501 Ballyshannon Drive Reviews Pls

[KCMUMMY]

Morning.

Has anyone stayed at 501 Ballyshannon Drive recently (hamptonlakesholidays.com)

If so, how did you find it?

Thanks in advance,

KCMUMMY

[fizzypop]

Looking at a map, I think this is 5 doors down from where we stayed in the summer. If it is where I think it is (on the corner) you would back onto tennis courts and a children’s play area which did get a little noisy sometimes.

[Wansbeck]

I can’t comment on the actual villa, but we stay on Ballyshannon Drive every other year when we stay in a villa. The location is superb, there are supermarkets and restaurants close by, and an easy drive to the parks.

[N17bornanbread]

I have been looking to leave a honest review about this very poor villa but clearly the owner Vicky hasn’t given the option for customers to leave a review, any questions I will be more than willing to reply, I have left out so much but we are trying to
put this nightmare behind us

We stayed there last Xmas, worse villa we have ever stayed in, where shall I start, owner does not care one bit, just cared about the money, extremely old and a continuous damp smell , dirty floors, dirty sofa was like sitting on the floor, my 12 year old and 6 year old wanted to play in the games room, pool table had a massive rip, many balls missing, air hockey did not work, beds were very uncomfortable, I have never suffered with back problem, I did after 3 days, cooker was smoking from the back after 4 days, we were there for almost 3 weeks, most of the wall sockets did not work, I texted the owner (Vicky) she said she will inform the management company, I text 2,3 more times no response for the whole time we were there, there was an old ps2 in which there were leads missing , tv had very minimal stations, we were flying back from Miami so we gave notice to leave at midday on our departure date, I asked Vicky 6 days before leaving, it showed she read the text on watsapp but on the day when I called her to say that the management company are here and are kicking us out, she did nothing about it, making out that she never saw my text, I can go on, I would not stay here again even if it was free for a whole month, we paid good money and as a family of 4, we tried our best but unfortunately been out all day was the best part, coming back of a nighttime took its toll, STAY AWAY, AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

[DonnaD]

From the online details it sounds like there are new owners who have made lots of changes. I would reccomend asking questions before rejecting it.

[shell22]

We came back from there last week. We rented off someone called Paul he is on the dibb. To get to disney parks it was taking us about 20 min. But about 3/4 of an hour universal but traffic was bad. Loads of shopping places and restaurants easy to get to. It's a very large villa and lovely large pool. We did have an issue with ants, not a huge deal but we emailed Paul and left message for housekeeping. On the weekend. By the Monday we had been contacted and someone dealt with it straight away. It was by no means dirty. There were bits I could have moaned about if I wanted to be picky but nothing was that bad. We asked for pool heating, well it was like a bath. We could have asked for the heating to be turned down but didn't bother. The bulb in the garage needed sorting but I never mentioned it as we weren't home enough. The only thing I found to be a nuisance was bugs on surface of pool. My OH scooped it every day but with the heat and humidity you are going to get bugs.i hope this has helped. Its only my opinion and it might not be what you want but we used the pool almost every night and I slept better there than in my own bed. We also had a disabled teenager who was able to access everything. But we had 1 accident as in the shower the tiles were slippery and he did have a nasty fall, but that wasn't any fault with the villa

[steph206]

Originally Posted by N17bornanbread

I have been looking to leave a honest review about this very poor villa but clearly the owner Vicky hasn’t given the option for customers to leave a review, any questions I will be more than willing to reply, I have left out so much but we are trying to
put this nightmare behind us

We stayed there last Xmas, worse villa we have ever stayed in, where shall I start, owner does not care one bit, just cared about the money, extremely old and a continuous damp smell , dirty floors, dirty sofa was like sitting on the floor, my 12 year old and 6 year old wanted to play in the games room, pool table had a massive rip, many balls missing, air hockey did not work, beds were very uncomfortable, I have never suffered with back problem, I did after 3 days, cooker was smoking from the back after 4 days, we were there for almost 3 weeks, most of the wall sockets did not work, I texted the owner (Vicky) she said she will inform the management company, I text 2,3 more times no response for the whole time we were there, there was an old ps2 in which there were leads missing , tv had very minimal stations, we were flying back from Miami so we gave notice to leave at midday on our departure date, I asked Vicky 6 days before leaving, it showed she read the text on watsapp but on the day when I called her to say that the management company are here and are kicking us out, she did nothing about it, making out that she never saw my text, I can go on, I would not stay here again even if it was free for a whole month, we paid good money and as a family of 4, we tried our best but unfortunately been out all day was the best part, coming back of a nighttime took its toll, STAY AWAY, AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

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Not that I doubt or question your experience, it sounds pretty horrible, however it may be fair to review the latest website for this villa, and provide an update as to whether this has now been bought by a new owner. You said the owner was Vicky, however the website states its owned by Paul.

It wouldn't be a good start for an owner to see reviews like this without linking it back to the previous owner.

Just a thought, but if it's been purchased and renovated within the last 9 months, it will give renters a better understanding.

