Tuesday 13th January 2015 to Friday 23rd January 2015
Area Autocaravanas Cartagena, Carretera Molino derribao S/N, 30310 Los Dolores, Murcia
N 37.65375 W -1.00343
€12.00/10a (€10.00/5a) – Discounted for 15+ days
|
✅ EHU ✅ WiFi ✅ Shower Block ✅ Good facilities with many positives (social room with TV, outdoor seating area, daily bread van, decent pitch sizes) ❌ Area not so good – semi-industrial/’tired’ suburb of Cartagena city (Santa Ana) ❌ ‘Lane’ dog walks only, nowhere <decent> adjacent to the site for the dogs to run free and exercise. Large park about 1km from site but unusable early/late doors ✅ 10a EHU on ‘super’ pitches ❌ WiFi poor (iBoost improved service significantly) ❌ EHU suffered multiple outages on 4 out of 10 days, worst was 17 in one day – Desktop PC extremely fortunate to not suffer a catastrophic fail (thanks only to Win/8.1 Power Management settings – a power outage during the boot process could have permanently damaged the Lenovo HDD), older systems would have been toast – Good case for using a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) – our Anker 15000mAh power unit MAY provide sufficient power (?) to facilitate a graceful system close-down following mains power outages. n.b. Anker power feed lead is USB to micro-USB, a USB-2-USB lead is needed to connect for use as a power supply to a desktop PC ❌ Power outages caused by just any ONE MoHo exceeding their ampage limit resulted in ALL MoHo’s on site losing EHU – should be ring-fenced at each EHU post = needs investment ✅ Operated by friendly and helpful brother and sister 🏁 Not an attractive area, not ideal for dogs, unacceptable ehu outages = we will not be returning!
|
The site reception office
View down the left side of the site
Showers/toilets on the left, social room on the right
Social room interior
Launderette (booking system in use)
2nd shower/toilet block
Brit VeeDub visiting the site
Twernt on its final visit to this site
CBB via YouTube
The street leading into Santa Ana
10 days of admin, shopping, more admin, dog walking and yet more admin!
We could have stayed on here and rented a car to explore the area (as we had planned) but those power outages put us off – we skedaddled as soon as we had our stuff up to date…….note to self …….don’t let the emails build up again …..over 6,000!!
This aire is really very pleasant – shame about the location…….. and the EHU hassles!
Twernt On Tour - Phase Four 
Why is Ma hiding her face in that picture? It is good that they have a laundrette there!
LikeLike
She didn’t want folk to know that she is mesmerised by the events occurring in CBB – she is hooked – Get Perez and the mouthy blonde one OUT! – Kate somebody?
LikeLike
Cold here Roy,i think i would rather your problems lol, it seems that the 3 network will be having spain in its at home list from april,however looking into the terms of internet abroad they will only allow 3 short periods away from the u.k at a time.Wish these companies would sort their act out,they know that streaming and internet is far more important to users than the phone and emailing.Why even bother with 4 and 5g unless we are allowed to use it as it is meant to be used.
Give our best to amanda .
Moving into the coach in March to live and see what needs to be done regards to improvements e.t.c need to be in the sun this time of year i know that.
LikeLike
Been v.windy here for the last 2/3 days Coola but abating now. We were told by Pauline & Phil that the worst part of the winter weather here in Spain is mid-January to mid-February and they were right! – plus the forecast looks like only 11°c to 15°c for the next 10 days.
I did read that about ‘3’s T&C’s for using their broadband overseas, plus it slows down as well – campsite WiFi is hit and miss; it’s here, but I can only remember one site where we didn’t have to wait yonks for something to happen at some time during our stay – MOSTLY it’s just slow or v.slow.
Maybe it’s that campsites don’t get the right equipment installed to service the demand – I have seen ‘home-type’ routers serving some quite big aires/campsites – so I would guess that they pay something like £30 a month for the service and then charge MohO’ers €1 a day or more to use it – very, very profitable for the site owners. 20 MoHo’s a day = €900+ a month profit.
Their WiFi service should be investigated by these site directory folk and reported upon for discerning folk seeking decent internet sites – some like that ‘All The Aires’ book doesn’t even report the existence of WiFi even though it is there – waste of space.
MoHo’ers are not treated well in this respect and to folk who say it doesn’t matter because many don’t want or need WiFi I would ask why it’s always mega-slow in the evenings (durrrr, that’s because so many folk DO use it!!) and they should unbury their heads from the sand, wake up and smell the coffee, etc., etc. and realise that the internet is the biggest revolution since Arkwrights Industrial Revolution and I (and many others) want to stream TV/movies/video to my PC/Tablet instead of using old fashioned, outdated 20th century equipment like dedicated TV’s (wish that I hadn’t bought an Avtex? – yep!!). Rant over … I know that you and I agree on this!!!
Good luck with your move, hope your gaff sells quickly. If you plan to venture down to the Costa del Sol next year we’ll be able to meet up then (if not before!).
LikeLike
Hi Noggin. I wonder if you could use the output of an inverter on your leisure batteries to run your PC while keeping the charger going to keep the batteries topped up. Sort of a UPS?
Simon
LikeLike
Hi Simon, I did try this but the 300W inverter that we have isn’t up to the job and AutoTrail state that is the maximum inverter that you should use through the Leisure Batteries/PSU. That’s why I decided that we really needed a generator.
However, events have now overtaken even this decision as we’ve now settled on what the way forward will be for us………will blog in the next day or so!
LikeLike
Hi Roy, I guess 300W might be a bit marginal with a desktop type PC. I have a 1000W unit directly on two 110Ah batteries with pretty heavy cables and it seems fine supplying a couple of laptops. It’ll also cope with a small mains hairdryer and stuff like that. Mind you all my setup is all DIY – but no smoke yet. Simon
LikeLike
Ah, thanks Simon, hadn’t thought about doing a direct inverter feed from the batteries and bypassing the Sargent PSU, will look at that when we get back as an alternative to a genny. Cheers, Roy
LikeLike
Hi matey, I guess after reading our recent posts you must have thought that EHU outages was just a minor inconvenience 😄 leaving here tomorrow, all decontaminations on water tanks completed, laundry back up to date 👍 you’ll never guess where we are headed next !!
LikeLike
Well, there was also a puddle on our pitch at one stopover. does that match BigMomma’s water’problem?
Now, let me see, my guess could have been Seville but I’m going to change that now.
How about, I spy, with my little eye, someplace beginning with …erm …. ‘E’!
LikeLike