My husband and I had a weeks holiday at the begining of June, we booked through Simply Travel and stayed in one of their villas called L%26#39;alimea. It was the worst value for money holiday I have ever experienced in both quality of accommodation and advice and support from Simply Travel.
The description in the brochure read well...................It was top of the list for %26#39;Romantic Retreats in the Collection 2007%26#39; brochure. Simply travel described the accommodation as being %26#39;prettily decorated and comfortably furnished%26#39; suggesting it%26#39;s appeal to families with small children. Driving times from airports either 1hour 30mins or 3 hours.
Total cost for 1 week for 2 people £1,301.60.
The drive to our accommodation took 4 hours from the airport, due to the fight times we%26#39;d actually had to go nearly 32 hours without sleep before driving ourselves to the north of Corsica, the equivelent of driving from London to Scotland. The accommodation when we arrived was damp with shabby furniture and fittings. The scair case was more of a ladder and would have been very, very dangerous for either young children or the less agile. The toilet was only divided from the refridgerator and cooking facilities by a thin wall. The bedroom ceiling had brown stains from water coming in and the chest of drawers smelt to damp to use.
We contacted our rep immediately, she came to see us the following day with an offer to move us the next day at an extra cost to uourselves of another £500. I felt this was an unreasonable cost to us and neither of us wanted to spend another day of our holiday in transit.
We thought the best thing tro do was to stick it out and try to enjoy our holiday and contact Simply Travel on our return. We booked a hotel in Bonifacio near the airoprt for our last night so we could be ready for our early flight the next day and to avoid having to get up in the middle of the night to have the gruelling journey back to the airport.
We wrote to Simply Travel immediately on our return saying we felt that Thompsons and Simply Travel had badly let us down and had ill advised us on 2 counts, firstly on the travel advice and secondly by mis selling a very shabby property. The reponse from them was a basic standard letter not covering our complaint at all or showing any interest in our customer satisfaction. It was our 3rd and last holiday with them, it was also the most expensive weeks holiday we%26#39;ve every booked.
We will not trust Thompsons or Simply Travel with our holiday arrangements in the future, why would anyone use a holiday company ithat gives bad travel advice and sells rubbish accommodation at very high prices and then does not care about it%26#39;s customers when they have a problem?
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Oh Dear! From your tale of woe, it seems that you were routed via Figari airport - is that right? The obvious airport for Macinaggio would be Bastia%26#39;s Poretta Airport - a much shorter drive. For that reason alone, you deserve some kind of explanation from the tour operator. If you landed at Figari, you did just about the longest drive possible to do on the island!
I hope it hasn%26#39;t put you off Corsica completely. Having seen Cap Corse and Bonifacio at first hand, you%26#39;ll no doubt agree it%26#39;s a beautiful island. Better luck next time - when you%26#39;ll know to choose an airport closer to your villa.
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Strange one this! For the life of me, I can%26#39;t work out how your flight time can mean you go 32 hours without sleep before the drive. The flight times quoted by Simply Travel are 1.5 hours from Bastia and 3 hours from Calvi, yet as Derek says, you appear to have used Figari - totally unsuitable for your destination.
You should be aware also that it is standard practice in the travel industry to try and fob you off on receiving a first letter of complaint, knowing that many will simply go away. It seems you may well have a genuine case here, so try again and again! Did you take photos of the property?
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We have just returned from a fortnight%26#39;s holiday in this property. Having read your review before our trip I was concerned to say the least. I can only imagine that your bad experience was because you went earlier in the season, but it still doesn%26#39;t excuse the damp.
We found no evidence of damp other than some rising damp which didn%26#39;t affect upstairs, just meant the paint was flaking off the walls about 6ins from ground. I dont know when the air con was installed but if it was recent maybe that helped the damp situation upstairs.
The stairs weren%26#39;t easy I agree but the decor was what we have come to expect from Simply properties - a bit on the shabby side but no worse than many hotels. The bed was comfortable %26amp; bedlinen pure white. As for the bathroom - that%26#39;s pretty common in lots of simple cottages %26amp; provided the door was kept shut, no major hassle other than being a bit of a mission in the middle of the night!
The place was spotless on our arrival %26amp; given another good clean after the 1st week. The pool was serviced twice a week %26amp; when there was a small problem the Simply rep had the people out the same day.
We had sunshine for 2wks %26amp; really enjoyed the privacy, quiet, the sole use pool %26amp; odd bits of French TV. I think the important thing is in the name %26#39;Simply%26#39; - these are usually basic properties, without lots of frills %26amp; for us it%26#39;s what we enjoy. In fact we were astounded the property had a washing machine - a first! If people want something a bit more up-market then the cost will be greater, even when arranging the different components of the holiday themselves.
As for Simply Travel, our experience is that since they were taken over by Thomson, their standards have dropped. Their finance dept is outsourced to India (nightmare!!) %26amp; they no longer issue the nice luggage tags, wallets or helpful booklets. The rep was very nice but then we didn%26#39;t need any assistance.
We had a really good time after a relatively short journey from Bastia airport. Perhaps Simply took your complaints on board (!!??)
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