Archival
4/10 Poor
Sharon H.
22 August 2016
4* location, on site owners 1* - not private villa
We spent a week in Villa Alborana, although the details we were sent were for a Finca San Francisco, during the last week in July. It was a family holiday with family from Australia and England gathering in Spain. There were six adults, four children and a baby.
The positive things about the villa are:
- Proximity. Walking distance to an excellent shopping centre.
- Layout. We liked that we were all together and central but not all cooped up in one spot.
The first thing to note is that this is not a private villa. The owners of the villa live on the property, and roam freely over the area, not respecting the privacy of our extended family, for example there were other people staying in the gardner’s quarters right where we were above the kitchen.
This property would have been spectacular once but it is in real need of major maintenance.
The outside kitchen – the main kitchen, as it is referred to by the owners – had many faults:
• For the first three days there was no hot water. This was reluctantly addressed by the owners on our fourth day.
• When the hot water was “fixed” there was a leak on the kitchen floor, dangerously close to power outlets.
• The dishwasher is not in the kitchen, but is situated in the main bedroom area, up two flight of steps!
• There is a dangerous step into the kitchen, which most of us tripped over multiple times.
• The utensils and plastic glasses in the kitchen were sadly inadequate.
• The lower kitchen cupboards were empty of anything except rubbish.
In addition to the inadequacies of the kitchen, other disappointments related to:
• Two pools were advertised, but the owners claimed the sunnier pool was for their family use.
• Wifi worked in one sweet spot only, and was off on a regular basis.
• Quite a number of lights were not working.
• No air conditioning, and noisy unsatisfactory fans.
• The decking has not been oiled for so long, splinters were a regular problem – particularly for the children.
• There are some photos on the site advertising areas we were not allowed in or were not working - the second pool, the table and chairs upstairs where one of us was asked to move away from, and the gym
Other villas we have stayed at using Mijas Villa have been better maintained, problem free holidays, without an always present, on site owners' negative attitude towards paying guests.
