Ruined Vacation
Review Submitted: August 28, 2009
Date of Stay: July 2009
The house was a shock. The pictures on the home page are probably years old.
Dirt (months old), dead insects, spider webs, lacking paint and many areas looked simply abandoned, the second refrigerator was so nasty and damaged, we were afraid to put food or drinks in it, stained and soiled pillows, unusable cooking pots, the roof having large gaps (easy entrance for a lot of bugs), a leaking AC in one of the rooms upstairs where 2 teen boys were sleeping (only room upstairs with AC, the leakage couldn’t be fixed within our 2 weeks vacation), ants in the bed of my younger son and the upper area looking like a construction site. Not enough we had to clean the house every day twice. Once in the morning and once in the evening due to the damaged roof. We had to deal with hundreds of mosquitoes on the floor, couch, living room tables and furniture, stairs and the open upper area. Not removing the mosquitoes (broom and swap the floor) means that we would sit and step on them, giving a lot of bloody spots. We left a message with the owner. He called back 3 days later and wouldn’t believe it (even if he was there 2 weeks before). We agreed to send a DVD with the picture we made and asked for a refund. We’ve got an unfriendly email back. No explanation or excuses about the problems with the house and the daily cleaning we had to do. San Salvador is a very small island, the opportunity to move to a other house for 5 people was not possible. We couldn’t afford to cancel a $ 10,000 trip. The Blue House ruined our vacation.
Owner's Response: Unfortunatelly there are people that will see fault in everything and do not have the ability to be happy wherever.
In Summer , we also travel on vacation and might not be available immediatelly but our manager is and went beyond her job to make the stay an enjoyable one, offering many things that are not part of her responsabilities, besides having the house fully cleaned again.
On a telephone talk on the third day , guests should have seeked an alternate house and we would have gladly refunded but on the contrary , it was said that all was being straightened.
I believe you cannot use a house for a full two weeks and then ask for refund. It is like eating a whole meal at a restaurant and then refusing to pay saying you did not enjoy it. But as bad as they claimed it to be, some people that only paid for the first week decided to stay for a second without paying.
The pictures of the house are from April 09 , it reflects exactly what it is.
There is no luxury in our house but it is never dirty as stated and it has most things that people need to have a great beach vacation as other reviews support.
This refrigerator mentioned is not in use and in general turned off , it is between two bedrooms , not in the kitchen and to our knowledge has never been used by anyone.
The out islands depending on several weather patterns will bring different bugs. Nothing out of the ordinary for a beach house on an island , I am surprised the cute crabs were not mentioned too, they show up unexpedtedly.
We have had many people have a terrific time and we have people that have stayed at our house more than once.
Everything that is brought up as a problem with the house , we certainly address. The air conditioner leaking was a challenge, the technician was there a few times but many parts are not readily available and have to be ordered from the US and sent by ship . Some of the things are beyond an owner's control.
As owner's we hope to never have this kind of experience with such unhappy guests again.
But as seen in previous reviews, our manager, who is way beyond nice, tried in every possible manner to please and attested that is was impossible. Refund would have been given if the house had been vacated , there are a few vacation homes in San Salvador , similar to ours it might cost at least 3 times as much.
San Salvador is an island for those looking to be away from it all, enjoy the beach , fish, snorkel and scuba.
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Helpful votes: 2/6
