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★☆☆☆☆

“Sadly, we feel let down by James Villas”

written by Orr161 on 13/09/2016

We booked our James Villa Barreto, Albufeira, Portugal on 30th August 2015.
We received an email on the 24th November 2015 stating that " It is therefore disappointing for us to have to tell you that we have made the decision to remove Barreto from our programme as we feel it no longer reflects the standards expected from a James’ villa. As such, Barreto will no longer be available for your holiday. "
A little annoyed but grateful for avoiding a potential problem, we then booked another villa through James Villas, obviously there wasn't a huge amount of choice left.
We decided on the alternative which was Algarhb Villa.
Everything went smoothly and we arrived at Faro airport Thursday 18th August 2016, got the car and went to the villa.
The villa was nice, the food pre ordered was there, so as we had arrived late, we went to bed.
As many had noted the décor was a little dated but none of that really mattered to us as we just wanted a relaxing time.
A note had indicated that the TV wasn't working correctly but again, of no concern as we had the beach and the pool.
Our problems started shortly after.
The dishwasher wasn't working correctly but a quick email to cerronovo, the local agent I believe, sorted the problem and they replaced the dishwasher.
Wow, that was great service.

Sunday 21st August a minibus arrived at the villa next door.
During the day there were about 10 people in next door's villa but the music started playing out with quite a deep bass.
We were trying to relax by our pool and could just hear the bass and the music with a lot of screaming mixed in too.
We hoped it would dull down or go off after a while, but sadly not.
As we were going out to a few places over the next few days we hoped that they had been there for a party and would go away.
The noise did stop in the evening after about 9PM and we kept our fingers crossed.

By Tuesday 23rd August we had had enough as the music and noise was every day and emailed cerronovo to ask if there was anything they could recommend.
As we were "foreigners" and they appeared to be Portuguese, we weren't sure how to approach the situation.
Cerronovo responded very quickly and visited and asked the occupants to lower the noise a bit.
That was great as it really reduced the noise and we thought it might then stop.

Wednesday 24th the noise escalated again and this time they were using pots and pans as percussion instruments.
This time my wife phoned one of the phone numbers in the James Villas book to see if any further could be done.
Apparently she answered and my wife was almost vilified for daring to phone.
" It was not her problem and was pointless as nothing more could be done " my wife was told.
"If the police were contacted then they would do nothing". 
This was a complete change to the responses via email.
We then started researching to see if there were any other villas available in the area.
My wife found a few on the James Villas website and thought it might be possible to change to one of these.
During several phone calls back and forth, we were told that there was nothing available but when we said there was, they changed attitude again and said they would look into it.
Who that was, I am not sure.
We then received a phone call that stated that we would receive an email with any alternate accommodation.
To this day we have never received that email.
As there was no further help from James Villas, during the afternoon we thought enough was enough and we decided to research to see if we could find another villa and pay for it ourselves.
We looked online, thank God for the internet, and found owners direct.
Everything at this point onwards was an unknown for us.
Surprisingly quite a number of villas were available for the remainder of the duration of our holiday.
The next part was trying to contact the owners in a short amount of time.
3 villas looked good with pools and within close proximity.
The first was Villa Caguy which was literally a 2 minute drive.
I left a message with the owner Guy Maxence via owners direct and he got back to me within a few minutes.
He confirmed that the villa was available but had not been cleaned since there was no one due for the next week.
I was a little concerned as it was all happening in quite a rush and also he was in Switzerland.
I read a few things about Owners direct in news stories and it didn't help my confidence.
I decided to phone guy and he was very kind and relaxed.
He said that if I wanted to have a look at the villa and see what I thought. He could get the pool man to let us in and have a wander.
This really reassured me as I didn't want to be ripped off.
I thanked him and thought I would look online at some other villas.
Another, which was supposed to be available, I received a phone call from the English owner.
She apologised and said her villa was actually booked for the next week.
She was so nice and trying to help us from the UK even though she had no financial interest at all.
After contacting the 3rd villa owner and leaving a message we decided to go out and look at villa Caguy.
The villa looked fantastic from the outside and we soon worked out that the name Caguy was a combination of the owners, which was a further reassurance.
We phoned Guy back in Switzerland and asked if we could have a look.
As it was getting fairly late by now we arranged that for the next day.

Thursday 25th August 2016
The pool boy as we got to know him, met us in the afternoon of the 25th.
This gave us time in the morning to raise the CASH to be able to pay for the new villa.
Luckily we were able to use cashpoints and made it all work.
He showed us around the villa and apologised for the "MESS".
The villa was absolutely beautiful.
We agreed to move and handed over the money and kept the keys.
We had a dolphin trip, that was booked the previous week, at around 5PM, so his wife, the cleaner, would work her magic.
We moved some of our things when we went to look around the villa.
All of this WAS a pretty big risk but as many will know when you start talking to people, you get a real feel for things.
The pool boy (English) is married to a lady and he had been in Portugal for about 27 years.
By the time we got back from our Dolphin (No Dolphins spotted) and cave trip 8PM ish, she had cleaned the Villa and He had started the pumps for the pool which was on a salt water system.
We fetched across the rest of our belongings and unpacked again.

Friday 26th August- Thursday 1st September
We enjoyed the rest of our holiday.
We only received one further response from James Villas throughout the rest of our stay, which apologised that our stay had been spoiled, and that the only other thing would have been to contact the police, which we had already been told would have been a waste as they would do nothing.


As I stated in an email to James Villas " It cannot be helped that there are noisy neighbours but how the issue is dealt with shows a lot about a company."
We feel that more could have been done to even attempt to try and find us alternate accommodation.
I have never had to deal with a situation like this before with the Virgin Villas in Florida or elsewhere, so cannot know how another company would have handled it.

You may think at this point that we are probably just fussy and James Villas is highly regarded.
We are not fussy people. When the original lady came to the villa to replace the satellite box, it still didn’t work but we were there for a rest and not a problem.
The slight smell of fish that emanated from the bedroom next to the toilet downstairs, was not a problem.
The half rubbed off graffiti on the sofa was not a problem.
There are tiles missing out of the outside shower that were on the floor and caught out toes but we moved them and not a problem.
We were there for a rest and thought paying the higher James Villas prices would give us as much peace of mind as possible.

The only other communication since we have been back is the email requests to review our holiday, which I am doing now. What we have learned is that we have received many communications from various villa owners all trying to help us and sort the issue.
James Villas asked for our review and this is it.

Thankyou so much for their help and communication. Even though we are home they have "whats apped" us and hoped we had a nice time.
We would love to go back to Albufeira and would love to stay at Caguy. If Caguy was not available, we now know there are numerous villas available with lovely owners to book with direct.
This time we would arrange our own flights as we kept being reminded online, that the flights we booked through James Villas were going to be late ones and we could UPGRADE to a more social hour for a fee.
For most I am sure, James Villas have been fantastic, as their reviews show, but just have in the back of your mind a plan for when it's not quite going right.


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