Une villa individuelle très isolée de 3 chambres en plein cœur de Calahonda

Thank you Harold and so glad you enjoyed your stay. Hopefully we will see you again in the future.

Extremely belatedly, thank you for your review (for some reason it didn't flag up?). So much for 'excellent communication' ha ha. Really glad you enjoyed your stay and look forward to welcoming you again one day.

Hi Colin Very glad you had a good time. Hope to see you again. Best wishes Cheryl

Hi James So glad you enjoyed your stay and look forward to welcoming you again some day. Best wishes Cheryl

Hi Paul So pleased you enjoyed yourselves and hope to see you back one day. Best wishes Cheryl

Thank you Craig for your review. A disappointing score obviously. It is a shame that you were not blessed with great weather over the Christmas period (better than here of course!). I would just like to say that it is because it has no 'frontage' that the Villa is very private, safe and secluded. It is walled in on all sides which makes it so. There are, as you know, 3 terraces surrounding the Villa (one very large one) where one can sit, sunbathe etc. and a small garden to the front. As for the distance from the main gate to the entrance to the grounds of the Villa, I know for a fact that it measures 80 steps as I was once asked how far it was. This is why it is so peaceful here not being right next to any roads in its own private oasis and being in a gated community makes it very safe. You mentioned when we spoke on your return that you had very much enjoyed your stay and would definitely go back again this Summer so I look forward to receiving your enquiry. Thanks Cheryl.

Hi Chris Thank you very much for your kind words regarding your stay at our Villa. I am so glad you had such a good time and look forward to welcoming you back before too long. Thanks Cheryl

Wow! Thanks Bernice for such kind words - so glad you enjoyed staying at our Villa - my Mum would have been very chuffed to hear such nice things about her home where she enjoyed many happy years and yes Jonathan our gardener/DE (Does Everything) is a gem for sure. When we visit we always say "why dont we spend more time here" but life sort of takes over back here in England. Thanks very much again and we look forward hopefully to next time you come to stay. Kindest regards Cheryl

Thank you for your review. This used to be my Mothers home and we have done lots of work spending thousands of pounds on it since she passed away to make it into what we hoped was a cosy homely place for our guests, so it is a bit disappointing to see this as a negative and only 4 stars. We quite like it being a bit different from the white washed cold looking Spanish properties - but if you have any particular suggestions or anything you weren’t happy with I would welcome your feedback. We are going over next week and could look at what you suggest. You are right it is a splendid location - we love it and when we go over we always wonder why we don’t go more often. Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you if you have the time to get back to me. Best wishes Cheryl

Hi Liselotte So glad you enjoyed your stay. Hopefully you will be able to come back for longer next time. With best wishes Cheryl

