this every year as if we were to be in Norway, with reindeer fillet, cured meat of reindeer,  gravad laks and the odd aquavit (Norwegian schnapps).

For the children we provide Norwegian hot dogs wrapped in a traditional Norwegian ‘lompe’ (a Norwegian wrap). We were a very lively group of around 100 people from all over the world joining us Vikings for this great tradition. If you haven’t experienced this yet we would strongly suggest joining us in the coming year! It really is a day to remember!

 

June – The Norwegian and Irish end of term, resulting in several families coming to enjoy their holiday.

On the 10^th we celebrated the Portuguese national day with Portuguese traditional food, wine, music as well as a miniature market with the proceedings going a Portuguese charity.

July  & August – This is the high point of the season, with guests from all over the world!  We are always fortunate enough to be fully booked during these months. We are lucky and get to meet people from everywhere! This year even included people coming over from Canada, Singapore and South Africa!

September – This year we had 3 weddings during September! What a wonderful day to be able to partake in!

All the leading Nando’s executives from all over the World came (400 people) and stayed with us! They had a wonderful celebration around the pool area.

October – Half term for European countries. This was a month packed with children enjoying the last bit of sun for the summer! We had families from Scandinavia, Ireland, U.K, Germany and Holland!

November – Our long term residents arrived to escape from the cold, and rightly so, the weather was absolutely fantastic!! The dark and cold of northern Europe simply cannot compare (and don’t forget that we have up to 40% off on long term rentals). 

In November, we also had a fantastic bridge tournament with players enjoying a lovely day with lunch and the winner receiving a cash price! Proceedings went to ACCA children's charity. (apart from 15€ p/p ) 

December – This December has been absolutely packed with events! We had a wonderful staff Christmas party (where we managed to get everything funded by our wonderful food suppliers! What great Christmas spirit!! ).

We had a lovely Latino evening with a special tapas menu and Teca, and David showed us all how to swing those hips! We had a nice group of people with a great passion for dance!

Staff children’s Christmas party – as usual we hosted a party for the children of the staff as well! 32 children showed up! We had lots of fizzy drinks, cakes and games! The kids club staff helped with face painting and danced with the children! It was so lovely to see so many happy faces. We even managed to arrange for Santa to come!! Santa gave every single child a gift and really made the evening that extra bit special!

We hope that you have all enjoyed reading about the highlights of 2013 as much as we enjoyed writing about them! We are now ready for a new year, with a new website to be going live in a months time and a fantastic New Years Eve celebration that we are truly looking forward to! Wishing you all an absolutely fantastic new year and rest of holiday! Best wishes from all the staff here at Dunas Douradas Beach Club! Hope to see you all very soon!