Last year we were treated to the celebrations of James Bond 50 Year anniversary.
This combined with the release, I am sure by pure chance, of Skyfall meant that many Bond arguments were raised- best film, best bond girl, best car best moment to name a few but for those of us who simply enjoy Bond films it was an opportunity to add another one to the repertoire and for us at Eriska even better when so much of the scenery around Skyfall is so close to Eriska.
Having rushed off to watch the film I happened to meet our friends at McKinlay Kidd who help put special weekends for their clients together and Robert Kidd and I engaged in a conversation about what is the best bit about Bond and naturally our conclusion came to the fact that it must be the lifestyle, cars, drinks and scenery. It was therefore not long before we dreamed up the Eriska Bond Weekend escape and before long our minds had wandered and the concept had leapt form dream into reality.
As is often the case with the best ideas is that they soon grow arms and legs until a complete plan is made and only then do the nitty gritty details of cost, timings and practical matters get in the way. As ever this was a perfect example on how a plan is sketched out on a napkin after dinner and then when the booking start to flow in the time is right to really get the details ironed out! Or so that is how I am trying to tell the team others work and so do we now!
So The bones of the plan are in place- the car and the hotel, now comes time for the flesh of the otehr details such as the boat transfer to Duart Castle or the Martini Masterclass in the Eriska Library and the detailed itinerary- Although Robert has already spoiled this be vetoing my suggestion that I should dry run the Aston Martin through Glencoe just to make sure it all works!
And then finally there will be all the fluffy bits such as the CD of Bond Music for the car, and the DVD pack awaiting arrival at Eriska in their suite. So we now have a fully constructed and fleshed out Bond Weekend for sale and whilst I am sure we will fine tune it as it takes off we are also able to be flexible so that t it can fit individual needs and desire- for example we have had to extend one stay by a couple of days as the guest wants to see a bit more of Scotland But it is still very much an individual and personalised gift and when we were asked by a guest if we could arrange 10 cars for his company meeting we had to turn it down as there were not 10 available in Scotland, nor did we really want to do it as the concept of 10 couples all following the same route at the same time seemed to take a big part of the concept out of our hands.