Wellamar Hotel & Apartments

We arrived to find an apartment that wasn’t the one we’d paid for. It had no terrace and only one bathroom. At reception, they said ours was occupied, so we’d have to take a cheaper, inferior apartment, using the receptionist’s own words. They said our reserved apartment might be free on Friday, three days before the booking ended. We asked to switch for those days, but were told that if someone else booked it, we couldn’t. How does that make sense? They were going to give a paid-for apartment to a later guest, even though we were already there. Apparently we had no priority. They put us in apartment 302, which wasn’t a penthouse and had just one bathroom and no terrace, then told us to complain to Booking.com because they couldn’t help. The door was also a problem. It wouldn’t open or close properly, and at 12:30 a.m. we were stuck outside. The hallway had no light at all, not even a switch, so we used our phone torches. After 20 minutes of trying, we called reception. A staff member came up with our key but couldn’t open it either, then went back for another key. She offered us a different room for the night, without our things, but we said no. The second key worked. She advised us not to lock the door because she wasn’t sure it would open in the morning. There was no latch, so we pushed a sofa against it to feel safe enough to sleep. That was only the start. The Wi-Fi didn’t work, the elevator broke during our stay, and the shower barely ran and wouldn’t drain. Some switches, including the bathroom one, didn’t work, and the only way to turn off the light was to flip the breaker. There were only a couple of badly placed outlets, the master bedroom ceiling fan didn’t work, and we had four power cuts in a few days. The kitchen light also failed early on the second morning. Getting to one bedroom meant going through another, and the bathroom opened into a bedroom, so privacy was limited. One room felt claustrophobic: it faced a light well full of air conditioners, and noise and heat meant the window couldn’t be opened. The two people assigned that room had to move their beds. We ended up with three people sharing one room and the fourth sleeping in the kitchen. The hotel staff ignored the problem from the start. And how can they keep a 2018 Booking.com rating of 8.2 and 8.5 stars on the building facade? What a rip-off.