Hi lucykaz,

I can understand why you are concerned but it may just be that this particular owner is bad at communicating. No excuses for that, but I've learnt that the Portuguese do have a laid back approach which can be extremely frustrating. However, it shouldn't take 3 weeks for a letter to arrive from Portugal - normally one week or less, but allowing for the Christmas post it could be double that.

Have you got any information about how you are going to gain access to the villa, will there be someone there to meet you with the keys, etc?

Where is the villa? If you would like someone on here to try to help with its location, could you post the name and any directions the owner has given you? Have you checked to see if there are any reviews on here or TripAdvisor which might reassure you?

I think you should ring him if nothing arrives tomorrow. After all, he has your money and you are going out there in a few days' time so it's not unreasonable that you're starting to worry.

thanks the owner said he would meet us at the villa. its in vale de parra. we have a hire car and will be driving from faro airport. the map is very vague, with no street names just scared that when we arrive, the owner will say he does not know us. i guess im panickihg, its a early flight so we have to be up at 4am and we will be tense.
i found one review on thompson i think it was

Maybe the guy is cutting down on his admin costs. No excuse though, its not good customer service if you want to keep your clients happy.
We have had letters arrive within 3 days from Uk to Portugal. It also depends if he did send you a receipt whether he posted it national which is first class or other mail (2nd class snail mail). the majority of new post boxes in Portugal now have a specified boxes for posting 1st and 2nd class letters, which I think is a excellent idea, instead of mixing all the post classes together and then they have to be sorted.
Hope everything works out fine, I'm sure it will, have a great holiday.

If cutting down on admin costs means not spending 68 cents on a stamp then I would be worried!

Vale de Parra is a bit of a sprawly place and it will be easy to get lost especially if arriving in the dark. A lot of the streets appear to have no names or none that I have ever seen from the vantage point of my bicycle.

Ring him and get a mobile phone number and arrange to meet perhaps at a prominent location eg the roundabout in the middle of the village with the horse and cart thingy on top of it!

i have never been to portugal before still no reciept we looked o google says addy is a industrial estate!

I've never had a lot of faith in Portuguese maps and Googles will eventually be based on something local. Have you tried switching to aerial photo mode? And is the address definately the villa and not his office?

Which site did you book it on & whats the villa called, then maybe one of the forum members can help pinpoint it for you.

Vale de Parra is definitely not an industrial estate!

I live about 3 miles away and go through there maybe once a week. It's a fairly newish area of mainly tourist apartment developments with the normal collection of bars and restaurants, plus a couple of small shops in the centre and a supermarket on the road to Guia.

Oh well Tom I hope they arrived safely with someone to meet them at the end of their journey. Saying that I hope they wern't flying from Gatwick with all the cancelled flights due to the great british weather, thats another thing. Must have been a lot of disappointed travellers today, thats mother nature for you, very stressful.