Porto Cristo, Drach Hotel

My wife and i stayed here in october2014 on half board and loved the hotel and staff but the food from the buffet style evening meal was not very good. This year we decided to give it another try and have just returned from a week half board and what a difference, you now pick from a choice of three starters,three mains and three desserts and have your meals served at your table. Top marks.

i booked the appartment on the strength of the pictures and reviews on line,i was not disappointed,

A Very nice modern hotel,with great rooms, new

And well maintained,rooms were cleaned daily,I

Will definitely return to this hotel,very impressed,

Not sure about the food though,we went self catering.poto Cristo is a lovely place,nice places to

Eat,and venture out...staff very friendly

I chose this holiday as it was advertised (and still is in their brochure) as a seafront hotel with Views over the bay.

This is not true. The appts overlook the marina and maybe you can see a snatch of the sea from atop floor room,we were on 2nd floor. I have fairly severe arthritis and looked forward to seeing the ocean from my window or better still balcony and walking along the seafront. In fact the seafront is approx half a mile walk,less perhaps if you are fully fit and can climb flights of steps or walk up very steep alleyways. I did explain to reception on arrival that I would not be able to walk that far often and would it be possible to have an appt with a balcony (I would have been prepared to pay a supplement if asked) They said they would see but 3 days later I told them not to bother as I wanted to unpack my case.There were very small TV sets in bedroom and sitting area but on arrival neither could get the English programmes , in fact the sitting room TV could get nothing at all. After a couple of half-hearted attempts we were able to get BBC1&2 and Sky News but only from our bedroom lying on our beds, nothing from the sitting room set.

Meals were not good.At both breakfast & Dinner food was put out on heated(?) trolleys at start of mealtimes but were never refreshed or added to during the whole service,once a dish was empty it stayed that way.One (heated )

trolley had no over light to keep dishes warm,the other two were lukewarm at best. Desserts were very poor and again once they were gone they were gone,no replacement.

Sorry to be so negative, but I'm sure doing the 10 day holiday a balcony could have been found as all the other marina view appts. appeared to have balconies,ours was over the lift and was not possible.

However several of the staff were delightful and I thank them for this,If you wish I can send photos.

We stayed at the Drach apartments (rented through the Homeaway site, property 750051, agent D.Schultz) from 20th to 25th June 2013.There was never any mention during the booking process that the complex was not quite finished yet and would not be until after our departure.

There were workmen everywhere: painters, decorators, plasterers, various labourers, and non-stop traffic of heavy (& loud) trucks delivering or picking up all kinds of building materials either from the car park just above our apartment or from the road just below our balcony. There was noise from electric drills, saws, chainsaws, hoist revving up etc at any time of the day between 7.30 in the morning and 8.00 in the evening.

The worse part of it was the fact that the apartment directly above us was being completely refurbished, which included a balcony wall having to be knocked down. There was dust, bits of plaster/rubble everywhere on our balcony, in the stairs & landing leading to the apartment, the whole place was filthy and we had to insist that our apartment was cleaned again.(We had already paid a hefty 60 Euros cleaning charge!)We were also woken up by furniture being dragged along the floor on various mornings.

At one stage we had to walk past a big pile of breeze-blocks/sacks of plaster + other assorted materials to get to our apartment.

The pool area had not been cleaned yet, there lots of cigarette ends (from the builders)+ litter scattered around, and the pump & filters were not switched on until the 3rd day of our 5 day stay, and did not become effective until the 4th. We also had to share the pool with some maintenance/ground staff and members of the bar staff!

I have photographic evidence for all this (46 photos to be precise)should the agents try and pretend that I have made it all up!

I tried to alert the agents to all these issues first through the German couple who were there collecting the money/giving out the keys etc but they said we should go direct to the agents so I started trying to make contact from Monday morning, asking for a very reasonable 20% discount/refund in compensation for all the hassle & disruption to our holiday. No one answered the phone or responded to the message I left,so I called again in the evening and spoke to a man who agreed with me that all of this was totally unacceptable and that he would get back to me about it. He did not, so I tried e-mailing Mrs Schultz: at the second attempt I got a 1 line "answer", without the slightest apology, telling me that the laundry room had been available all along. This had been one of my minor complaints, it said in the blurb that there would washing facilities but despite what she said there weren't any: the so-called laundry room was crammed full of furniture/fitments waiting to be installed in all the rooms of the new block. It was locked most of the time in any case and the keys we were given did not open it.

That's all she could come back to me with! Clause 9 of their Terms & Conditions states: tell us of any problems/difficulties you encounter BEFORE the end of your stay and we'll do our best to solve them. We cannot do anything about claims made AFTER your departure." All they do is ignore you/do not return your calls or e-mails and know full well there is nothing you can do as they still have your 300 Euros deposit until the last minute!

These sort of dishonest practices belong to the back streets of some 3rd world country, not to agents advertising on rental sites such as Homeaway. Perhaps someone could also look into why they insist on all payments (apart from the 40 Euros deposit)being made IN CASH!

Regardless of whether the apartments are finished or not, I would certainly not want to deal with such rude, arrogant and basically dishonest people and can only urge other people to steer well clear of them.