Booked and Paid but No Room Available

My wife and I were very worried on arrival at the SolAqua Apartments on 15th June 2011 to be informed by the receptionist that there was no apartment available for us. We had booked (and paid) two months previously through TravelRepublic and we had not been notified of any problems with the confirmed booking prior to our arrival at the Apartments. We were due to stay for 10 days and were told that no apartment was available for us for any of our scheduled holiday.

Two other UK guests arriving at the SolAqua at the same time who had booked a week’s stay through another on-line provider were also told that there was no apartment available for them.

No adequate explanation was given but we were offered accommodation at the SolAqua’s sister establishment Club Humbria which is located a few miles away in Olhos Agua and given an upgrade to all-inclusive basis. As the time was by now mid-afternoon and we had no means of researching any other alternatives, we felt obliged to accept this offer and the Hotel arranged transport for us and the other two guests to the alternative accommodation.

We had specifically selected the SolAqua because self-catering suits our holiday style and for its central location in the resort - within easy walking distance of the beach, the old town and the ‘strip’. As the Club Humbria is located some 3 miles east of the SolAqua, we also negotiated with the hotel management to arrange for free transport into the resort centre for every day of our stay (although we had to pay for our own taxis back at 9 Euros per trip).

Although no explanation for our being switched was provided at any time during our stay, we got the distinct impression that SolAqua had deliberately overbooked in order to divert custom to their sister hotel Club Humbria (which was far from full when we arrived). They would not have been so accommodating and upgraded us if the fault had been with TravelRepublic.

In fairness to the staff at both establishments, we were treated with courtesy and, in the event, we enjoyed our holiday, but I have to say that it was a quite different holiday to the one which we had booked and being bumped in this way could have completely ruined the holiday for many people who either needed the central location of the SolAqua with all the facilities of the main resort close to hand or were less confident about negotiating with hotel staff (without any support from tour company reps).

We spend considerable time in researching our holiday accommodation before booking and taking account of the reviews of other holidaymakers. All this effort is obviously wasted if, on arrival in your holiday resort, you are told that the holiday you have booked and paid for is not available and you are shunted off to some other location with absolutely no choice in the matter.

We would advise anybody booking the SolAqua to reconfirm their booking a few days before travel direct with the Apartments (no idea if this will actually help though !)

We stayed at the solaqua apartments from 3rd till 10th june. The hotel itself is spotless as is the apartments. The bedrooms are enormous and the living area. They have got two balconies one from the bedroom and the other from the living room. What i did find strange is the balcony only had two chairs but the aparment slept 4. The reception staff were very good and spoke excellent english. I picked these apartments because they were in the middle of the new and old part but we found it a little further to walk than we were lead to beleive from other holiday reviews, hense we used alot of taxis. The price of the taxis were under 4euros didnt seem to matter where you went in the resort it was the same price. I would definatley use these apartments again if we returned to portugal but might consider going half board as I think it is a touch on the expensive side for eating out. To get more people to use the hotel as half board and to keep them there a bit longer on a nightime before going out,I think they need to consider adding some sort of entertainment program. Over all it was a good break away.

We stayed in a one bedroom apartment from 16th May until 30th May. The apartment was very big a clean, the bedroom was very spacious and had 2 queen size beds in. The kitchen area was well equiped with a 4 ring hob toaster, microwave and all the cutlery and plates etc that you need to cook a meal. The apartment was very clean and the maids visted every day.
The hotel had a restaurant and a snack bar, and though we never used the restauraunt the snack bar food was good and not to expensive. The hotel has a big pool and a small childrens pool, and unlike the rest of the EU your are allowed inflatbles in the pools, there is an indoor pool and jacuzi but we never went in these as the weather was so nice.
The hotel is in between "The Strip" and "The Old town", taking about 15 minutes to walk to both, it is about 2 minutes from a massive supermarket, so not to far to go for the essentials (Beer).
The hotel staff are very friendly and helpful, when we arrived our room was not ready so we left our cases behind the locked reception and just went for a nice walk for an hour.
The room we had did not have a sea view, we were facing the street, which was fine except the room we were in was right by the bins, and the dust bin men come at 4.00am every morning to empty the 40+ bins, so this was a bit of a headache, but with enough drink the night before then we didnt notice the noise.
Overall a very good hotel that i would have no problems staying at again.