I have only just seen this very disappointing and intentionally damaging review and am very upset and disturbed by the exaggerations and misrepresentations. Because of the COVID situation and not expecting any bookings I had not even looked at this website for months, until today when we had a booking enquiry and they mentioned this bad review (I'm pleased to say that they have still gone ahead with the booking). Even so, I feel I must reply and defend myself and apologise in advance that this is also rather long-winded, but I felt it necessary to give our side of the story. Because of COVID I wasn't able to get over to see the villa after March last year and we had workmen in for quite a while during June, July and August, completely redoing our larger terrace area at great expense and other improvements around the outside of the property. They had literally just finished everything a couple of days before this family arrived (which I had been panicking about) and unfortunately it appears that one of the workmen had left his mopping bucket behind in one of the outside areas (by the BBQ - which by the way was brand new for this booking to extra enhance the new patio - we now have 2 BBQs) so that small area off of the patio must have looked a bit untidy - the cleaners should have noticed (this area is not visible from the patio) and we have advised them that they must check this area in future. It was probably time for the cushion covers to be dry cleaned but this would not have been done mid season. Problems arise because people sit on them with wet swim suits/towels etc. The cleaners went into the property after this family had left and they were astonished when they saw the sofas as they had thought that, although not pristine, the sofas were not too dirty at all. As I've said, for obvious reasons, we had not been over to the villa for a while so would not have been aware of any issues. We very much rely on the cleaning company to make us aware of any problems and had we heard of any we would have made arrangements with them to get it sorted. We are always very diligent when it comes to cleanliness. We did everything we could to rectify the situation for this family and offered to let them stay in the property free of charge while the gentleman sorted some other accommodation out (I can show you the messages on VRBO which went back and forth). I believe that the issue really all started because his young boy fell over in the garden and hurt himself and they needed to go to the local Medical Centre. I was told that thankfully he was ok. I am living in England and so was finding it difficult to deal with this gentleman as he was threatening all sorts eg. going to the police. Then (despite at one stage saying he would leave the keys), he left the property taking the keys with him as he had not got his refund. We had tried our very best and contacted VRBO many times to get this money back to him quickly, but as we all know it's not that easy and refunds can't be done immediately. Anyway, he would not listen and took the keys halfway across the country to wherever he had booked into - which was miles away (very strange in itself?) and expected us to come and collect them after the money was paid to him. Throughout the ordeal I was nothing but polite, apologetic and understanding with him (again, I have written proof of this) and was trying to help as much as possible. It was all very distressing and stressful and had come completely out of the blue with nothing like this ever happening before. So for him to write this extremely harsh and over critical review and deliberately try to stop us from having any other guests stay at our villa is totally unjust in my opinion. All of our other guests have had a brilliant time staying at our villa and given fantastic reviews. Whilst I appreciate that some things were obviously not up to our usual high standards, (and our cleaning company have been made fully aware of the situation), many of the problems could have been sorted and we offered to do that for him and get the cleaners back in while they maybe went to the beach, but for whatever reason, he was determined to uproot the family and leave that night (I was horrified at him doing this and, as said previously, asked him to stay that night at least, for the children's sake, if nothing else) buy he left anyway. I take great pride in what we usually leave out for our guests to use - dishwasher tablets, washing powders/tablets and conditioner, bars of soap, liquid soap, toilet rolls, cling film, tin foil, tea towels, beach towels, DVDs and much more. We do this in order to make our guests feel at home and to not have to go out and buy lots of things which they don't need a lot of and waste their money. Unfortunately, because of COVID we were advised that we needed to cut back on all of this and declutter the villa keeping everything to an absolute minimum (which I wasn't happy about doing). The dishwasher tablets would not have been that old as I have a supply ready in our owners cupboards so the cleaners can regularly put out a supply for our guests. As for the mattresses, everyone knows that mattresses can get marks on them, but again, on subsequent inspection, it was nowhere near as bad as made out by this gentleman. We had mattress protectors on all the beds (and have since upgraded these). It's really not viable to change the mattresses everytime marks appear which we know happens and again, if they had been that bad our cleaners would have informed us and we would have done something about it. Anyway, even though the mattresses are not very old, we are now looking at getting new ones (quite difficult from so far away). We do agree that the fridge was not up to standard (although thoroughly cleaned as is standard) and it was due to be replaced at the end of the season. What had been happening was that the freezer compartment was getting too iced up and then the guests would tug at the plastic drawers to open them, and they would then break - we have replaced the drawers twice before because of this, but again, as we hadn't been over we were unaware that it had happened again (the cleaners should have told us). We have since purchased a new fridge/freezer and a new washing machine/dryer. As for the microwave and TV remote - the cleaners have assured me that all these had been thoroughly cleaned as is standard procedure and the whole place was Covid disinfected. They have always been excellent cleaners in the past and we had and have the utmost faith in them. Having said that, they have been made very aware that they must ensure that they keep their standards as high as ever and I'm sure they will continue to do so. The villa used to belong to my mother who sadly died 5 years ago and so has more of a home from home feel about it (I'm not so keen on the whitewashed clinical feel to some rental properties I have seen) and that is the charm of the place and what our guests have loved about it. Whenever we go out there we always ask ourselves why we don't go more often. I work very hard to make our guests feel welcome and try my best to have the villa in as top of a condition as I can. When I do go out there I spend most of my time either spring cleaning or buying new stuff to make our guests' stay as good as it can be and always joke when leaving that I have not lied down on a sunbed at all! This is why this whole episode and this review has been so upsetting. So, in conclusion, I do ask that you read the other reviews from guests who have stayed at our villa, before making your mind up. It is a really lovely property in a great location, and very private and quiet. I do feel there was some sort of hidden agenda and story here with this gentleman but of course, we will never know. All I do know is that he has done his utmost to destroy our chances of renting out our villa in the future which is an unforgivable thing to do. He was treated with the utmost respect at all times . Things can go wrong of course but it's the way that it is dealt with that is important and and we did everything possible to resolve the situation. He just wouldn't give us the opportunity, just wanting his money back. This review may well be partly because he didn't get all his money back (but that was between VRBO and himself (it was probably their admin fee which I agreed they should have returned to him). We paid him back all the money that we received for the booking (as soon as VRBO could process it). So, we look forward to welcoming you to Pinares del Mar, some time in the future and you can see for yourselves!

Thanks very much Laura. So glad you again enjoyed your stay at our Villa. We look forward to welcoming you again.

Hi Steve and Julie Thanks for your kind words. I’ve just arrived here today and as always can’t understabd why I don’t come out here more often! Hope to welcone you again next year. Out to dinner with Steve and Norma on Thursday night! Speak soon Cheryl x

Hi Nicola So pleased you enjoyed your stay at our villa. Thank you for your kovely review - much appreciated. We do our best to make the villa a home from home for everyone. I have taken on board your and a previous guests comments re the 3rd bedroom. I haven’t had the chance to get out there this Summer but hopefully will in the Autumn and will address the issue. We have air conditioning in there now which is good but it is obvious that more needs to be done to make it a little more comfortable. We have been looking at the possibility of extending out the back to make it into a good sized double en suite bedroom - if we can get permission. So pleased you are considering coming back again and we look forward to that. Thanks again. Best Wishes Cheryl

Wow Laura, so pleased you again enjoyed your stay at our Villa and thank you so much for your great review - much appreciated - we must be doing something right!! I hope you enjoy the rest of the Spring/Summer now it looks like it could be starting at last and we very much look forward to welcoming you again on your next visit to Calahonda. Thanks again Cheryl x

Thanks Steve for your very kind words and great review of your stay at our Villa. So pleased you enjoyed yourselves and we look forward to welcoming you back again next year. I can't wait to get out there for a few days myself next week! Best Wishes Cheryl

Thank you Laura for your very kind words. So pleased that you again enjoyed your stay at our villa and we look forward to welcoming you again next year.