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Villa in need of many repairs!
We recently stayed at the Solymar Beach Resort, in a 3 bedroom Villa.
There was 6 of us and we were there a full two weeks. The grounds were very well kept and the housekeeping, grounds crew, activity staff, and craft staff were absolutely fantastic. I can not express enough how fantastic they are.
I wish I could say the same for our villa. We arrived on December 20th. When we entered, the villa smelled very moldy. Later we found out why(will explain later). We were supposed to have a fully furnished kitchen. There was only 5 glasses, 3 spoons, 3 knifes, no mixing bowls, no juice pitcher, fry pans were all in very poor condition, no sharp knifes, no type of small kettle pan. We asked for these items and nothing ever arrived. We had to make a trip to the store to purchase most of these, just so we could cook something. The refrigerator (with wall paper border around the front) was very old, small and didn't work, (even though it was plugged in). It also had no shelfs except in the door. We called maintenance and they came and said we had to turn a dial on the back every time it quit working. We had to turn it every few hours to keep it going (which meant that we had to get up while sleeping to check the refrigerator). The following day, the refrigerator went out completely. Maintenance came and replaced the switch. He said it would be fine after he removed the switch. We went to the grocery store to pick up food. It worked for about 18 hours before it went out. This time our food was spoiled because it went during the night. We called maintenance again and he came a defrosted the unit. It was completely built up with frost and it had only ran for that 18 hours. The inside was so warm we lost our food and the coils that were hidden were completely frosted up.
We replace the food and brought it back and it went out again. This time they said they would put our food in the resorts cooler in their store. Which meant, everytime we wanted anything (even a can of pop) we had to go to them to get it! The maintenance man came the next morning and said they would have to order parts so we would have to go without for 2-3 days because now it was Christmas! This villa was supposed to have a complete kitchen. We planned on cooking most of our meals in and no where to put any food. We insisted on a different referator and they claimed they didn't have one. They finally came up with a "mini" refrig. This one had two small shelves about 6" tall each and no shelves in the door, because they were broke. But, it was better than nothing. At this point we have wasted 4 days of our vacation dealing with a refrigerator. We couldn't go anywhere or do anthing because of the problems with our food spoiling. During this time, never did they even offer to give us a meal at no charge or even replace our food. It was a fight just to get a refrig that even worked! We checked in the 20th and finally received the "mini" refrig on the 24th!!! This one leaked water from it defrosting. We had to keep towels on the floor around the refrig to prevent it from flowing into the walk areas.
On the morning of the 21st we reported that our air conditioner didn't work in one of the bedrooms. Then, we went to use our blender and it didn't work. We called maintenance again and they came and got it to work with jiggling it in electrical socket. Then they said we had to hold the cord in place to have it work. The blender only would work on one speed. The remainder of the speeds didn't work at all. We needed this blender to make pancakes because we didn't have any mixing bowls.
We also went to make toast and that didn't work either. After two days I took the broken one up to the front desk and they brought us a new one. This toaster was also used and would toast only one side of the bread at a time.
On Christmas eve, December 24th, it rained during the night. When we woke in the morning, there was water everywhere in the villa. Our bedspread had been at the bottom of our bed and was completely soaked from the roof leaking. In the master bedroom 3/4 of the room was covered with water. The master bathroom was flooded along with the closets in the master bedroom. The living room leaked down the walls and through the ceiling. In fact, we had a telescope that got wet from the ceiling leaking. The stairway had water running down them like a small water falls. The kitchen had water in the laundry area and around the sink area. We called for towels to clean it up and nobody delivered them. We had to wait for housekeeping to arrive to clean up the mess.
In the mean time, we had to walk very carefully to make sure that we didn't fall on the wet floor.
December 25th, they brought another party to our villa. The other party tried to come in. They said they had it reserved for the week!
December 26, we had a liquid propane leak in our unit. We called the front desk and they said they would send someone down to check it out.
Two hours later, nobody there yet. We called again and once again they said they would send someone down. After about a half an hour I went to the front desk, and they called maintenance right away. Liquid propane is a very dangerous gas. We could have been blown up. I can't believe this was not handled immediately!
December 26th. They finally fixed the broken air-conditioner. They replaced it with a different unit that worked. Why didn't they do that right away????
December 31st. The blender finally quit completely. They did bring us a new one that worked great!
Other things in general that didn't work: The lawn chairs on the deck were broke and unable to be used. The legs on the patio table were completely rusted through. We stacked the furniture in the corner so nobody would sit on them and fall to the ground. No batteries in any of the remotes and many lights through out the villa didn't work. The living room furniture was musty smelling with small spots of mold.
We tried to make the best of things while we were there. So many things were wrong. For the price we paid for our lodging one should think we shouldn't have had to tolerate this type of villa. Never was any type of compensation offered. Not even for our food that spoiled and had to be replaced. We wasted so many days of going places and doing things because of the problems. We have wrote to the manager at the Solymar and the travel agent who booked the villa. Neither has replied. You may want to consider staying elsewhere!
