Sant Carles Marina?

Don't have a Hertz Gold but Hertz is always terrible as ie Europe car for ques and general attitude. Sixt belive it or not are far better out of Nice, much better attitude and never anyone queing, DOH I shouldn't be telling the world this.
 
I don't think it's worth having a car with your Med boat. Most of us don't have crew/stewies to drive us around so where are you going to park it at the airport without parking charges? Then, for sure, leaving an old car parked up for months will only result in it not starting or needing an expensive repair
I have an Avis Preferred card. I book online and I don't even have to wait at the Avis desk in the terminal. I just walk straight to the rental car park and pick up the car there. It takes minutes, I get a shiny new car that works and I don't have to worry about maintaining it. IMHO it only makes sense to own a car if you're going to spend months living on your boat but for occasional weekends and holidays, it's not worth it
 
Wake up yes that's right

Yes, 06 plate local car makes you blend in, loads better. A few bumper scratches help too. The yoofs are still busy snatching bags from rental cars near the airport - must always lock your doors. You don't want to get attached to the car or care about it; best to be happy for anyone to drive it and thrash it. Modern cars don't break anyhow

Insurance for me is €380 year fully comp any driver for a 3 yrs old Fiat Panda. No tax disc. CT (MOT) every 2 years, dead easy takes 20mins. When you buy the car there is some Carte Gris paperwork and you stand in a Q at the mairie's office or summink, but I paid a local fixer lady €100 and she did all that for me

FWIW I bought an ex rental car off the nice little ML car hire shop in Antibes. Martine the proprietor always has 2.5 yrs old Puntos, Pandas, those small Citroens (C2 or smmink?) avialable for €4500 ish. She's very nice - I bought and paid for mine without even seeing it - she and many small business folks down there are completely trustworthy
 
All exellent points but you still can't fly into Reus (sorry, Barcelona-Reus!) late on a Friday night and return late on Sunday night for weekend boating as you can into Nice, Palma or Barcelona and are entirely reliant on O'Leary's goodwill for Ryanair to continue to fly there. If you can buy loads of seats at £0 then you can be sure it won't be for long. What is the cruising like from S Carles? Yes I know there is a lagoon but are there loads of little calas in which to drop the hook which are sheltered from the prevailing wind which I'm guessing is predominantly an easterly onshore wind?
I'm not being negative about S Carles because I think it has a lot of good points but we had a season in Denia just down the coast and found the following. You quickly get fed up with a long drive from the airport. It's OK for the first few times but after a while, you begin to wonder whether it's all worth it especially after a delayed flight. If a town is dead during the winter it's not much fun particularly if your favourite restaurants are shut. On the coastline around Denia and I suspect it's the same around S Carles it was difficult/impossible to use the nicer anchorages on many days because of the strength of the prevailing wind exacerbated by the afternoon seabreeze. This also made the sea conditions often lumpy. This was worse during the summer than the winter. We found the same thing on the Costa Brava north of S Carles on our cruise there last year. So we found ourselves cruising across to the Balearics when we could so any saving we made on berthing fees in Denia compared to Majorca/Ibiza was eaten up in extra fuel costs getting there. In the end, I concluded that the extra cost of berthing in Majorca were justified by the better cruising ground, proximity to a big airport and being open all year
Just the way we ended up thinking and not a criticism of S Carles so please don't flame me
 
No, if you have hertz gold they valet-bring the car to arrivals at the terminal and the same when you retrun. A mate uses it (has house in St Trop, so needs car) and he says it works perfectly. I just ignored it in my post cos it aint the cheapest way to rent a car and you gotta accrue 3 or more stands-in-the-queue to be awarded gold, you can't just buy your way in.

I still prefer having my own car becuase i do so many weekends there it is loads cheaper and more convenient. I'm also a b*gger for sitting on the boat in beautiful anchorage at 5pm Sunday and 3G-ing to easyjet website and switching my flight home to 24 hrs later, and if you then have to contact Hertz it becomes a bit of a shagarama, so I still think owning a car is best fopr maximum convenience.

And I don't set out to be lazy, it's just that if you do the UK Med trip lots you have to (imho) do everything to eliminate inconveniences, to make the journey bearable (so, get those Easyjet front-of-queue cards, frexample)
 
Yep mike, that would be my impression too of S Carles, though I have no first hand knowledge. So i'd be interested to know if the cruising grounds are any good. One of the things i find attractive about the Cote D'Azur is the many anchorages in the lee of the wind no matter what direction it is, thanks to the 2 Caps (D'Antibes and Ferrat) plus the two Lerins islands. Also I like the vibrancy of towns like antibes. But I'd be happy to be corrected and interested to hear if I'm underestimating S Carles and the spanish mainland coast
 
Noted - have to agree with the amount of time you seem to have 'away'.

i have had the 'card' for so long its just automatic and the rate seems good too. I just wanted to counter the queue issue thats all.

