Sa Coma, Bouganvilla Aparthotel Review

Overall Rating

Nice beach.

Too many to list, don't go near the Bouganvilla Aparthotel if you like good quality accommodation.

We booked this holiday in January from Going Places, Belfast with a departure date out of Edinburgh on the 3rd July 2007.
We booked mainly on the advice of the travel representatives in both Belfast and calls placed with the Edinburgh office.
Our brief was that we were looking for a family friendly resort, quiet and not overly busy, with high quality accommodation and a kids club.

We were given a couple of options, both the self catering option at Bouganvilla plus another couple of half board and all inclusive options all around the same price range.

When we queried the fact that Bouganvilla was only 3 star and would the other options not be better options since, they were 4 star hotels, we were informed that for a family, the Bouganvilla self catering option would be by far the best and not to worry that the accommodation would be of a similar standard of the other 4 star options as this was a dedicated family sun centre resort and as such would be of premier quality.

However, on arrival, we soon realised that the Bouganvilla met little of these expectations or standards. On arrival, late in the evening the one bedroom apartment, that we were initially provided with, was down a dark alley, which was frightening for the young children with us. The room was poky, with little room to even get the sofa bed down. The terrace, as promoted in the brochure, was non existent and the rooms were all extremely dirty, with sand and dirty hairs everywhere, even though we were informed that the rooms had been prepared and cleaned for our arrival.
We then had to move to an upgraded one bedroom apartment, which was slightly more spacious and offered a terrace with a view and the constant noise of a power generator. The accommodation was again very unclean and unsatisfactory eg bed-sheets were worn through and stained, the sofa bed was broken and dirty. Beds, dining room tables and chairs were also all dirty and tatty. Even the room key card stuck to the dining room table, even though again we were assured that this apartment was cleaned for our arrival.

In general, we found the complex, run down and tatty, with vandalism, bad paintwork and graffiti on the apartments, certainly not what we had been anticipating or looking forward to. It was far from family friendly or inviting.

The next day, we spoke immediately with our tour representative and asked to be transferred out of the Bouganvilla to anywhere else on the Island.
We were provided with one option, the Puerto del Sol Aparthotel in Cala D'Or.
We were however, not given any assistance with transferring accommodation or finding out more about the new accommodation. We wasted the first day or so of our holiday just transferring to suitable accommodation.
The onus and expense were placed on us to hire a car, with two young children in tow, to go and find the new accommodation without any assistance.
We were also extremely angry and disappointed to find out that we had to pay a transfer administration charge of 250 Euros just to move to another set of accommodation with a same 3 star rating but without the kids club option. The children were very disappointed, as they had been looking forward to the Kids Club. However, staying at the Bouganvilla was just not an option for hygiene reasons.
This was made worse, when we found that other families larger than ours had paid a lot less than us to stay in the new accommodation on an all inclusive deal.

Should we have booked this holiday at the Bouganvilla last minute or without the apparent expert advice from your travel representatives, perhaps we would have been less disappointed with the outcome. However, we believed we were paying premiums, the mark-up is ridiculous, to ensure a high quality and happy holiday. We feel that we were misinformed and badly advised by the travel representatives but regardless of this, the accommodation was completely inadequate.

The standard of the accommodation at Bouganvilla could not have even been compared with the Puerto de Sol, in Cala D'or.