Portland's Olympic Dreams

Advantages: Enjoyable location for outdoor walks and adventures
Disadvantages: Scary locals, and rough neighbourhoods

...After the overwhelming response to my Lelant Review, I have followed it up with a review of Portland, this review is a little long, but I have tried to mix all the relevant parts together to make it a bit more interesting. I've looked at the people, the tourist attractions, and the facilities. Portland is a rather large island off the coast of Dorset. Some people do not regard Portland as an island as it's attached to the mainland, however I assure you it is. Originally the only thing connecting Portland with the Mainland was Chesil Beach, but even this only connected at Abbotsbury some 12 miles from the start. Stretching from Dead Man's Bay, Portland to West Bay, Bridport; Chesil beach is the longest "natural" beach in the world totalling 18 miles. In the late 1800's work began on connecting the mainland by bridge at a point...

sghawken 02.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Island of Portland

Perfect Portland

Advantages: Good Prices
Disadvantages: Only Book Direct

...I would receommend Portalnd Holidays Direct to anyone who doesnt mind booking their holiday direct and anyone who likes a Thomson holiday as Portland is part of the Thomson/Tui group - so your getting the same as you would get travelling with Thomson. How to book ----------------- You can only book by telephone or internet. If you book online on the internet they normally give online discounts - look out for special online booking offers. Their website is completley secure so you can feel safe using your credit/debit card to pay. If you pay a deposit you can pay additional amounts by telephone to their dedicated after sales team. If you book by telephone there is a dedicated call centre waiting to take your call - in my experiences they have always been really friendly and helpful and give honest opinions. I have never...

carol_uk17 30.07.2006 · Read review
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Review of Portland Direct

Portland Hotel, Skuba And Grill Resturant

Advantages: RIGHT IN THE HEART OF THE MUST SEE'S AND DO'S OF FOLKESTONE
Disadvantages: PARKING

...The Portland Hotel, Skuba Bar & Grill Restaurant. Owned by a gay couple called Lee & Tin, These guys have made a name for themselves in this establishment and the town. About 7 years ago this building was run down and dirty. They bought at auction with great prospects. Over the years the popularity of the bar has grown substantially. Started off as 'gay friendly' only gay people went to the bar and a handful of straight people or the hotel guests. Now homosexuality is more accepted, it is mixed and very busy especially in the summer. Bar and Beer Gardens & Terrace It has an outdoor drinking area with garden in front which greets all people from different walks of life. Pets are also too welcome in the garden and can grab a bowl whilst their owners grab a pint...

XFactorBoi 16.09.2007 (06.10.2008) · Read review
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Review of The Portland Hotel, Folkestone

Portlands complaint

Advantages: offered ad-free free hosting, CGI bins etc.
Disadvantages: server downtime, very slow service. ftp access always oversubscribed. Low bandwidth allowances.

...That malapropism will have eluded all but the most literary minded, but hey never mind! I saw this free ISP and webhosting site and was looking at it to host a small site for a friend, whilst I was having server troubles. I looked at the whole package and it didn't look bad, as they were offering a dial-up ISP service, pop accounts, domain registration, and for those wanting to run their own ISP, there were a variety of packages available, as well as the opportunity for server colocation and also the opportunity to buy servers through them. Seeing as their site shows them to be ISP of the month according to Internet Magazine for September 2000 and November 2000, I was expecting something pretty good, and the fact that at the present there are apparently in excess of 160,000 sites hosted at Portland looked impressive, and a sign...

Morgenhund 08.02.2001 · Read review
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Review of portland.co.uk

Buxton great, Portland Hotel not great

Advantages: Close to the Pavillion Gardens
Disadvantages: Below par food, below par rooms.

...Buxton is a picturesque town, clearly a place for holidays for the well-off in days gone by. The Portland Hotel is located near the Opera House, and opposite the Pavilion Gardens (but with a view of the car park, rather than the gardens), and may have been a decent hotel once, but not anymore. It's a medium sized, with 22 rooms, and it definitley looks like it may have seen more affluent times in years gone by. All rooms are en suite. However, our room had an extremely small en suite? erm, I can't call it a bathroom? toilet with a shower in. Our room was nicely decorated, but somehow felt like a very standard B & B room - possibly because of the smell of smoke which was lingering on everything in there. The publicity states that you have Sky TV - in our room that seemed to be restricted to one sports channel and 2 radio channels...

rsmith 16.10.2001 · Read review
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Review of Portland Hotel (Buxton - Derbyshire)

Oregon's Beautiful Capitol. Portlands Surprise.

