Problemswith "Virgin" villa

[dgoodrid]

We are now into day 10 of our holiday. We are asking ourselves if we have been "too kind" as we did not make a huge massive fuss as perhaps the situation warranted- wanting instead to make the most of the holiday for the sake of the 6 children in our party.

We have hardly been at the villa and been out everyday 8am-8pm. However we wanted a villa specifically as we have 2 oldies in the party and the idea was they could stay behind at the villa and relax in the pool some days but this wasnt to be.

Day 10 the situation is we are awaiting Virgin and Imagine communicating and coming back to us. We still have not received the plush toys or promised vouchers for our journey problems, which Jay told us would be delivered to the villa 5 days ago. Jay (the concierge) is in UK and therefore they can not assure us of the toys or vouchers at the moment.....hang on a minute we go home on Wednesday...

I called Virgin again today to see what the latest is to be told they had been trying to contact us... yet the rep asked me for contact numbers including the villa phone number which was not written or displayed in the villa- the contact numbers Virgin had shows no sign of a call.... Anyway they have a log of our complaints and have contacted Imagine who are yet to respond.

Virgin asked what they could do to reinstste our faith in the company.. I responded by saying it is a little late, we go home on Wednesday. Virgin did say they had asked Imagine to remove the dirty and broken items, place a safety bar on the pool door and see to the ant problem. I told them we had seen no-one apart from the pool engineers.

I asked for an official complaint form, Sandra (Virgin rep) (Good bthats 2 then ) said she had completed one on my but would send another.. The latest is a voicemail 10 minutes ago to say they will call first thing tomorrow.

All I want to say to all Dibbers is don't take the ris, and go Virgin, if you are staying in a villa go with a Dibb villa as we did on our last 2 holidays and wish with all our hearts we had done so this time

We have tried desperately not to let tyhe children suffer... it has taken 2 years of hard saving to affird this holiday, and we have learned lessons which I would seriously urge all Dibbers to heed- don't go Virgin villa...

[jacko!]

I can only repeat what others have said, that not to book a virgin villa. I have now been contacted by virgin and they are only offering a refund on the pool heating for 4 days that we never had. There has been no mension of the time, hassal and stress in a form of compensation.
We have been to Orlando 2 other times. 2008 with a virgin villa, 2009 with a private villa both without issues. In my opinion we were lucky in 2008, and won't be risking it again.
I would also say to anyone that is having issues, is to not be fobbed off, and go down to the virgin office and insist on being moved. If no joy ask to speak to there manager, and don't let them move you to a back office so no one can hear how you have been treated.

[Frontal]

I'm so sorry that this saga is still continuing with Virgin, I just hope that you have put together a nice package of photographs and other evidence to further your case when you get back home.

Unfortunately, I do not see the end of stories like this, especially with the issues that Virgin is having with its suppliers of AOA.

[Guest]

Hi everyone
Thankyou for all your supportive messages, the dibb has been a souce of many different types of support- we really appreciate it.
Back today- beautiful weather, happy children and exhausted adults- and a very long countdown til next time :-( !
Just wanted to update, we didnt hear a peek from imagine since our initial registering with them (and registering villa issues at same time) on day 2 despite being told they would follow up on many of the issues (namely ants and security bar for pool door, the rest was nottheir responsibility apparently, all they were required to provide was a 7 bed villa with a pool and within a certain distance within disney parks- the other issues ere virgin issues apparently- and down to our 'expectations' Imagine rep became uncomfortable when i asked if cleanliness and hygene were unreasonable expectations- - virgin assurred us they would speak with imagine, as issues were imagines responsibilty... it went on.
Difficult as Jacko said (glad you managed to sort eventually x)as felt we lost valuable time on our holiday on trying to resolve these issues and balencing this with just getting on with our intinery and carrying on regardless. We needed a 7 bed villa and relocation would have been very difficult (and we felt disruptive to our time, as also mentioned, no money can compensate for time). The pool still wasnt filtering properly at the end of the holiday... we kept our sugar in the fridge... (all photos taken and emails logged)
Anyway what i really wanted to say was that despite all the issues we encountered with the villa and imagine/virgin- we still had a really lovely time. I hope anyone else going soon or with a virgin villa also has a really fab time. Florida is a magical place, and we had a magical time. (when we were out lol!) Also worth mentioning price previosuly mentioned included our flexi tickets which we got thru virgin for harry potter early entry (which was worth it for us, and the forbidden journey was amazing)
Flights were pleasantly uneventful and very smooth- and relived to find out virgin have a 2kg waiver in downtown check in this morning as was 24.55 on one case this morning aaagh!
Thanks again for your support- hopefully we will come together to do a full trippy.