Certainly the low cost add ons now appear to make the travel a bit more bearable. My problem is I did a Ryan flight ages ago to Dublin and the whole episode will not be repeated by either me nor SHMBO. Also living in W london makes LHR a no-brainer as is so easy for us to get to compared to the other airports although we reckon S'hampton would be easier as next choice.


I also like the option, as you say, of changing your travel plans at a moments notice and say sod-it lets have another day and 5/10mins on 3G and you are done!
 
JFM,

Panda, theres posh as they say in Wales, I guess it will fit on your bathing platform also for crusing ;-) Any LEDs fitted to it ?

Good tips on sourcing a cheapo run around thanks.

Wakeup
 
Dunno how it works in the SoF but in the Balearics there are lots of local car hire compnies who dont have a permanent booth in the airport, you just meet up with them in the arrivals area, do a quick 5 minutes paperwork, they take old fashioned credit card imprint (usually by rubbing it with a pencil rather than a card press) and off you go. Usually much quicker than the big boys inside the airport, but quality of service and cars a little less certain.
 
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And I don't set out to be lazy, it's just that if you do the UK Med trip lots you have to (imho) do everything to eliminate inconveniences, to make the journey bearable (so, get those Easyjet front-of-queue cards, frexample)

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Agree entirely with that because the convenience of the journey there has a direct bearing on whether you will enjoy the whole Med boating experience. There are other downsides to Med boating and, for me, an inconvenient journey getting there would make me question whether it's all worth it
Yup, Lerins is a superb anchorage. I was always surprised that, however lumpy the sea appeared around the islands, the anchorage between them was always reasonably flat and, however crowded it looked, you could always squeeze yourself in somewhere
 
Deleted User – Definitely no flaming; your views/experience/comments are noted and of course very welcome. We must have a balanced perspective and with limited experience of berthing in the Med., mine is somewhat skewed towards SCM at present!

We did consider the 4-year berth plan with free transfers to/from Reus to the marina, but we thought we should go for a one year plan first just to see how it worked out.

Ryanair: Who is to say in today’s financial climate other airlines are any more certain to provide more secure/better flights, indeed there is a case that the masses may flock to the cheaper end of the market strengthening it, as is the case at the mo with food stores! I do agree, not as easy to weekend, but then an extra hour travelling gets you to/from Barcelona and given the motorway connection I can’t see a problem even with this! First time out I used Barcelona! Easy drive – no problem! But Reus is just perfect for me – not experienced a full summer yet!

Cruising: This is my first time berthing in the Med/SCM, so no real experience of all-year round local spots/conditions yet. We did a trip to Majorca staying in Pollenca and then Soller earlier this year, which was eventful, but very enjoyable. SCM lagoon is somewhat protected I expect and should be OK - you can hop around Cape Tortosa for a North facing bay and or course there is the Ebre river – navigation unsure! I hope to hop down to Denia later this year for a trip to Ibiza, so I may PM you for guidance!

Food: Restaurants still open in SC, there is already a large and established local marina adjacent to the MDL one! We took a trip out recently to take a look around L’Ampolla and had a good meal out in December!

Although I must say I did enjoy visitor’s berths in Pollenca and Soller!
 
Yep, like you, this is our first Med base so we might be a bit naive but there are some things that we already like.
Some like jfm seem to like the (how did he put it) vibrant towns but personally, I prefer a sleepy Spanish coastal resort without the noise of a big town.

Deleted User
We visited Denia when we first decided on Sant Carles and you simply cannot compare the two. IMO, Denia has little or no character - the sea front seemed full of the "kiss me quick" brigade and the town had nothing to offer.
On the other hand, Sant Carles is a very Spanish area - hardly anyone speaks English thus making it a very different place to visit. Couple that with the excellent facilities that we are begining to see now at the new marina.

Here is a linkk to my post last week for anyone who didnt see my report/update.

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2143439/an/0/page/3#2143439
 
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Denia has little or no character - the sea front seemed full of the "kiss me quick" brigade and the town had nothing to offer.


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On the whole I agree with you and it was one of the many reasons we left. The town is chokka in the summer and dead in the winter although the town has an excellent boutique style hotel and a superb steak restaurant but that's about it. The marina, though, is first class in terms of it's facilities and when we left, there were upmarket shops and restaurants moving in
But what really got to me in the end was that Denia is 1 1/2hrs hard drive from the nearest airport (Alicante) and the local cruising grounds are limited compared to the Balearics. North of Denia there is nothing but a flat featureless coastline. South there are more calas and inlets but you have to travel a few miles to get to them and all are exposed to onshore winds. The last point is that the area is somewhat notorious for lumpy seas. Not sure why but often we would return from Ibiza in flat calm seas and a few miles off Denia meet choppy conditions. I think the area has a bit of it's own microclimate
I know there are forumites who berth there but I couldn't recommend the place
 
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