If you are considering booking this villa, don’t! We have just returned from the least relaxing ‘holiday’ we’ve ever had. A catalogue of disasters from beginning to end….. where do I start?!
The directions we were given were completely wrong and took us to a different villa, having driven around for an hour we called the ‘contact’ who sent us the correct directions and we found the villa.
On first glance, the villa is actually very pretty and I made a point of telling the owner so, sadly appearances can be deceiving. The first thing we noticed were the 4 sun beds that were old, tatty fabric and all ripped so badly they were unusable. The downstairs bathroom was small and rammed full with mops, buckets, brushes etc and the small wall around the shower had fallen down, the toilet flush had no cover so the one time we did use it, water sprayed out- this room was therefore unusable too.
We did a big shop before we arrived and started to unpack it as soon as we got there, we soon realised that the fridge/freezer was broken and actually running warm. Starting to get rather frustrated at this point, we messaged the contact but got no response so we called her number and left a message when it went to answer machine. She never responded and in fact despite numerous texts and calls throughout the week, she never once responded to us.
I’ll list the other issues we had :
The coffee jug in the machine was broken
The air conditioning in the main bedroom doesn’t work properly
The upstairs balcony/terrace is constantly sodden with water from the A/C units and is very slippery and dangerous
The bath doesn’t drain properly and the shower is over this so basically ineffective
The main bed is incredibly uncomfortable and when we found the mattress topper in the wardrobe, it was filthy
Very strong ‘sewage’ smell in the villa
Blinds in entrance didn’t close
Lamp in sitting room smashed
Very bad ant problem which, to be fair, is probably unavoidable outside (very bad around pool) but, terrible in kitchen
Perhaps the biggest problems for us though were that on one day we had no running water, when we reported it to the owner he tried to fob us off by saying it was probably everyone’s water off not just ours. We informed him that next doors was fine and he said ok, he’d ‘try’ to send a plumber! We had a full day without any water.
The following day we were having trouble with the lock on the front door, we told the owner it was very difficult to open. We tried to go in to the villa at 11.30 am but the lock had completely broken. We were locked out until 16.30 when a guy came to fix it. He opened it by using a credit card and putting his hand through the broken ‘window’ (it had basically been unscrewed and replaced very loosely so I suspect this wasn’t the first time this had happened!) Unfortunately the lock wasn’t replaced for 24 hours so we didn’t even feel safe.
This villa COULD be lovely, it has the potential to be but, the owner needs to spend a lot of money on maintenance, he needs to replace all the tatty, unusable outdoor furniture, employ someone to check that things are working after people leave and rectify/replace things that aren’t and get rid of his ‘point of contact’ who doesn’t respond to anything.
We spent 5 of our 6 days holiday waiting for workmen, plumbers, locksmiths and delivery men so we’re unable to visit the area.
If you’re thinking of booking here, I urge you to think again and keep looking!