Gastgebruiker
4 april 2024
7a Village Street, Old Village, Vilamoura; Letting agent Five Star Letting Agent: 8/10 Apartment: 5/10 Old Village: 5/10 Vilamoura: 4/10 Want the (very) long read? Read on . . . I stayed in The Old Village during the first week of March 2024, arriving early Sunday afternoon, before official check-in time. Pleasingly, the keys were already available from the key safe at Five Star offices, a minute’s walk away from 7a Village Street. The two-bed ground floor apartment is in the centre of The Old Village, hosted in this instance by Five Star, one of several onsite letting agents. The place has open plan living, cooking and dining, looking out onto its own patio - and a public space beyond. The bedrooms are at the front, with the bathroom is squeezed somewhere between the two areas. With the bedrooms at the front looking out onto the street, the blackout curtains need to be drawn at all times if one is to retain a modicum of modesty. That makes it all a bit gloomy. I like to sleep with curtains and windows open but, whilst possible, it isn’t advisable. The headline impression was of a nicely fitted out apartment. It was roomy and modern. But the devil is in the detail, as I would soon discover. The kitchen area had almost everything one could ask for. Except a sink plug. Or a washing up bowl. Or electricity! I looked for instructions on how to switch the apartment electricity on, but there were none. Information about the cleaning schedule or where to take the rubbish was also lacking. I found the electricity box: its door looked like it had seen a lot of openings and closings. The master MCB was off. I reset it, but within an hour or so it tripped out; the washing machine abruptly stopped mid-cycle, and my M&S smalls languished in lukewarm suds. The main bedroom had a built-in wardrobe, a chest of drawers and one bedside table. It lacked a chair or two to put clothes on. The chest of drawers was inexpensive – the self-assembly sort - that had become partly disassembled with use. Several drawers could open only a few inches, and others didn’t open at all. They clearly didn’t want to host my M&S smalls, once free of the washing machine. All the furniture in the place was pretty much from the same economy self-assemble range. It was bucking and bending without a straight line amongst it. The dining table had kid’s scribbles scratched into the surface, and the inexpensive plastic upholstery on one dining chair was shredded across its leading edge. Then there was a problem with the safe in the wardrobe of the twin bedroom. I couldn’t use it until Five Star opened on Monday and issued me with a key. I’d intended to travel with a couple of friends, but they pulled out at the last minute. Just as well really. Our relationship wasn’t of an intimate sort, yet the bathroom door dictated that it would certainly need to be. It was the sliding type which stood proud of the doorway to such an alarming degree that no
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