4/10 Poor
Kay B., Colchester
28 Aug 2019
Disliked: Cleanliness
Disappointed
Let’s start with the good bits. The rooms are spacious and the bed in the master bedroom was very comfortable. Plenty of spare clean linens for kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom. The views of Etna are wonderful. The pool is a great size. The location means it’s very private and peaceful.
The not so good would be there is no hot water in the kitchen (and there is no dishwasher despite it being listed in the description). There are no knives apart from a bread knife and dozens of table knives. There are limited cooking pots and pans which seems an enigma in an Italian kitchen.
The bad would be we had to spend the first day cleaning and tidying up. Inside the villa the obvious surfaces were clean but when you looked in the corners, under the beds, tables, chairs everywhere was very dusty. The pool side was deep in pine needles, leaves and grit. The pool and it’s filters were no better. The main terrace, the outside cooking area and the walkways between these spaces can only be described as dire. There were bits of wire, nails, lumps of mortar, broken knives, plates, discarded bottles and an old rolled piece of carpet. A rusty, cement covered wheelbarrow was being used to hold a door closed. The outside grill was so filthy it was beyond belief. There were used coals strewn everywhere. When we complained to Salvatore he just said he’d been too busy!
The final straw was when we spent over 12 hours without water. We were told we had abused his allowance of 60,000 litres in less than 2 weeks and had to wait until the following morning before Salvatore came to reinstate the water. Really? It was Salvatore who asked us to top up the swimming pool. We left early and checked into a hotel.
We have stayed in a number of Home Away properties and up until this one they have all been immaculately clean and tidy. This property was a real disappointment but would have been transformed (so too would our experience have been) if the owner had cleaned and tidied up and if he didn’t have the time someone should have been employed to do the job.
Kay B.
Stayed 14 nights in Jul 2019