Costa Del Silencio is only 10 minutes from Reina Sofia airport in Tenerife South, sitting together with Las Galletas on the coastal corner of on the island before it tips up towards Los Cristianos and Las Americas and on to Los Gigantes on the southwest.

The whole small town has been receiving a bit of a face lift recently with footpaths widened and upgraded and a new one way road system. The new pavements are roomy and pleasant – a vast improvement on the narrow and bumpy kerbside trails that made walking from the Hermusa supermarket down to Las Galletas an ankle-breaking adventure rather than a gentle promenade.

Work has been completed in the stretch of Avenida Jose Antonio Tavio much to the relief of shop and bar-owners in the Chapparal and Tre Bol complexes and also from Ten Bel up Calle Diana as far as Maravilla and Desimar while it has just begun in the area of De La Te just past Club Marino and on past Alondras Park to Coral Mar.

Over the next few months I’d be recommending holiday makers look towards the self catering and hotel complexes of Palia Don Jose and Palia Don Pedro as well as Eureka and Maravilla as these properties are in locations where work is completed or not likely to start for the forseeable future.

Alborada is no longer a tourist option as it has turned 100% residential and discourages holiday letting.

There have been quite a few comments and questions from people who have booked their holidays through Xcapewithus. Xcape themselves have made the following announcement:

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Please contact your accommodation provider directly to check that your booking will still be honoured by sending an email to customersupport@xcapewithus.com

PAYMENT BY CREDIT CARD or VISA DEBIT:
If the provider confirms that the booking will not be honoured, and your booking was made with a Mastercard or Visa credit card or a Visa Debit card, you will need to contact your card issuer for a refund. Please note that your card issuer will require proof that the booking will not be honoured.

PAYMENT BY DEBIT CARD or BANK TRANSFER:
If you have paid by Maestro, Switch, Solo or bank transfer we suggest that you check your travel insurance policy to see if you can make a claim.

If you are unable to reclaim your money through your travel insurance then please send an email to claims@xcapewithus.com (with the subject line: ‘Xcape With Us Claim’), please include your reference number. There is little likelihood of there being sufficient funds to enable these claims to be met.

In addition to the above, the comment copied below was posted by Jenny in the Xcape Goes Bust thread:

A word of advice – Xcape used various agencies (in Mallorca at any rate) to make their hotel bookings (such as Serhs and Hotelbeds) and they cancel direct with the hotel. Therefore the hotel cancel the booking, so please use the channels on the Xcape website, as otherwise you may turn up at your hotel to find there is no room. The hotels DO NOT get paid in advance (only after the holiday, sometimes as much as 3 months after) by the agents, and therefore they have no obligation to honour your booking. Sorry to disappoint but I work in reservations in a hotel, and know that we have had direct cancellations from agencies for bookings made originally with Xcape, and we have no way of informing a client as we don’t have their details.  CHECK FIRST is all the advice I can offer

Read the rest of the comments in the thread – Xcape Goes Bust

Online holiday supplier Xcape With Us has gone belly up. With no forewarning for website publishers to remove their banners and ads, they just ceased trading and sent out the announcement about it today. I wonder at what point they stopped taking bookings because I know I was informed of bookings made just last week.

If you visit their website you will see the following message:

We regret to inform you that XcapeWithUs.com has ceased trading as of 30 April 2009.

If you have a confirmed booking and we have your email address you will receive an email shortly explaining what steps you can take.

If your arrival date is 30 April 2009 or 1 May 2009 please email: customersupport@xcapewithus.com with full contact details including your reference number.

At the moment I have no further information but would presume that holiday makers should be able to continue with their plans by contacting Xcape through the channels specified above.

Whether or not affiliates who in good faith helped this company accept holiday bookings will receive their commission is another story.

There are  only two things that you really, really need to bring with you in order to enjoy an unforgettable holiday in Tenerife.

Forget the Factor 25 and you may very well end up with a sunburn that you’ll never forget but leave behind your common sense and you may get burned in another way entirely.

