Apartment in Costa Rei

We’d traveled as three families, and the holiday was ruined for all of us. We felt stranded in the middle of nowhere, and this was nowhere near a €1500 holiday for a family of three. Costa Ray had little to do beyond the beach, with no taxis or sights to visit. We could have stayed in the UK if all we wanted was a beach. Shops were very expensive and closed for a four-hour siesta each day, and the town didn’t feel set up for tourists. We travel a lot as a family and have never had an experience like this. After we booked, the photos vanished from the loveholidays site and some of the original information changed. The listing suggested there was a pool at the resort, but the pool was 3 kilometres from our bungalow and wasn’t even open. The receptionist said the outdoor pool had nothing to do with them, even though it was still advertised online as an extra. We reached the property at 1am and found reception closed. We waited on the street for an hour with tired children, until a woman arrived and asked if we needed towels without saying what they cost. We said yes. She got in her car and told us to follow, without offering to take our suitcases. With the kids and all our things, we had to walk 300 metres behind the car to the apartments. In the dark, along a busy road, it felt absolutely dangerous. At 2:30am she told us to return to reception at 9am for check-in. When we did, they charged €30 for late check-in, though no one had checked us in overnight, and €70 for three towels and bedding. They didn’t even provide blankets, only sheets. Then she asked for a €100 deposit that wasn’t stated in the booking. We refused. The receptionist, who said she was the manager, was aggressive and offensive, yelling that we had to pay or the police would be called and threatening to kick us out if we didn’t like anything. The apartments were old-fashioned, low-budget, dirty, smelly, and had bugs. There was no cleaning during our stay, the aircon didn’t work, and they provided neither toilet paper nor soap. No one explained the rubbish arrangements, so it sat beside the house and smelled all week. The washing machine cost €50 per person per week. There may have been Wi-Fi, but no one explained how to use it. The manager left me in a mental breakdown and seriously worried about the safety of my family and friends. On checkout they also demanded a €1 per person per day tourist tax, which hadn’t been disclosed, including for our seven-year-old child. We checked online and found that children under 10 years old were exempt. Don’t pay extra for breakfast: you have to walk to a cafe, where you get one coffee and one pastry. It isn’t a proper breakfast. They run the reception under different names, and after googling those names we found horrible reviews. Under our hotel’s name, we couldn’t find any.

The apartment we got didn’t match the photos, and no one could tell us why it wasn’t the one we’d booked. They advertise four different apartments using the same pictures. This local agency and Novasol gave us a bad experience. It seems like they’ve been doing this for a long time, claiming not to know anything and passing responsibility to Airbnb and Novasol. They don’t answer calls or give information. Don’t book with them, and report them to Airbnb.

The apartment was in poor condition, with ants, cobwebs, old dirty dishes that smelled, and no garbage bin. The toilet had no paper or soap, and its covering had never been washed. We weren’t told where to put rubbish or how to separate it. We paid €20 for two towels and €60 for cleaning, which was barely done. After we called about the problem, they supposedly cleaned again, but it didn’t look like much had changed. The mattress sagged so badly we couldn’t lie on it for even half an hour. At least they replaced it, saying that no one had complained before. Then there was €100 for electricity, water, and gas, which was crazy.

We’d booked through Interhome for our seventh trip to Sardinia, and our first and last visit to Costa Rei. We were traveling with two children and their 73-year-old grandmother, so the promised location mattered a lot. The listing described a terraced house 70 meters from the beach and sea. The coordinates Interhome sent before departure put it right behind Ginepro Beach Bar on Via delle Tamerici, which would have been perfect. Instead, an employee from Apartments & Villas Costa Rei, or Resole, took us to a house about 250-300 meters from the beach, in the sixth or seventh row at the end of Via della Ferula. The employee only spoke, or would speak, Italian. We complained straight away, but the agency initially refused to deal with it and pointed to fine print saying the location could differ from the offer. The listing didn’t say 70-300 meters, just 70 meters to the beach and sea, mentioned four times. Several calls with Interhome got nowhere. They sent us back to the local agency and never explained why we hadn’t received the property we booked. The agency promised to show us another property the next day, but said we couldn’t move for another three days. They showed us one from outside that was in the second row, about 100 meters away, and seemed better equipped. The evening before the move, they called to say they had shown us the wrong place and it wasn’t available. The following day we saw a different property, perhaps 250 meters from the sea, but it was much smaller and less equipped. One of us would have slept on a sofa bed, and there weren’t enough chairs for everyone at the table, so we reluctantly stayed in the original house. It was also dirty and poorly equipped. Most dishes were dirty, the shower drain was clogged with hair, the pillows were rock hard and left us with back pain for days, and there were no children’s pillows. The steel bunk beds were wobbly and dangerous, like something in a military barracks. The garden was the only positive, and it was well maintained. We walked that route four times a day for twelve days, adding at least one kilometer each day, and we were farther from the rental sun loungers too, which meant more walking along the beach. The extra distance cost time and the back-and-forth took even more time. It was infuriating. This is a terrible advertisement for Costa Rei. The way it looks to us, they advertise a prime spot and then try to place customers in unsold properties. Once you’ve arrived, it’s hard to push back because Interhome offers no support and the local agency can carry on with its charade. Readers can search online for “Reisole” and look on Trustpilot for reviews of these two companies from other Costa Rei travelers. You’ll see we weren’t the only ones with this experience.