Domaine Du Clos Des Oliviers

“Sanitary installations”

In this domain there is one major issue,the toilets at the bar and the showers and the toilets next to the pool are not only totally worn out and giving a cheap impression,but one wonders if they fulfill the requierements of the covid 19 regulations

“Extra costs for air con and retention of part of security deposit by extremely rude manager...”

Firstly, I have to say, we had no fault at all with the location/site. House was fine apart from a couple of issues and the pool area is fabulous - plenty of shade and something for everyone pool-wise. Our issue was with the extra costs and the manager's attitude... On arrival, we paid the balanc… more

Firstly, I have to say, we had no fault at all with the location/site. House was fine apart from a couple of issues and the pool area is fabulous - plenty of shade and something for everyone pool-wise. Our issue was with the extra costs and the manager's attitude... On arrival, we paid the balance of our accommodation, and, on doing so, I enquired as to whether there was air conditioning in the house? I was told there was but it was extra... €80 to be precise (having paid just under €800 for the week's house rental, I would have expected air con to be included but, as you can't do without it, it's a nice earner for the site). When you pay for the air con, you then receive a remote control to operate it in the house (I should point out there are only two units - one in the sitting room/kitchen area and one in one of the bedrooms (the house had three floors so one unit to cover two floors on the upper levels is completely insufficient there are two bedrooms on the upper floor of the house and they were stiflingly hot). Our air conditioning would not work for us on our first day/night and, by the time we discovered this, the reception area had closed (it only opens for a short period in the morning and afternoon). We also had a problem with ants... We emailed the site as we couldn't contact them any other way. (Manu, their lovely 'fixit' guy, sorted the ant problem for us the following day). When we visited reception the following day to mention to them that the air con didn't work the day/night previously, the first reaction of the manager was not an apology - but he actually, quite rudely, enquired as to whether we were entitled to have it? (I felt he was inferring we were using it without paying). We were really annoyed about this as a) we had in fact paid for it the previous day and b) we were paying for something that wasn't working? Thankfully our son-in-law had arrived that morning and sorted it for us - the exterior unit had not been switched on - surely that should have been done by the site staff when we had paid for the air con the day before? The second problem we had was this... On arrival, you have to hand over €300 cash (they don't take debit cards for this apparently) for a security deposit which is refunded to you (or, so you're told) when you leave (providing you have no breakages/damages to cover). There is also a cleaning fee of €85 (if you don't clean the house yourself) which is an exorbitant cost in my opinion. We opted to clean the house ourselves as we normally would... Reception asked us to notify them two days beforehand of our departure so they could schedule a walkthrough of the house before we left to ensure everything was ok - we did this. We naturally expected, on inspection of the house, our deposit would be returned to us. On our departure day, we were leaving at midday (as arranged with reception two days previously) and at 11:40, no one had arrived to inspect the house. My husband then headed to reception where the manager phoned the inspection crew to see where they were. They subsequently arrived and had a checklist with them as they moved through the house. They then handed the checklist to my husband and he enquired as to where the security deposit was. We were told we had to go to reception to get it (at this stage it was 11:55 and reception closed at 12). When my husband went to reception, he was told there would be a €50 fee deducted due to the fact that the landing hadn't been swept and the bathrooms were dirty? The house had been cleaned by us from top to bottom and, believe me, it was clean... My husband argued with the manager and said that, in fact, the house was cleaner than it had been when we arrived and demanded he return our full deposit. The manager refused to return the €300 deposit in full and my husband, in sheer frustration, settled for €25 charge which is absolute and utter extortion. We should not have had to pay anything at all but, as the manager already had our money, my husband had not choice. We wondered how clean the house has to be to have the entire €300 returned to you and we also wondered if their delay in arriving to walk through the house was deliberate so we would maybe leave without our safety deposit as, until my husband went to reception to enquire as to where the walk down crew were, there was no sign of them? Had they not arrived when they did, reception was then closed until 3pm... In short, even though the site and the rest of the staff were lovely, we certainly will not be returning here - paying for air con is an unreasonable expectation when you've already paid for the accommodation and the final act, by their extremely rude manager, in not returning our deposit in full when there was nothing wrong with the house, was the final straw - complete and utter extortion in our opinion.

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“Good, but too expensive”

Parc, central facilities (swimming pool) and houses are very nice. However, given the location and alternatives, prices are just too high. On top of that, airco is charged for extra, which I think is ridiculous. Staff is very friendly and those working at the reception speak many different langua… more

Parc, central facilities (swimming pool) and houses are very nice. However, given the location and alternatives, prices are just too high. On top of that, airco is charged for extra, which I think is ridiculous. Staff is very friendly and those working at the reception speak many different languages. Very nice and good size and clean pool; not overly crowded. Playground near the pool is useless before 8pm. The items on the playground get very hot during the day. Animation is in French only and was useless for our children. Animation doesn't start until 9 pm and generally lasts for 30 minutes. During the day there are some short animation moments as well. Especially those round the pool area fun to watch and participate in. The location is calm and quite. And that's positive and negative as well. You can really enjoy the silence at night and even during the day. But, visiting tourist sites or villages nearby will be quite an undertaking as the location is not very central relative to the major sites. Going to the gorges will easily take you two hours. Going to the beach will take you up to three hours unless you leave very early (start driving at 9 am). Also note, it gets really hot around vidauban. 40 plus celcius is no exception during summer. Escape to the pool or beach is the only way out. So: house, Parc and pool were good to very good. Animation very disappointing for non French speaking children. Over priced and not really located nearby any major tourist sites. But nice and calm with very friendly staff.

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