[Paul Kitson]

Good evening all, this thread has been brought to my attention and I just wanted to clarify a few things.

I am the co-owner of the villa along with my uncle, we have owned the villa since 2007 and have been advertising on here since 2008 so are fairly well established. The way we operate is that we advertise on several sites and we each have responsibility for particular sites, for example I am fully responsible for everything that is posted on the dibb and all enquiries and subsequent conversations would come through myself. That way, the person who is enquiring/booking is not having to deal with different people and potentially getting told different things. Similarly, my uncle advertises on other sites and deals with those enquiries. There have been occasions where his partner has dealt with any enquiries, this is predominately due to him possibly being away with work and obviously we don't want people to left with no one to contact. Generally it is a system that has worked well for us over the years, but that might explain any confusion about dealing with different people.

Regarding the one review earlier in the thread, I had debated referencing it because I don't want to get involved in a 'tit-for-tat' argument publicly, however as this is our business and something which we are proud of then, I felt I needed to say something. I have discussed this with my uncle & his partner as they took this booking, we do not dispute that there were some issues, however between ourselves and our management company these were resolved and the messages that we had from the guest at the time would suggest that they were happy with the actions we had taken. Obviously we are disappointed to hear 10 months later that they were not happy and my uncle is certainly surprised at the comments that were posted, based on the conversations during & immediately after the stay.

The one thing I would strongly challenge though, is that we do not care and are only interested in the money. Whilst we are homeowners, we are the same as anybody else on this board as we go away on holiday and expect a certain level of service, as a result will always do our best to make sure our own home meets those same levels. Similarly I am well aware just how special a holiday to Florida can be and it can be a once in a lifetime opportunity for some, we would never want that experience to be impacted. I could go into a long post about the realities of owning a villa in Florida but don't want people to get a small violin out (!), I would just say that although we may not always get thing right, we are open to feedback and we certainly do care.

If anyone does have any questions about the villa then I'm always happy to answer, so please feel free to message me.

[N17bornanbread]

Hello Paul,

I booked this villa through Vicky & Neil, they informed me that they have owned the property since 2007, my review may sound harsh but it’s what we experienced and we were genuinely disappointed, not that we had high hopes before we arrived but I believe that we were slightly misled, I asked many questions just like anyone else would have, we have travelled to the states each year for the last 11 years and have always stayed at the residence inn, we decided to stay in a villa for the first time because of the unfortunate covid situation,
1. Dampish smell every time we opened the front door, got use to it and as we were out most of the day, we didn’t really let it bother us.
2. I mentioned the games room to Vicky and her answer was, your 2 children will enjoy the pool table and the air hockey, pool table had a massive tear on the cloth and the air hockey table did not work, my children were looking forward to having a bit of fun the time we were In the villa, I sent Vicky a text just to let her know, she said she was aware of the pool table but didn’t know the air hockey table was not working.
3. Most of the electric sockets were not working, so charging our phones were limited.
4. Floor was dirty when we arrived, we were told it would be cleaned before we arrive, no big issue here as all wore slippers.
5. Sofa was dirty, smelly and sunk to the floor, we do understand in the rental world that wear and tear often happens but it really does need replacing.
6. Downstairs bed was really uncomfortable, constant noises every time you spin to the other side, was quite annoying and me and my wife suffered with back aches after a couple of days, I have never had back problems.
7. We stayed here for 19 nights and on around day 12 my wife was cooking and within minutes the cooker was smoking from behind, we turned it off straight away and informed Vicky via WhatsApp, Vicky responded and said they she would let the management company know, we never heard anything back after that, we found this very disturbing as we knew it was dangerous and the cooker was out of action. For 7 days, we had to eat out and had microwave food.
8. I contacted Vicky 6 days before we were due to check out and had asked if we could vacate the villa at midday, she had read the message on WhatsApp but did NOT respond so we had assumed it was ok, on the day of checking out I had gone to the local Walmart with my son, whilst we were in the store, my wife had called me and told me that the cleaner is at the villa and she has said that we must get out because she needs to clean the house ready for the new guests, I drove back and asked her to call the management company so I can speak to them, I spoke to the manager, mentioned the issues we had and she had told me that she was not informed of anything, cooker was the main concern as we thought anything could have happened, I was shocked, yes, we appreciate that things can get damaged etc…. But the cooker, nobody came out to investigate the problem and Vicky had informed us that she will tell the management company, I called her on the day we were due to vacate, she did not pick up but yet text me 5mins later to say that she had just seen my text I sent 6-days ago, which I know was a big fat lie, you can tell when someone has received and read a message on WhatsApp, she said we have to leave, we was not happy at all.
We have travelled the world and have stayed at many different places and always have left an honest review, all positive until we stayed here, we feel as though we were given false information and our hard earned money was far more important than our 19-day stay, as far as we are concerned, we booked and paid Vicky & Neil, so we have no clue who you are Paul, so it is kinda confusing from our point of view.
Please note, some issues we had experienced in the villa were only minor, we lived with that but the problem with cooker and to be told that the management company will be in touch and they didn’t and for them to confirm that they were not informed about the problem, that’s what got me.