[Guest]

So glad you had a magical time in spite of it all! Start planning for next time, then, it will come around before you know it. Thanks for the update. Harry Potter at Universal definitely is amazing!

Sandy

[Mikeyj1973]

I'm sorry to hear that your villa is not up to scratch..after working hard for two years to book the dream holiday..what a let down..wish i could say or do something to make it better.
Getting a little worried now myself seeing that we have booked with virgin for October this year and have paid for a superior villa which is arrive on allocation..

[Guest]

We've just returned from a two week stay at a villa in Magic Landings Boulevard. This was our first trip to Florida and not only was it a holiday of a lifetime for us but we also got married at Cypress Grove Estate while we were there. The wedding and the holiday were booked through Virgin and we assumed that by paying for a superior villa that we would be staying somewhere really special - this was not the case! We did wonder at first whether our expectations were too high but since seeing a villa that our friends had arranged themselves we feel that we were sold short by Virgin. We didn't initially realise how far out we were but when we met the wedding organiser and also the lady who came to do my hair on the day of the wedding we realised that this was not a villa that they were used to having guests stay in and was not in the general area usually used for Virgin holidy makers. The size of the villa was more than adequate for the four of us - it had 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms however the standard of the villa left us somewhat disappointed. The bathroom attached to the master bedroom smelt quite unpleasant, the shower kept blocking and had broken tiling and mould. The floor at the base of the toilet was stained and looked unclean. The garage accommodated a pool table and air hockey table which was great but it had electric cables hanging over the pool table and next to the light switch - we assumed that they were not live but didn't risk touching them just in case! The property was generally tired looking and had no finishing touches. The carpets in the bedrooms were stained and there was debris left behind the fridge and the bed in the master bedroom. The pool area was quite small but we could live with that, however the pool itself did not appear to have been cleaned prior to our arrival. One of the bedroom windows had tissue paper pushed under the frame. My husband rang Imagine (the management company) to complain and was told that they would get someone to check out the pool issue and the wiring issue. No one came so we then contacted Virgin, they said that there was nowhere else for us to move to but again said that they would get Imagine to come out and look at the things we had reported. They gave us $60 Planet Hollywood vouchers for our trouble and £20 of virgin vouchers to spend on the plane. Still no one came out although when we called about the unclean pool we were told that someone had been out to clean it - we informed them that it definitely hadn't been cleaned. Someone did come the next day and clean it. As first timers we now realise that we should have gone with our gut instincts with regard to the standard of the property (given what we paid for it)and should not have worried that we were being fussy - at the end of the day we had spent a lot of money for this trip and if we had let it, it could have spoiled what was in fact a great holiday. Also the security gate was never manned. The wedding at Cypress Grove Estate was really lovely and Yvonne the organiser, Doris the officiate and Ryan the photographer made sure that everything went to plan and that we came away with lovely memories of the day. Marie

[Guest]

Hi
Thankyou for your supportive posts
Congratulations on your wedding Marie! Am sorry you also had problems with Virgin and Imagine. I do think it is unfair that we were made to feel our expectations were too high for standard features and cleanliness issues.
Mikeyj I hope your villa in October will be lovely. Despite all the issues we had we still had a lovely time- and am sure you will too

[disneymadhouse]

Hi Marie, congratulations on your wedding

Was the officiate you mentioned in your post a lady named Doris Peterson? The reason I ask as in 1994 it was my parents 25th anniversary and I arranged for them to have their marriage vows renewed at the villa we were staying at. It was done by a lovely lady called Doris Peterson. I know she was still doing weddings about 5 years ago as a work colleage was married by her in Florida!

A long shot i know but I just thought I'd ask!

Claire

[Frontal]

Hello Marie

Many congratulations on your wedding!

I'm so sorry that your wonderful time was marred by the quality of the Virgin villa. Unfortunately this does seem to be trend nowadays with Virgin, as they are now in the middle of a spat with their supplier of villas, mainly due to the fact that they have been paying peanuts for years, and this has now turned round and bitten them on the backside.