Estella Hotel and Apartments Did NOT Disappoint!

Advantages: Excellent location, superb customer service levels and lovely rooms
Disadvantages: No real facilities for the disabled

...Estella Hotel Apartments is based in Limassol in Southern Cyprus where I stayed for 6 nights in late April/early May of 2009 with my cousin. The booking was made via Expedia.co.uk and worked out at approximately £200 for 2 of us sharing a twin apartment (just £100 each basically). Before I confirmed the booking through Expedia I went off and did a bit of research on the hotel to make sure I wasn?t getting something that was cockroach infested. The hotel?s website, although fairly basic in appearance, made the hotel look pleasant enough and I sent an email to the hotel asking what amenities were included in the rooms/apartments. I received a reply in very clear English very promptly and then started a chain of emails between myself and the very helpful contact at Estella, a lovely lady called Helen (who was away in Australia during...

anonymili 12.05.2009 (02.06.2009) · Read review
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Review of Estella Hotel Apartments, Limassol

Great Expectations, Dickens' Masterpiece Novel

Advantages: Great Novel, alot of tension
Disadvantages: Very Long and in three voumes.

...marriage to Mrs Joe shows little love throughout the novel. Mrs Joe is Pips sister who often beats him as well as Mr Joe. When we first meet the characters we experience the stress of Christmas, which again makes the novel and the characters universal, accessible and believable to us. Pip, meets Magwitch at the marshes. Magwitch is an escaped convict who forces Pip to steal a Pie at the begging of the novel. However Magwitch redeems himself by confessing to making Pip do it. Pips innocence around Magwitch is emphasized before and after, by his parents naive description, the injustice treatment at the hands of Mrs Joe and the remorse of the stealing. Pip goes to Satis House in the Novel, and meets Estella and Miss Havisham .Miss Havisham is extremely unbelievable. She was jilted at the altar at twenty to nine, when she...

dodgeinator 16.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Great Expectations achieved

Advantages: Rich, dramatic novel with well defined characters
Disadvantages: Morally didactic

...a equally dramatic conclusion with the deaths of the convict and Miss Havisham and the disfiguration of Pip. The novel has some wonderful terrifying moments reminescent of gothic novels (the neglected old Satis House maintained in a time capsule, the menacing convict and the sight of Miss Havisham set alight) as well some wonderfully comical moments (the mimicary of Trabbs boy). The characters are all well defined and developed through the novel including Pip?s pompous Uncle Pumblechook , the wealthy reclusive jilted Miss Havisham, the haughty proud man hating Estella. Using the storys, Dickens critiques the nineteenth century class system, the education and the judical system. This is wondefully addictive book filled with rich descriptive passages and charactertures using complex linguistic techniques. Similies and Metaphors...

MAFARRIMOND 18.04.2004 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Dont expect too much

Advantages: Great cast and a fairly good film
Disadvantages: Not a good modern-day adaptation of a classic

...-up niece, Estella, whom Finn falls hopelessly in love with... This film is quite good on its own merits but it is not a good adaptation of the book. It firstly is only loosely based and has changed most things, its even dabbled with the characterisation of the main protagonists which is essentially what the book is about. It suggests that Estella is sexually mature, and Ms. Dinsmoor (though a great character),isn't quite crazy enough. De Niro is fantastic though as always as is Hank Azaria who plays Estella fiance in it. The performances of the actors are very good though. Mitch Glazer who wrote this screenplay has also tried to mix in some direct quotes from the book and it really hasn't worked. There is, though, a brilliant soundtrack which is slightly alternative/indie featuring Tori Amos, Pulp, and Ozzy Osbourne. My advice...

CandiceB666 17.04.2001 (24.04.2001) · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations (DVD)

The expectations of a gentleman

Advantages: Interesting twists and turns in the plot
Disadvantages: Difficult to get into

...strong characters such as Miss Havisham. Each installment of Great Expectations contained two chapters, and explains the crescendo's of climax found in the novel. Plot: THe story follows Pip from childhood to adulthood. At first, he is seen as an orphan, being brought up by his harsh sister and her gentle husband, Joe. During a trip to the graveyard to visit his father and mother as well as other siblings, he sees an escaped criminal, whom he helps with food. The criminal is eventually caught, and taken away, and is quickly forgotten by Pip. Pip is being apprenticed as a blacksmith to help Joe. However, an elderly wealthy woman named Miss Havisham pays Pip's sister to allow Pip to become a companion for her adopted daughter, Estella, whom Pip falls in love with. Estella, however is cold towards Pip, and is encouraged to act in this manner...

