Labranda Bahia Fanabe and Villas

Bluesea, what can I say? Besides the fact the hotel was in a good location, close to shops, restaurants and bus stops to get you to more places, the hotel itself… not the best and wouldn’t go back to this hotel again. While the pools were nice, because they were warm, the staff were rude. Only cleaned the rooms and replenished towels every other day. Room was falling apart. Plug sockets coming out of the wall when removing your plug from it, cracks in walls and tiles in bathroom. Weird layout in bathroom, rooms look nothing like the pictures. The room comes with a fridge which is great. However, there was a full kitchen with oven that didn’t even have any pots, pans or utensils if you did want to cook something for yourself. All inclusive? Where? Pool bar - only hot drinks, wine, beer and soft drinks. No member of staff there to offer spirits. If you wanted this, you needed to go back to the main reception. Also, only 2 free cocktails a day which came straight from a bottle. Very syrupy and not nice to drink. Aircon units were loud and woke you up during the night. Entertainment was minimal. Random karaoke or unentertaining show. While there were only a few children, there was no mini disco for them in the evenings. Lifeguards at pools were rude. Wouldn’t even let a 4-5 month old baby have their floaty in the pool when they were with 3 adults. Food was varied, but lacked any kind of flavour and the chefs seemed like they didn’t know how to cut the chicken off the kebab.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS – THE PHOTOS DO NOT MATCH THE REALITY

Be very careful before booking this place. The photographs online do not reflect the actual condition of the property, and in our experience, the basic standards of cleanliness were completely unacceptable.

We regularly go away on holiday, and this was by far the worst place we have ever stayed. We paid nearly £2,000 for one week, and from the moment we arrived, it was one problem after another.

We arrived on 25th September at around 12:30pm and were told our room, E18, would be ready at 3pm. We went to look around the pool bar and restaurant area and then went for a walk. We returned at approximately 3:15pm, only to be told that E18 still wasn’t ready and wouldn’t be ready until 4pm.

A female member of staff then changed our room to 125. We took our cases there, opened the door and were immediately hit by the most horrendous smell. It smelled as though the drains had completely collapsed. I returned to reception and asked to be moved again.

While I was at reception, a housekeeper attended room 125 with air freshener. My wife told her that air freshener was not going to solve the problem.

We were then moved to D25. We hoped this would finally resolve the situation, but unfortunately it got even worse. The room had visible dust and stains and was, quite frankly, disgusting.

While we were sitting there, already devastated by what we were seeing, we heard a constant dripping noise. The air-conditioning unit in the living room was leaking water and creating a puddle on the floor.

I called reception from the telephone in the living room, but nobody answered.

I then contacted Loveholidays, who we had booked the holiday through, and explained everything that was happening. I asked to be moved from this place. We had taken photographs and videos documenting the condition of the rooms.

Loveholidays asked us to give the hotel an opportunity to resolve the problems and send a cleaner.

Approximately an hour later, a maintenance man arrived. He stripped down the air-conditioning unit but couldn’t repair it. He applied mastic, put the unit back together and left. When we subsequently switched it on, it made a loud banging noise, which did not give us any confidence that it was safe.

The dust problem was another issue entirely. When the air conditioning was running, it was blowing dust from the lamp in front of the unit onto the table.

We deliberately did not clean the dust ourselves, as we wanted to see how long it would remain there. To our disbelief, it was still there a week later.

We contacted Loveholidays again. We were told that our only options were to accept £149 compensation or check out, return home and attempt to recover the money for the unused days. We were also told that getting the money back was highly unlikely because the accommodation had already been paid by Loveholidays.

We didn’t eat or drink at the hotel at all. After seeing the standard of cleanliness, we simply didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I went into the food hall to take photographs of the food being served, and in our opinion, it looked absolutely unacceptable.

As a result, we ate out every morning and every evening for the entire week, adding further expense to a holiday that had already cost us nearly £2,000.

Then, on day five, my Apple AirPods disappeared from next to my bed. This was reported to reception, but the response was extremely disappointing. The lady simply shrugged her shoulders and said there was no housekeeper there to answer where they had gone.

During our stay, we also witnessed numerous complaints about toilets blocking and saw several people being sick around the property. I cannot say whether this was related to the food, alcohol or something else, but it certainly did nothing to improve our experience. No WiFi in the rooms only works on reception

I have photographs and videos documenting what we experienced.

I fully expect the management to respond to this review and attempt to defend the property. However, TripAdvisor exists so that genuine customers can share their experiences, and this is an honest account of ours.

We have travelled to many holiday destinations over the years and have never experienced anything remotely like this.

We will never return to this place and would strongly advise others to think very carefully before booking. Based on our experience, we would avoid it at all costs.