Advantages: A lively modern town with beautiful mountain & rivers.
Disadvantages: 'Tis on "the far side"

...Portland in Oregon, a buzzing, friendly town, full of vitality, with a most beautiful river running through it. Just a few steps from the main thoroughfare, across a lawned area with fountains flowing, and you can picnic beside the river or cool off with the kids in the fountain. Modern buildings, shopping malls, town squares, all inviting you to buy. The main shopping mall in the centre, has the most amazing selection of stores, with clothing furniture gifts, all relating to the area, wood carvings, leather and skin, beautiful tiles for your home, incredibly modern home furnishings, pictures and ornaments, mostly made from local craftsmen. The local American Indians provide many artifacts, fashioning them from natural resourses, including lovely jewellery, made mostly from silver and torquoise. On one occassion we went to...

elinor.z 21.05.2005 (05.08.2005) · Read review
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Review of Portland

Holiday !

Advantages: Nice sweet film, romantic comedy
Disadvantages: Not the best romantic comedy I have seen, some may find it too sickly sweet!

...where she discovers Amanda. They decide to take a break from their troubles and get away from the men in their lives so house swap for a couple of weeks over the Christmas period. Amanda swaps her luxurious modern house in California for Iris?s quaint little cottage in the English countryside. Iris soon makes friends with Arthur a retired screen writer and sets about trying to help him. Her love interest comes in the form of Miles (Jack Black) a film composer who works with Amanda?s ex. Amanda meanwhile meets Graham (Jude Law) who is Iris handsome brother and has an eye for the ladies. Will it be a holiday romance or will both these women find love when they least expect or want it? ***** My Thoughts ***** Having missed this at the cinema I was very keen to rent it to watch, certainly keener than my husband who did agree...

AJ26 14.05.2007 · Read review
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Review of The Holiday (DVD)

Great holidays at great prices.

Advantages: Reasonable Prices
Disadvantages: None that i can think of

...Portland Direct, This is a great online travel agent, we have used this method of booking holidays for some time, and have never found it to be a problem, it is very easy and simple to use. Firstly you have to decided where you would like to go, and when, after that it is all plain sailing, you just enter the details of the country you would like to visit, for example in our case Ibiza, then enter a resort in that area example Santa Eulialia (think that's how its spelt), then you have to choose ho many adults and how many children are going to be going on this holiday, example 2 adults and 1 child. Next is the choice of hotel, example Fiesta Hotel Don Carlos, and this only comes in a half board but with other resorts or other countries you get the choice of self catering, half board or full board. You then have a choice of flights...

gollum3273 14.01.2006 · Read review
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Review of Portland Direct

The Holiday - a good chick flick

Advantages: Lighthearted, good cast
Disadvantages: Predictable

...The Holiday is a chick flick type film although it is not quite your normal chick flick. It is based around the story of two girls , Amanda, played by Cameron Diaz and Iris played by Kate Winslet. Amanda is a film trailer producer who has just broke up with her boyfriend, she lives in LA. Iris lives in Surrey in a little cottage and is a writer for a paper. She is still in love with her ex boyfriend who she works with and has just found out he is getting engaged. Amanda starts searching on the Internet for some sort of holiday to get away and try and forget what has happened. She stumbles across Iris's cottage on a website and contacts her about coming over to stay. Iris jumps at the chance after all the pain she has been put through. So the two girls decide to swap homes for the holidays. Once swapped Amanda meets Iris's brother...

wendz86 19.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Holiday (DVD)

the holiday

Advantages: good film for over christmas
Disadvantages: chick flick

...The Holiday- I tried to get to see his at the cinema but i unfortunately missed out. Although after reading the reviews it was a mixed opinion, so as soon as it came out i purchased it so that i could judge for myself and its a great film. With Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Jude Law and Cameron Diaz it was an all star cast and a hopeless romantic film a definate chich flick. Its about Iris(Kate Winslet) who is in love with a man who is about to marry another woman and then thee is Amanda (cameron Diaz) who realizes the man she lives with has been unfaithful. The two women meet online at a home swap website and switch homes for the holiday. Iris moves into Amanda's L.A. house in sunny California as Amanda arrives in the snow covered English countryside. Shortly after arriving at their destinations, both women find the last thing...

jo_field26 21.04.2008 · Read review
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Review of The Holiday (DVD)