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I dislike writing bad reviews, almost as bad as I dislike being falsely accused of vandalism; but I’ll get to that bit!!
Marc, our host was kind enough to let us drop our bags off early so we could do the supermarket run for everyone else turning up later, now it goes downhill.
On the phone before we arrived we were told that there was a “small problem” with the pool, on arrival the small problem turned out to be a very green pool, weeks worth of neglect. Ok we thought that can be sorted quickly with chemicals, we’ll carry on with our organisational plans.
The four of us then went to pick up provisions, €600 euros worth of food for the barbecue and drinks. Marc was aware we were off to buy food for the entire group of 13, now would have been a perfect time to tell us there was no electricity.
However, this must of seemed unimportant to him, no lights, no air con, no pool filtration and absolutely no power in any of the 3 fridge freezer units.
Ourselves and supplies return, to be told there’s actually no electricity. Back out I go for ice.
Marc says it’s being sorted, should be back on in a couple of hours we can relax and await the rest of our party arriving that day!
Friends arrive, who’ve been travelling for hours to a property not up to scratch we start choosing rooms but the owners partner is still cleaning past check in.
Hours pass, no power and we’re then told that they’re going to get some “shock” to treat the pool and it should be back to blue in a few hours, it never turns up.
More hours pass, the owners say they’re off to get candles in an uber, they come back out later with some half used candles.
By now you’re probably wondering why we didn’t find somewhere else, the place is dirty, dusty and unclean. Today is also our activity day, wine tasting followed by boat tour along the algarve coast. If we try and sort something else now we’ll end up missing out on this
On the second day a seperate group turn up, he’s taken a double booking, which he ignores until they find somewhere else to stay.
We’re about to leave for the day, but we don’t want the food to go to waste, so we order ice from the nearest supermarket, not ideal, but better than wasting €600.
The next day. Cold shower, no power, phone dead! Also the lack of upkeep means that the lip between the double door to my bedroom is missing. Meaning that I have become a mosquito smorgasbord, the room itself is old fashioned bordering on decrepit, there’s blood stains on the wall from previous guest mosquito murders.
Thankfully we have one rental car, left on idle for about 8 hours so everyone could charge their phones and laptops for work.
Marcs walking around and he’s decided the only option to sort the pond/pool is to drain it, whilst we’re sat outside around it cooking food on the bbq (before it goes off in the heat) draining the green stagnant smelly water slightly downhill to the drain outside some of the rooms we’re in. Why?
For some reason our host has also decided to clean up around us as we cook and eat dinner.
RIGHT!!! Enough is enough, we’ve had enough of being lied to, when is the power actually coming on?
What do you mean, you haven’t paid the bill???? In December??? Why on earth would that be affecting us in May??? But finally a little bit of honesty, they haven’t paid their bills. They could have told us at many opportunities, but refused to.
We leave, on time, we tidy, we wash up and we throw all our rubbish in the correct bins, including gone off food.
We ask for suitable recompense for a less than ideal stay and instead of giving us our due, we receive false accusations of vandalism. Apparently we’ve smashed 15 tiles.
We’ve not damaged anything. he now knows booking.com won’t touch our claim, despite having photos and videos of all the issues.
He’s a dishonest scammer.
I dislike writing bad reviews, I don’t think I ever have, but he had every opportunity to be honest with us or to return a fair share for services not rendered...
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My family and I stayed with Marc & his team in the summer of 2020. We liked it so much that I wanted to bring my several friends back during June of 2021. Unfortunately, this year Marc left our group of 12 without accommodations and less than a week to figure out alternatives.
After our 3 families had taken time off of work, rented vehicles, and made our plans he sent me a casual email telling me that other people were booked in our place--I suspect we were bumped when he realized he could charge a higher price as the Algarve began filling up post-covid.
Because our group was so large I decided to try and reserve directly through him. At the time, he told me he preferred doing this so that he didn't have to pay any commission to booking sites. I had to call and email him several times to make the reservation, but was finally able to successfully arrange the bookings and received an email confirmation from him stating that the rooms were reserved. I emailed him immediately to attempt payment, he didn't respond. I sent a follow up email the next week. No response.
He finally responded 3 weeks later in an email stating he had supposedly been in a car accident and that someone had taken our places (how this could happen when we supposedly already had a reservations in the books is beyond me) but that he could offer us rooms at the full rate for 2 random, mid-week dates at some point in the summer.
When I told him it was unacceptable given that we had all made arrangements for these particular dates and I would be filing a complaint, he called me "snippy" and blamed ME for not following up...
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My family and I stayed with Marc & his team in the summer of 2020. We liked it so much that I wanted to bring my several friends back during June of 2021. Unfortunately, this year Marc left our group of 12 without accommodations and less than a week to figure out alternatives. ||||After our 3 families had taken time off of work, rented vehicles, and made our plans he sent me a casual email telling me that other people were booked in our place--I suspect we were bumped when he realized he could charge more as the Algarve began filling up post-covid.||||Because it was a large booking I I had to call and email him several times, but was finally able to successfully arrange the bookings and received an email confirmation from him stating that the rooms were reserved on May 10th. I emailed him immediately to attempt payment, he didn't respond. I sent a follow up email the next week. No response. Until he sent me an email stating he had supposedly been in a car accident and that someone had taken our places but that he could offer us rooms at the full rate for 2 random, mid-week dates at some point in the summer. ||||When I told him it was unacceptable he called me "snippy" and blamed ME for not following up...
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