Camping Resort Almafra

I chose this campsite because I needed reliable internet, and it wasn’t available during our stay. We’d booked a camper pitch for two nights in January and bought a Wi-Fi voucher when we arrived. At first we connected, but every few minutes the connection dropped. Sometimes the network name showed up, sometimes it vanished, so it was unusable. We were on pitch 201 right beside the toilet block, yet staff suggested we might be too far from the router there. When I showed the overnight receptionist my iPhone, he tried his Android too and couldn’t connect. Later, the day receptionist said the site internet “is not very good on site and drops in and out”. The advertised library/business centre seemed like a place we could work instead, but the overnight receptionist told me there was no Wi-Fi there either. The bar was suggested as another option, but we needed somewhere quiet. Since the internet was the reason we picked the site, we left early and asked for the unused night to be refunded. I was told only management could approve that, they weren’t there yet, and their contact details couldn’t be given to me. I had to move on quickly to find working internet, and was promised management would email. After several days without hearing anything, I tried the website email address and it bounced. I then used the contact form. The eventual reply offered to refund the €5 Wi-Fi fee, but not the unused night. They said technicians later found the network working, that its name differed from what we thought it was, and that some devices, particularly iPhones, might have security settings that prevented a connection. I don’t accept that explanation when we couldn’t use the Wi-Fi and staff tested it unsuccessfully too. We were also told on site that it drops in and out. A five-star resort should provide working coverage where it advertises it, shouldn’t blame guests’ devices after staff have confirmed a problem, and shouldn’t keep advertising Wi-Fi while acknowledging it’s unreliable. We booked and arrived on the same day, so refunding the unused night wouldn’t have involved a long-term booking or a lost opportunity. We left because the service we’d come for wasn’t there. The site also didn’t feel like a five-star resort: some pitches by communal buildings appeared to be under renovation, and vans, caravans, and park homes were packed tightly together. For us it was average at best. A refund for that unused night would be reasonable.