Graham B.

Having just returned from our golfing holiday to Albuferia I am left questioning why I had to pay Golf Holidays Direct.

Their ineptitude and lack of communication was astounding from the very first moment I made contact with them.

Needless to say, every single aspect of our booking was incorrect. Initially everything seemed great. As requested we were offered 2 bedroom suites (x2) for our party of 6, afternoon t-times and although we had to pay for buggies when we arrived, we were assured they would be booked for us. Deposit paid, confirmation through with all of the details correct apart from we were now at a "sister" hotel!

Fast forward a few months and final balance due (which they tried to take 2 weeks early). Once the balance was paid, confirmation was sent out and room type had changed to 1 bed apartments (x2), each with a sofa bed.
Mistakes can happen though and we gave the booking agent G an opportunity to sort this. Numerous emails and calls followed but radio silence. A week later I got a WhatsApp from him and all it said was that the accommodation provided was adequate!
It may have been adequate for a group of teenagers on a stag weekend G but it wasn't what we paid for and certainly was not adequate for a party of 6 guys in their 40's.

Because of this lack of response and zero effort to try and change the hotel rooms we thought it prudent to check our golf bookings were correct. Salgados was correct (although a 4 ball and 2 when 2 x 3's were asked for) but Alamos should have been at 2.24pm. We emailed the course directly to be told that we had a time of 7.40am! When challenged about this, Golf Holidays Direct said they could get us an afternoon booking at another course, at a cost of an extra €110 per person. Paying an extra €660 euros for something we had supposedly already booked was really beyond a joke! We were offered a private transfer to the golf course for this, but when it came through the time was wrong, surprise surprise!

Alamos Golf Course confirmed that Gus had booked the 7.40am tee time back in March when our deposit was paid, he must have just forgotten to tell us!

Now I'm sure anyone reading this will agree that setting an alarm for 5.30am on the first day of your holiday to get picked up by the bus to golf at 6.15 is not ideal. Again, not what we paid for and meant we missed breakfast in the hotel.

To this end we took golf holidays direct out of the equation and contacted all elements of our booking ourselves. We managed to change hotel rooms (having been told by Golf Holidays Direct this was impossible), booked our buggies and tried to change tee time which could not be done.

All in all I was just pleased to find that we had a booking when we arrived. You might think this is an isolated incident but we met 3 young lads at our hotel who only found out when they arrived that their room was wrong and their tee time was for 7.30am instead of 1pm. Their clubs were arriving at the hotel at 8am! Funnily enough they had booked with G too!

The only slight glimmer of hope for the company was EA. In customer services.

Gus Long wouldn't respond to any correspondence once he had our money. Company director LR did not reply to a very polite email and refused to come to the phone. Instead they chose to hide behind poor EA who tried her very best to sort things out for us. Unfortunately to no avail. Although she did manage to upgrade our all inclusive drinks package to premium and international as a gesture.

In conclusion, a shambolic company who obviously have a sales strategy designed to lure you in and hope you don't notice when the book an inferior product. Genuinely would have been better contacting NAU hotels directly as they are connected to the courses we played. G only had to send 1 email, how difficult could that be?

I'm sure they will reply to this review and try and turn it around on us as they have done on other reviews, but unfortunately Mr R I have all correspondence saved and I doubt you can refute it! Please get in touch if you would like to try.