Kulsum 19.06.2008 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

More than met my Expectations

Advantages: Compelling, visual effects, acting and soundtrack
Disadvantages: None

...Pip meeting a convict in a graveyard, and being summoned to Miss Havisham's house to 'play' with her snobbish but beautiful niece Estella. I remember Miss Havisham had been wearing her wedding dress since being jilted at the alter decades before. And, last but not least I remember Magwitch - I mainly remember him because our English teacher who once exclaimed that everything was 'peachy babe' (she was only about 22 and was trying to be 'cool' I think) pronounced his name MagWITCH. There was one incident where the whole class was in absolute fits of laughter because of this, and she was getting angrier and angrier, and sent someone out of the room - it was hell trying to restrain our hysterics! But that was school, and this is now! And onto the Film This is a modern day interpretation of the book, starting off in...

marymoose99 14.05.2008 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations (DVD)

Great Expectations and I wasn't left disappointed

Advantages: Superbly acted, classic storyline
Disadvantages: Updating the Dickens story will not appeal to everyone

.... Anne Bancroft who seems to flourish in the role of the eccentric old lady plays Miss Dinsmoor. Living with Miss Dinsmoor is her 8-year-old niece Estella. Estella meets Fin and from that day on Fin is brought to the house once a week to play with Estella and for the amusement of Miss Dinsmoor. Uncle Joe is paid handsomely for allowing Fin to visit every week. As time passes Fin grows to love Estella. Unfortunately Estella appears to have been influenced by her Aunt in being without any true feelings for men. It is as though Miss Dinsmoor has taught her niece that to be without true feeling is the safest way to make her way into the world. Also it will allow her to take revenge against all men for what had happened to her all those years ago. So just at the point where Fin and Estella’s relationship appears to be blossoming...

murky5 15.08.2001 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations (DVD)

Expect a great film - you won't be dissappointed

Advantages: A haunting black and white classic
Disadvantages: None

...to come and play at her home. Miss Havisham is a lonely, crazy old creature who has shut herself away in darkness for many years because she was jilted on her wedding day. The wedding table Complete with decaying wedding cake) remains set as it was on that day. Miss Havisham has a beautiful adopted daughter called Estella (Jean Simmons), who she has brought up to be ladylike, snobbish, and cruel. The idea of man-hating Miss Havisham is to eventually set Estella to break as many hearts as possible and she intends to practise on Pip. Naturally Pip does become overwhelmed by Estella's beauty and thinks about her day and night. Pip decides that he wants to be a gentleman when he grows up, so that he can win Estella. We then see Pip at the age of twenty, a secret benefactor, using the solicitor Mr. Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan) provides...

oldchem 05.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations (DVD)

Great expetations not met (haha)

Advantages: The book will prop doors open no problem
Disadvantages: Rather hard reading

...Well I am in 2 minds about this one. The story focuses around a young boy called Philip Pirrip (pip) who is brought up by his warm hearted yet sappy uncle, Joe, and his hard hearted and cruel wife. Pip is destined to become a blacksmith (Joe's trade) until he meets Miss Havisham, probably one of the finest literary characters ever created, a mad old woman who has refused to change anything of her appearance or in her household since her lover jilted her at the alter. He also meets here Estella, a renowned beauty and the woman he loves for the rest of the novel, who leaves pip with the desire to become a gentleman. The book goes downhill from here, until the ending. Pip is made a gentleman by an unknown benefactor, who he believes to be miss Havisham. The book reflects strongly on the ideas of whether having money, or your behaviour...

Hannigs 30.04.2005 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

What larks, Pip, what larks!

Advantages: It's very close to the book and features charming performances
Disadvantages: Feels a bit rushed, some parts are a bit twee

...Pip, as he's known), growing up with his nasty older sister and her kind, simple husband Joe. One day on a walk through the cemetery, he bumps into an escaped convict, Abel Magwitch, who threatens Pip with the uncomfortable removal of his heart and liver if he doesn't bring him some food. Needless to say, he complies. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the convict is caught after a big police chase, and that's the last Pip sees of him for a while. A few years later, Pip is chosen by an eccentric, rich old lady, Miss Havisham, to come and entertain her at her decrepit old mansion. There, he meets a beautiful girl, Estella; a meeting that will have a profound and lasting impression on him. Estella treats Pip cruelly and makes fun of his common upbringing and "heavy boots", but this only causes Pip to want to be a gentleman, so that...

l-m-n-o-p 11.11.2006 · Read review
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Review of Great Expectations (DVD)