It isn’t just the UK that’s been hit by snow recently. Take a look at the Flickr pictures on the right, or follow this link, and you’ll be able to see Domaine de Litteau, our wonderful Normandy holiday parc, under six inches of snow.

A claim often heard around Charente Maritime, and peddled by the siblu team, is that the region has its own micro-climate which brings as much sunshine as the sunny south.

Well, France’s weather service recently reported on the phenomenen and confirmed that the region really does have its own micro-climate.

By measuring the hours of sunshine across France, they concluded that the stretch of coast just north of La Rochelle to Royan, so taking in siblu’s Les Charmettes, La Pignade and Bonne Anse Plage holiday parcs, is the sunniest on the Atlantic coast.

The reason for this is given as a clash of weather systems from Mediterranean and Scandinavia climates.

The report finds that the area averages more than 2,000 hours of sunshine every year, which isn’t quite enough to keep pace with the Mediterranean regions of Languedoc and the Cote d’Azur.

But at the risk of repeating myself: Charente Maritime has its own micro-climate that makes it the sunniest region on the Atlantic coast.

Three cheers for micro climates!

Today is the last day to enter our search for Mum of the Year.

Since launching this campaign with Netmums we have had more than 1,000 entries. Throughout the campaign we have been asking mums about the amount of voluntary work they do to help families and friends.

The results are fascintating. On average, mums give up more than 4 hours every week to help others with activities like babysitting, helping in local schools and running toddler groups. They are like a hidden workforce, underpinning their local community.

We’ll have lots more information from the survey soon and our judges will be sifting through the entries to find the Mum of the Year for 12 regions in the UK. We’ll be revealing our winners in January. 

�

I recently discovered that the number of people travelling with siblu and booking ferries through us was lower in 2008 than in 2007.

This is surprising, because booking a ferry though siblu is actually the cheapest way to pay for your ferry crossing.

The drop in ferry bookings could mean a couple of things: our customers are booking directly with ferry providers, or they are choosing others forms of transport, most likely flights.

If you are going on a siblu holiday and you book a crossing directly the ferry provider, you are probably paying more than you need to.

If you are travelling with a low cost airline then don’t forget to add up the total cost of your journey: the tickets, taxes, baggage charges and car hire. For families especially, a ferry booked through siblu could be the cheapest option.

Thanks for your feedback on our advert designs. Your comments led to the first ever discussion about siblu on Flickr. Okay it was small, but very exciting for me. In time, we are hoping to build a community where people will converse about all things France, swap ideas, ask questions…

Our blog, Flickr, they’re our first small steps.

(more…)

Siblu had the pleasure of hob-knobbing with the great and good of the travel industry last night at the Daily and Sunday Telegraph’s Travel Awards. Italy again picked up the prize for best European country and Eurostar was named favourite cross-channel operator, much to the horror of our ferry friends who pointed out that Eurostar goes under the channel!

Konnichi wa! Here’s a great idea if you want to learn basic French before your next siblu holidays. I first read about One Minute Language lessons on the excellent website This French Life.

One Minute Language lessons are basically short podcasts that you can download or listen to on your computer, that give you phrases and a few words to get you up and running abroad.

They start with ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and then move on to introductions and pleasant greetings. It’s really basic stuff and my first thought was that it’s a bit too easy, but by the time I’d moved on to One Minute Japanese and One Minute Romanian I realised that lots of people don’t know how to say “hello, how are you” in all sorts of languages.

(more…)

Exciting news for siblu brochure watchers, I can exclusively reveal the new look for our second edition 2009 holidays brochure… and it’s more of the same.

We asked a group of siblu customers to choose a picture for the front of the siblu brochure and their feedback was surprisingly straightforward.

(more…)

If you take a look at siblu.com you might notice things are looking slightly different, but you can’t quite put your finger one what has changed.

That’s because our web manager has been tinkering with the layout, making it easier for you to get to really interesting information that you might not have known was there.

(more…)

Are you a big fan of siblu, do you think our holiday parcs are the bee’s knees? Well we want to hear from you. We are creating a forum of siblu customers who we can use as a sounding board for new product ideas, brochure design and market research.

Anyone taking part in the siblu Brand Forum will have a very real input into the development of our brand and as a small company that is really important to us. If you want to know more, please drop through an email to daniel.johnson@siblu.com, with siblu Brand Forum in the subject line.