New season begins

Excuse me for not posting anything since March. During March I did not have access to a computer while we were on the Sunshine Coast in the town of Colundra.

Colundra was found to be very quite as compared to Noosa or the Gold Coast. Of course the month of March is off season. It is a very attractive town with two courses. Club Pelican is a Greg Norman course and we have seen the green fees double since it was opened. Today it is $120 or $85 for twil light time. We joined the town course for $180 each for the month. This also gave us a pull cart.

This course I would rate about 3 stars. It is a good layout and they have a decent club house. They need to put some money into the course for cart paths, and manicuring. While we were there we had to put up with coring and top dressing. It seemed to take two weeks for the greens to get back to normal after receiving the treatment.

We also played Horton Park and Twin Waters a couple of times. Twin Waters is a course anyone would enjoy. Horton Park is very good, but the back nine has some short holes and two par 3 back to back. It was in excellent shape.

The golf on the Sunshine Coast is more expensive and not as many courses to choose. Tewantin is probably the best of the non expensive courses with Horton Park a close second.

Most of our advertisements are out now. You will see ads in the Calgary Golfer, Canadian Golf Digest, the Edmonton Journal and Inside Golf. Most golf courses across Canada have received out small posters for the bulletin boards advertising our Rocky Mountain Tours and our Australian and NZ packages.

Listening to our clients each year we have enhanced our Australian Packages. For next year we have added a 4.5 star resort. This resort offers one bedroom units with AC and elevators. It is the new tower at Twin Towns Resort. We added this for the people that want a little higher standard and quality. It only has an upgrade price of $350 per person. If 4 people wanted to share a two bedroom then the add on price would be $400. I do not expect this to two bedroom price to be very popular as the 4 people could have a two, one bedrooms instead of one two bedrooms.

We still offer the Hill and the condos in Kingscliff as they tend to be very popular.

We have added Emerald Lakes as a course for unlimited play. Most golfers like this course and it's facilities. This course and Tweed are offered as a $200 add on. The one problem with Emerald Lakes is that it is a little further from where our accommodations. From the Hill it would be about 25 minute drive.

The other main addition to the program is the addition of Qantas as our second airline partner. Since we are getting large enough Qantas as given us a decent contract. In the past it was too expensive for us to offer. Now with Qantas you will fly to LA and then either to Sydney or direct non- stop to Brisbane. This will safe about 10 hrs of flying time over Singapore Air. The cost to go Qantas will be $100 cheaper than Singapore Air.

If you are thinking about Qantas you should plan to stop in Sydney for 3 nights on the way over. Sydney is a must. The Holiday Inn Darling Harbour would cost about $85 a per person per night.

Singapore continues to be a favorite stop. Singapore Air is excellent and everyone likes to fly with them. The city of Singapore is a clean, safe and friendly city with lots to see. It makes a perfect stop on the way and cuts the flying so going over is more enjoyable.

Our prices for 2007 remain the same but the airlines have added more to the taxes portion in the way of fuel surcharges. Two years ago the taxes were $138 with Singapore. Now it is $517. What an increase. Part of this increase is because we are flying to Singapore so the flight from Vancouver to Singapore and Singapore to Brisbane have seen fuel surcharges added on.

Sales for 2007 are progress with five now signed up and another eight about to. We expect to sell out some of our accommodations early this summer.

The construction on the River Course at Tweed was completed in March and the changes are very nice to the two holes on the front nine.