Juras Perle

The view over the Bay of Riga was magnificent, but it couldn't make up for how many problems we had. At more than 130 eur a night, this was appalling, and probably the worst experience I've had using booking.com. I’d avoid this place. There are plenty of trustworthy, clean, well-kept places along Latvia’s northwestern coast. We expected a lot from this accommodation, and left heavily dissatisfied. The advertised grill was an old, extremely dirty and battered charcoal grill with no charcoal provided. It was about 10 meters away from the lawn, rather than on the accommodation's patio. The bathroom smelled strongly of urine and sewer, and flushing didn't clear it. The toilet didn't flush properly, and there were odd black particles in the flush water. Water pooled on the floor because the shower drain was partly blocked. The sink drain grate had come loose, and the cabinet under the sink smelled strongly of urine. The shower head holder had come off the wall, there were no shelves for shampoo, and the shower door had slipped off its rails, so it couldn't be shut. A very large spider by European standards was on the shower floor. There were mosquitoes and dead cockroaches around the accommodation too. The bathroom door could only open about a third of the way because the floor tiles had lifted. The water tasted and smelled strongly of copper and sulfur. Maybe the Soviet-era pipes are nearing the end of their life? The bed was shabby and creaky, with little support. Its thin mattress was too soft, and the pillows were nearly useless. I had noticeable neck pain the next morning. The curtains weren't wide enough for the room's large, unwashed windows, so sunlight came in. The pellet stove heated the room quickly, but pushed the temperature to around 25-27 degrees Celsius. It was extremely loud, ran for about 20 minutes before switching off, then lit itself again after an unpredictable amount of time. It woke us at least twice in the late evening. There were no instructions or manual, so we couldn't turn it off. With a flaming stove and poor ventilation, the lack of a carbon monoxide or smoke detector was unnerving. The hallway tiles were badly damaged, cracked in several places, and some had come away from the floor completely. By the front door, the hallway floor had sunk around 5-10 cm, likely from moisture after the tiles gave way. Then around 2 in the morning, scraping sounds woke us both up. We shone a flashlight toward the noise and saw a mouse or rat run across the floor toward the bedroom's outer wall. Similar sounds continued inside the wall beside the bed through the night, which seemed certainly caused by a rodent infestation. We couldn't sleep after that.