If you missed Travel Diary 1 – click here

23 February 2013 continued:

Karolina and I met Daren, the Sales and Marketing manager at Shores Bar for a drink before heading to  our reserved table at Sapori restaurant. I needed something refreshing, this humidity is wonderful but thick.

After drinks, we headed to Sapori where we sat at a table on the edge of the Piazza and our waitron, Lovin, offered us a bottle of Red wine from Chile.

K, B and Daren

The desserts are always incredible and Long Beach resort has one of the top pastry chefs…

Just when we thought the selection couldn’t get any better, Karolina spotted fresh Vanilla souffles coming out… We’ve both never had a souffle before and I’m so glad we tried them. Delicious!

While we were devouring our souffles, the lights on the Piazza flashed on, the music came up and dancers entertained us with a 20 minute show.

After a brilliant dinner, with great food, wine and company, Karolina and I popped into the night club, Bombora, but since we have a very early start tomorrow morning, we’ve decided to be responsible. Nerds!

They had Bulldogs skateboarding on the TV behind the barman who was showing off his impressive skills! I’m missing Duke!

24 February 2013:

I’ve woken up early, to a beautiful day – it’s still semi overcast, but it looks like it may start clearing! I’m very excited!

Karolina and I met for breakfast – I had the scrambled eggs and crispy bacon option with Vanilla tea…

We need to be ready for our transfer to the new hotel Ambre. We are spending the day there to experience the hotel, their hospitality, beach and so on.

The hotel called us a taxi driver and within 10 minutes we were pulling up to the Ambre Hotel. It was renovated for 6 months and has only been in new operation for 4 months. Karolina and I were warmly welcomed by the smiling staff and handed a Tamarin and Lemonade welcome drink, which was wonderfully refreshing because it is so humid I can barely breathe. Karolina seems to be able to handle this weather much better than I can.

Rajen, the executive assistant manager very kindly took us on a tour. The renovations mainly focused on the central bar, the restoration of the 297 rooms and the pool.

Ambre Hotel boasts an impressive conference room, a teenagers loft with computers, table tennis, pool and more; a pub and sports bar where people can watch various sporting events and use it as a games and card room. It also has a night club called Shakers, open to the hotel guests every night from 10pm – 2am.

Rajen showed us the impressive sports and large fitness centre, that really has amazing gym equipment. The kids centre is too cute and Karolina and I wanted to stay and colour in.

Just saying.

The Pub and Sports Bar

Teenagers Loft

La Dolce Vita

Indigo

They have 3 restaurants – The Italian restaurant called, La Dolce Vita; The main restaurant called Indigo, and La Plage restaurant on the beach.

The pool is amazing and central and actually has 3 pools in 1 – it has a children’s pool, the main pool and an infinity pool.

The Spa is very simple with 4 cabins, 1 of them overlooks the beach and the therapists are excellent.

I love the decor of the place – fresh, clean white with accents of coral, turquoise and orange.

Karolina and I kept saying how homely it feels. Even though it is luxurious, it feels down to earth, family oriented and comforting.

Rajen very sweetly offered us a room for the day where we could relax before lunch, but we decided to make use of their beach and new pool.

We lay like lizards in the sun, that kept playing peek-a-boo with the rain threatening clouds.

We were treated to a wonderful lunch at La Plage and devoured a Seared Tuna and Palm Heart salad. It was incredible!

Rajen very kindly took us back to Long Beach Hotel and I’d just like to thank the staff at Ambre Hotel for their warm kindness.

We got back to Long Beach and went straight to the pool, where I fell asleep for a little while.

I woke up and Karolina suggested we head over to the Shores Bar where they serve High Tea from 3-5pm. We indulged in cappuccinos, vanilla tea and pancakes. So good. I make a mental note: I definitely have to hit Long Beaches amazing gym tomorrow.

Tonight we’re eating at Chopsticks. I am quite excited because the 2 chefs are from Shanghai and their speciality is hand made noodles.

Definitely have to do gym tomorrow.

Serving Jasmine Tea

On our way to dinner, we always see these massive snails… Most of them end up squashed, which is quite sad (and gross.)

We found this particular big guy munching on leaves. We’ve decided to call him Simon.

Simon the Snail. We’ve become quite protective over him… We definitely don’t want to see him squashed!

K and I decided to sit in her room, have tea and do our work together…

I’m falling asleep though and we have another jam packed day tomorrow… It’s off to my room for a good night sleep, but not before I publish this post!

 

Travel Diary 3 coming up…

For reservations or further information please call World Leisure Holidays on 0860 954 954,or email us on res@wlh.co.za , or log onto our website, www.wlh.co.za

Please note that all photography is my own and is copyrighted. If you would like to use any photographs, please contact me first. Thank you.