OCEANIC, SEASON 8, EPISODE 7 "Now is the summer of our discontent"

Hello,good morning and welcome. Its been a while folks eh! Well don't you worry my little blog followers its back to an update a week again. Why has it been so long since my last one you ask, well Helen was here for 17 days, 17 days you've had to go without an update, you poor things.

Yes, we had a lovely time. Helen was out and about in her little car most of the time. We didn't do as much as we usually do but that's down to myself as I've been conserving my energy for the bar as its still busy and its been quite a draining season so far but we did have the odd day out and about on the bike and went for lunch a few times so we did spend some time together which was nice but business is business, I'm not on holiday, GOD I WISH LOL.

As you all know from my past seasons and updates July & August are always my worst months. Always been the same the past 7 years, in the past i have been sat in the bar till 10.30pm without anyone coming in. No need to get stressed though, as my past books show its the same every single season, i can even tell what each night is like, one night packed out, next night steady. I hate high season. In saying that, July at the  moment is great, still got a bum on every seat at one time or another during the night but early evening does drag a bit, roll on Sept and Oct. The problem with high season is people can stay at the pool and beach till 8pm which means they come out later and go straight  to eat and end up in bar later. Where as in May, June, Sept & Oct people come out earlier for pre-dinner drinks and then come back in after they've eaten. I'm not complaining though, its nice to do good trade within such a short space of time without having to drag out the night to the early hours.

My customer base this season is most probably only 20% regular yearly customers all the rest are new. My customers always tell me how they came to visit my bar and this is the breakdown, the most popular this season has been recommendation from people around the pool or in the hotel, secondly are people who have walked past the bar in the day time liked the look of it and came back, thirdly is Tripadvisor and fourthly is my blog & website. I've always said you can't beat word of mouth and the advertising is free, i like that part the best LOL. We paid for advertising when i was at Tropicana in Argassi. We did flyer's on the beach and Advertised in a brouchure. The flyer's and brouchure advert were vouchers for buy 1 get 1 Free at bar and 30% off your restaurant meal and do you know what, in 6 months we only had 11 vouchers back from the flyer's and brouchers. It didn't even pay for the paper we printed the flyer's on let alone the brochure add. An offer is only as good for the people who want it. If the people don't want it it won't make any difference, you can even end up losing out on the offer as your selling it off cheaper than its normal price. That's why from day 1 with Oceanic never done any offers or free shots, if people like the bar they will come in no matter what.

Have to clear up something at this point. at 12.30am every night i put my chain across the entrance and this is the reason.  In my first 2 years i would leave the entrance open but i would get people coming in late absolutely wasted who had never been in before and disturbing my customers who had been in there all night. My customers would quickly drink up and leave and i would be left having to deal with very drunk people who would keep me there for hours without drinking allot, also I've had 2 guys who came in alone fall asleep on the sofas without touching their drinks. So on the third season i started using the chain. Its almost like V.I.P. time LOL. My customers in the bar know they can still carry on drinking, Customers who have been in before at some point know they can still come in after the chain has gone across but anyone who has never been in before have to come back earlier the next day. I'm not that desperate to stay open late for a few extra euro, I'd prefer to have time to myself as the season is a very long hard 6 months, so every bit of time to myself helps.

So that's the bar chat over with, lets get on with the show. People have been loving my "Selfies" but i now have a travelling companion. As i told you a few updates ago that in the film "Despicable Me" there is a Minion called "Kevin", well guess what, the deaf sellers are selling Minion Kevin's and he lights up and changes colour just like my bar, although he does have more hair than me.
For the first time on the Oceanic blog Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls let me introduce to you my new road  and Selfie buddy Kevin the Minion.

From now on he will be taking my place in my Selfies wherever i go, so his first outing will be tomorrow as Sunday is the only day i get for relaxation and road trips.

Now i have to say that this year the splinter group of biscuit club (Lee, Emma, Jeanette, Nigel, Nikki, Andy, Debbie, Keith) was allot more pumped up for it than the founding members(Sam, Caz, Jackie, Justine,Helen,Cassy) who didn't get any biscuits at all. But i have found my ultimate biscuit so far for the island, my ultimate biscuit of all time is Foxes sports Biscuits i like the little pics on them, OH and Caramel chocolate digestives mmmmmmmmm, but on the island i now have Zoo biscuits,YAY!

Look and all the animals you get, a cat, horse, owl, heffalump, another horse, turtle, ram, rhino, bear, camel, lion and rabbit. Very disappointed though as no Squizzels, i like squizzels, they so cute with their bushy tails waving behind them as they run away from me trying to catch one to cuddle a stroke, i want to pet him and hug him and squeeze him and stroke him, aww he so pruurty, LOL.

So, on one of our days out we went to Xigia beach. Lovely cove beach but a bit a of hike down to it so we just sat at the top and had a coffee but i did notice something.

Here we have a home made dumb waiter to send drinks down to the beach from the snack shack up above it. What a great idea. So if they can do it with drinks why can't they do it with tourists. Just sit them in the basket and wind them down or for the more adventurous set up a zip line and let them speed down the line and land on a sunbed.

I'd definitely take the zip line route, look at all those stairs you got to go down, to much like hard work in this heat.

Now a day out wouldn't be the same without at least one lunch at The Green Boat. I just love this place. You get great food and good value for money. All fresh and cooked to perfection, i could eat here every day but i think i may not be able to run around the bar at night due to the 20 stone i had put on. This is real eating.

Now I'm a bit confused at this point. As we were on our way to a festival in Macherado i came across this road sign

So i didn't really know why it was here as never seen a road sign like it before.
Does it mean that there is a deaf village ahead In which case you can be as loud as you want or you have to know sign language?
Does it mean you have to be quiet in the village?
Does it mean only deaf people allowed past this sign?
or have they just got the sign wrong thinking its a sign for a large curve in the road or half a roundabout?

On another day we went to my favourite beach "Donkey Beach" just past Tsilivi. Its lovely there and they have a great little beach side snack shack. On one of the snack shacks storage buildings there was a painting of a donkey being as its on donkey beach but was bit alarmed when i looked closer. Why has the donkey got a set of gentleman vegetables sticking out of its neck? Odd indeed.

I am still getting asked about the mad axeman, so tomorrow i am sending Minion Kevin back to the axemans shack to check it out. If neither of us update the blog next week you know whats happened. Wish us luck.

I have now been awarded my third Tripadvisor 5 star certificate for excellence and have now been No.1 on Tripadvisor for 5 years. I never set up the bar for achievments and recognition, i set it up just for tourists to enjoy, thats it, nothing more than that. So i'd like to thank a little lad by the name of Richard for posting my first ever review on Tripadvisor and starting the ball rolling, thank you sir. 

So folks I'm back with you again and until next week (hopefully),

Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!