09
Nov
2009

Casa De Los Suenos – Holiday From Hell

A few months have passed now since my family and I went on holiday to Benalmadena in Spain for 3 weeks. We had been so looking forward to this holiday as it had been quite a long time since our last visit to Spain and we were all very eager to go back there!

In the months prior to our holiday, the entire family frequently discussed the possible private villas that were available. Our final decision was a villa called Casa De Los Suenos. From the pictures it looked extremely nice, and located just outside the center of Benalmadena, perfect for going out in the evenings. However, it was a decision we soon found out we would live to regret. The following blog post is not meant as malicious slander, but an honest review of a holiday most of us would like to forget.

Review of Casa De Los Suenos

When we first arrived, we were greeted by a very irate “cleaner”, namely Larraine, who informed us that she was running late as the last occupants had broken things and left the villa in a mess and that it needed to be sorted before we could come in. She told us to come back in an hour. This was fair enough, but it meant all of us (16 in total) had to wander around aimlessly for an hour. Given that we had an overnight flight and had waited in the airport for hours before the flight, we were all very tired and this was an annoying start to the holiday to say the least.

When we finally managed to enter the villa, we did a quick inspection of all the bedrooms. As it turned out, one of the three “Twin Bedrooms” was in fact not a bedroom at all! Instead, there were two sofa-beds in the living room. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of frustration as no one wanted to sleep in the living room! Now I am pretty sure it is not strictly true to state there are, and I quote: “1 Double Bedroom, 3 Twin Bedrooms, 1 Family Bedroom.”, when one of them IS the living room. I would not class that as a bedroom, but maybe thats just me and the rest of my family?

The second thing that struck us was the state of the villa itself. Given that we had been initially greeted by the cleaner and told to come back in an hour when it was ready, the place was filthy! For starters the floor had not been cleaned at all (walking around in bare feet resulted in the blackest feet I have ever seen!), the sofas and bed sheets were absolutely disgusting, the pool was filled with balls of hair (presumably from the previous occupants!) and most everything, like the TV were caked in a thick layer of dust. See the gallery below for pictures.

Dirt aside, during the holiday we began to notice these “broken” things that Larraine had first mentioned, regardless of the fact that she claimed she was “sorting it” before we arrived that first morning. Bed slats were broken, flexes and wires on a few electrical appliances were exposed or badly covered up with duct tape, there were numerous large chunks of GLASS on the balcony and a few IN the pool, and the lampshade in my bedroom actually fell on my head one night and I soon discovered it was held on by cellotape! Again, see the gallery at the bottom of this post for pictures of some of the above.

One thing that really tickled us was the fact that there were several framed “poems” dotted around the villa, with things such as “Do not poke holes in the mural, doing so will mean you… LOSE YOUR DEPOSIT” and “I don’t know why people insist on using the kitchen tops as chopping boards, doing so will mean you…. LOSE YOUR DEPOSIT”. Perhaps people would be less inclined to treat the place with little respect if the owners treated their tenants with some!

Speaking of respect, one morning when the rest of my family had decided to go down to the nearby supermarket and I was still in bed, there was a knock on my bedroom door. It then opened, and Larraine (the cleaner) walked in and in a raised voice she proceeded to “tell me off” about leaving the front door unlocked as “anyone could have walked in”. At least she knocked, eh?!

However, all of the above does not come anywhere near the accidents that were caused by faulty equipment and furniture during our stay. The first of which was due to the positioning of the sprinkler system, which meant that everytime they turned on, they would soak the stairs at the entrance of the villa. This made them extremely slippery and caused my Auntie to fall down them and bruise her leg (Pictures of the wet stairs in the gallery below).

The most severe accident however, happened to my 71 year old Grandad. On the balcony of the villa were a set of white plastic garden chairs surrounding a table. On one particular day, my Grandad (who again is 71 years of age) was sat on one of these chairs, with my 1 year old (at the time) baby sister on his lap. At this point, everyone else was inside and I was still in bed. All of a sudden, I heard a huge bang against my bedroom wall, which was actually the wall of the balcony. I quickly jumped out of bed and ran out onto the balcony, to find my Grandad slumped in a heap against the wall with my baby sister held out in front of him. There was blood all the way down the wall where he had banged his head, and when we picked up him he was so shaken that he could not walk and all he kept saying was “Is the baby ok?”. The chair had actually shattered (not just collapsed, actually shattered into pieces) beneath him whilst he was sat there. We quickly rushed to get the First Aid kit that was in the villa, only to find out that it was empty besides a few plaster wrappers and a single rubber glove!

At that time, the two maintenance staff were attending to the pool and quickly ran up onto the balcony also. One was quick to clean up all traces of blood and discard of the shattered chair, whilst the other took my Grandad to the nearest Spanish hospital. At the hospital, he received 6 stitches and 2 injections to the back of his head and was told to come back in a few days time to check for infection or other possible head injury. Luckily, there was no serious damage done. However, Larraine (the cleaner) was contacted about this incident, and she acknowledged that the chairs were infact broken and said that she had simply forgotten to inform us of this! In the gallery below are pictures of the wound to the back of my Grandad’s head, as well as the stitches and a note from the Spanish hospital.

We have since been in contact with the owner of the villa, seeking compensation for everything that went wrong on the holiday – especially the accident involving my Grandad and 1 year old baby sister. No apology for any of the above mentioned incidents was made and we have been informed by both Jenny and her insurance company that they have come to conclusion that my 71 year old Grandad must have been rocking (Yes, rocking?!) on the chair for it to have shattered… My Grandad is not a child, nor would he be so careless as to rock back and forth on a plastic garden chair with a baby on his lap. Also, whilst the cleaner (Larraine) had already acknowledged the broken chairs and her failure to inform us, the owner of the villa later told us that the cleaner had stated that she never said anything of the sort.

Overall the holiday was an absolute nightmare, the very definition of a holiday from hell. Jenny also owns another villa in the Benalmadena area called Villa Vita Nova and an apartment called Apartamentos Monaco – however I cannot comment on the state of these as I have not seen them, though my family and I will be staying well clear of any other properties owned by Mrs Jenny Hoy.

I have also attached a picture of the “management staff” for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

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