Villa Lemoni

Villa Lemoni ("Baby Lemoni") is in the south of the island of Kefalonia, near Trapezaki Beach. It is owned and managed by English owners, living in the south east. Baby Lemoni is the tiny studio detached house, next door to the main house. It has its own pool and is nicely, if basically, presented. We booked the villa for a week, for the first part of our honeymoon, and the owners were aware of this, writing to us to say that many couples chose it for their honeymoon. We were, naturally, very excited.

The pictures on the website http://www.villalemonikefalonia.com/ were lovely, the testimonials glowing. The website specifically made mention of the views from the property and from the infinity pool.

To us, it seemed a perfect place to spend our honeymoon before heading North. However, when we arrived, the keys were not where we were told they would be. We then noticed that the keys were in the door. We thought it was a little odd, but went in. The place was in disarray. The dirty linen was still on the bed from the previous occupants, there were dirty towels on the floor of the bathroom and there were old food items in the fridge. The fresh linen was on a chair outside, which we had not spotted on our way inside.

The pool-side chairs were broken - it appeared people had put their feet through the meshing, such that only one chair was (just about) fit to sit in. There went our image of sitting side-by-side by the pool.

We called the owners back in England immediately. We were rather taken aback when we were asked "Are you in the right house?" We confirmed that we were. We were then told by the owner that she did not think it was possible for this to have happened. She went to call the maintenance company. It turned out that it had been forgotten (quite obviously), but rather than a profuse apology, I was told "This hasn't happened before". Well, we have never had a honeymoon before and this was now going to be highly memorable, if not in a good way.

I also explained that there was absolutely no view from the house or pool, because the olive trees were so overgrown that you could see nothing beyond them. They were planted below the pool and formed a complete barrier around it. They completely blocked the views which were so avidly advertised on the cottage's website. I was told someone would be round to prune. No one came. We were visited after a few days by someone from the maintenance company to apologise and we were given a bunch of flowers and some wine. However, we had also been told there would be a "welcome pack" of a few basics when we arrived and, of course, this was not there. We asked if he had any local information, as this was supposed to be part of the pack, and asked about the pruning of the trees, but he developed a sudden inability to understand us. We appreciated the gesture but would have rather received the product and service we were led to believe we had paid for.

My husband then suffered an allergic reaction (we initially assumed it was heat-related). However, when chatting to our neighbours in the main house, they explained that they had been there a little longer and someone had been to clean the pool after a week. As our cottage had not been touched at all, it would appear that the pool was not cleaned in between our visit and the previous visit. It is highly likely that it was this which caused my husband's rash, as it cleared up within a couple of days of leaving Villa Lemoni and staying in a hotel with a clean pool. Our neighbours also complained that they had no air conditioning and had to call out the maintenance company several times before anyone came to fix it.

We wrote to the owners with all of our concerns and asked that they consider giving us at least some refund, given the awful start to our honeymoon and the fact that we spent a week in a villa looking at trees in close-up. We received no response. There was a long delay in the return of our deposit, which I had to chase and we were told it had been posted. Nothing had arrived. We did eventually receive a cheque, once I had contacted the owners several times to explain that we had not received it.

Given the rave reviews on the website and the complete lack of balance, especially given the feedback we gave to the owners, we felt it was important to find a way of reviewing this property by other means. We have learnt our lesson in booking a villa with no recourse when things go wrong and, frankly, it could have been a lot worse. We will always go through a recognised agent or lettings company from now on.

We made the best of the time we had in Kefalonia and spent as much time as possible out of the villa. Although it was (eventually) clean and was in a great location, we will not use it again due to the problems which went unresolved and the lack of redress from the owners. It was very disappointing at such a special time for us.