I’ve posted before about Tenerife Timeshare Touts and there are articles on eTenerife both about Cockroaches (no, they don’t bite!) and Tenerife Con Men but an email I received the other day from Sinead Cleary prompted me to bring the subject of Tenerife Rip Off Merchants and Other Insects up again.

Sinead had a fabulous holiday. She thinks Tenerife is a ’smashing’ place and was particularly  pleased to find so many things to do here over and above the typical sun/sand/beach holiday. She should have left Tenerife ready to go home and tell all her mates what a brilliant time she had. Instead, while she made sure to include her positive experiences of the island in her email, the overall impression she’ll be talking about back home is getting ripped off by the camera cowboys.

I asked Sinead’s permission to reprint her email both here and on eTenerife and I couldn’t agree more with her answer. She told me to go right ahead because “…the sooner these feckers stop getting away with making a fool out of us tourists the better!”

Just back from holiday in Tenerife and first off have to say what a smashing place it is…..  Not just a sun/beach holiday like many think, but lots of activities and fun things to do also!  However, to get to the point, I think people should really be made very aware of the con-men in the electronic shops, not all, but fair to say, the majority!

Every second shop is an electrical shop and they all sell mainly the same things with really really cheap prices ie. less than 100 euro for really good cameras and camcorders that are on display.  THESE PRICES MEAN NOTHING!!!!

They will get you into the shop, give you a seat, a drink, fill you with bull-sh*t and crap and try sell you another really expensive and “better” camera.  They will blatently straight out tell you the one that you want is crap and talk you into giving them way more money for something you don’t want.  When calling their bluff once you know their scam and insist on having the original camera at the price quoted, you will hear lines like, “the boss is out”, “call back tomorrow or monday and I’ll have it”, “we’re out of stock at the moment”, “Will have to get it from another shop, but for 50 euro extra!!”, and last but not least, “are you SURE you don’t want this way more expensive one???!!!”

If you’re sucker enough to fall for it, which in fairness they’re so good many would, you’re probably better off buying at home, as you end up paying not only the tax which is supposed to be tax free but you end up paying maybe double what you would at home!  TELL THEM WHERE TO GO!

One guy that was honest, owns a shop called Boots and is called Ricky.  Next beach to Fanabe.  He Rocks!

I should say I have no idea who Ricky from BOOTS is, I’ve never met him or done business with that shop, but after her bad experiences if Ricky’s honesty impressed Sinead enough for her to give him a special mention then I reckon he deserves to be included here as proof that there are good and trustworthy camera shops in Tenerife.

On visits to Tenerife to enjoy some ‘winterless sun’, Sir Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, watched the gradual development of the Sentido San Blas Reserva Ambiental and did not know what to expect from this latest addition to Tenerife’s glitzy array of five star hotels and tourist properties.

Today, in an article in the Times Online, he shares his opinion of the new hotel and pulls no punches about what he thinks of Tenerife’s lack of historical identity.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that is shown to be the case on the 28 Days Later Urban Exploration Forum. Members of that forum explore old buildings and constructions but not necessarily old churches or buildings of significant historical value. They find beauty and interest in the old, abandoned and neglected but everyday structures of times gone by.

Those from the UK UE forum who have visited Tenerife have taken a very different series of holiday snaps than your average tourist. Looking at the pictures of the old dam at El Rio which I must have passed in the car a hundred times, makes me rather sad not to have noticed the odd beauty in this old structure and promise myself to be more observant in future.

Other Tenerife structures that have been documented by the forum are an old miner’s cave from which I borrowed the picture above, and an abandoned army camp at Poris de Abona.

All credit to the Urban Explorers who put those pictures together. Nice job.

Okay groceries to your door, financial services, books, opticians… what next from ASDA? Well online Travel Services of course and via ASDA Travel online you can be picking up a great deal on your next Tenerife holiday or check out worldwide bargain breaks or theme holidays.

Why indeed?