“We stayed in a villa on Highland Reserve, Orlando in early August for two weeks as part of a Virgin package. There were 8 of us in total.
Pros:
•Great location - 25 mins from Disney and 40 mins from Universal.
•15 mins walk from a Publix supermarket and several other restaurants and bars.
•The sofas in the villa were very comfortable.
•The oven, washing machine and tumble dryer looked new and modern.
•The showers were powerful.
•The pool was clean.
Cons:
On arrival at the villa we felt distinctly underwhelmed and disappointed. We are not accustomed to high levels of luxury and neither are we overly fussy but we certainly expected something a little better having booked with Virgin. The villa had a dated, slightly tatty feel. It was also quite grubby in places. There were plenty of towels but many of them were stained and old, the bed sheets were poor quality and bobbly, the skirting boards were dirty, there was splashes of dirt on the front of a cupboard, there was a grubby rubber mat in the bathroom and the toothbrush holder in the en suite was dirty. In fact, the bathrooms really needed a deep clean. The patio door would not open properly and felt quite unstable. There was also a cracked socket. There were no mirrors in the bedrooms - a trivial issue you might say but tricky with 4 teenage girls!
Our bedroom contained a small double bed which was strangely short in length and made squeaking and creaking noises if you so much as moved. After several nights struggling to sleep my husband moved to the sofa and ended up spending the rest of the holiday sleeping there. The outside area felt unloved and scruffy. The patio furniture needed a good wipe down and the metal sun-beds did not have cushions.
The property was managed by Home Beds who did respond quickly to some of our complaints. They fixed the patio door, removed some of the stained towels, replaced the cracked socket and repaired the air conditioning when it stopped working. They also secured the smoke alarm as it was dangling from the ceiling.
We were in regular contact with various Virgin reps but they would not concede that we might actually have had a point and the property was not up to standard. They said it had passed Virgin’s quality control which in itself is hard to believe. I would defy anyone not to have been disappointed on arrival. It was nowhere near as nice as the example villa featured in photos we were sent by Virgin.
We were offered £194.04 (the equivalent of one night’s accommodation in the villa) as a goodwill gesture. Less than £25 per person. This did very little to allay our disappointment or make up for the hours we spent sending emails whilst on holiday.
We have stayed in far cleaner accommodation in Spain and Turkey with travel companies regarded as being far more ‘budget’ than Virgin.
When you holiday in America and book with a reputable company such as Virgin you do expect your accommodation to be of a certain standard - clean, spacious and well-maintained. You also expect decent-sized beds. Sadly, we were badly let down by Virgin in this regard.”
“We were a party of 14, 4 x couples, 2 x teenage boys, 2 x 11 year old boys and 2 x infants (a boy and girl). Virgin gave us a villa with 7 double beds and we were told it was allocated on arrival. Total lies and unworkable.
The villa itself was poorly maintained- old carpet and rubbish in the front garden; weeds growing on driveway and around pool; security fence around pool ripped; broken furniture; black mould under toilet rims; toilet roll holder hanging off wall; insufficient cutlery or glasses for our party; home entertainment centre without controls or instructions; no inventory etc etc etc.
In addition the Virgin website LIED that this villa came with a heated pool but when we arrived we found that pool heating had to be paid for, and, as the spa was part of the pool, that wasn’t heated either (the website has been changed since my complaint to them. We sent photos of all this to Virgin in London who responded it was just wear and tear.
The resort team were next to useless And the Customer Services in GB almost as bad, taking ages to respond.
The Virgin Holidays MD - Joe Thompson - never responded to my email to him WHAT AN IGNORANT PIG but then I suppose they get so many complaints!!!!!!!!
Don’t book a Florida Villa holiday with Virgin - total rubbish and much cheaper to book flights and villa separately.”
“Went to pay for my holiday in the metro centre branch Gateshead not the one in Debenhams that lady was really nice in there but the other in metro centre Won’t accept cash as payment what the monkeys I’m very disappointed with yous virgin”
“Booked four nights in Dubai starting from Tues - flew Mon pm and arrived in Atlantis Palm Tues 9am.. Already realised check in at 3pm so had rang Virgin who quoted £150+ for early check in - then emailed Atlantis Palm who said they would try to accomodate. Be aware no facility to retrieve luggage and change in comfort - be prepared to open your case in the lobby of this prestigious hotel, root through clothes then get changed in a toilet miles away!! All this in one of Dubai's top hotels!! We were given room at 1 o'clock only to find it was a King room and there were 3 of us - after 2 hrs of sorting hurray we got our room at 3!! The actual check in time ... I had misread itenary as just assumed 4 nights meant we left sat at 3.00 in afternoon. We actually flew at 3.00 on sat morn.. Have emailed Virgin to dispute why it's classes as 4 nights when we left hotel at 23.30 fri evening. I have never paid for a nights stay and not slept in bed.. This meant the holiday cost £4,500 for 3 nites.. We were never offered to check out fri lunch.. Virgins terse response is I should have read itenary and yes I take a portion of blame but it's rather misleading saying 4 nites but they do not want to keep going over old ground or protract.. Their customer service is poor and their advice was I have changed into swimwear in the toilet, well they may do that in luxury hotels but as I advised couldn't see Richard Branson carrying his trunks across the lobby of that hotel.. Poor disappointing response from Virgin -- be wary and check their itenary.. Paid a high price and all I wanted was for them to acknowledge they could point out the last day is booked as and charged as extra night just so you have a room till departure that day - give people the option - Virgin have just put this all back on paying customer and it has left a bad taste.. I work in a customer facing role and would never had bounced all the blame back as Virgin have done..”
“As a frequent flyer of Virgin, I have booked many holidays and always received frequent flyer miles through the FF website, imagine my surprise when recently booking a holiday to New York we were booked with British Airways, when I asked about FF miles I was advised that these would not be forthcoming due to a non virgin flight, that virgin booked. When questioned I was fobbed off and passed from pillar to post, V. Holidays blaming Frequent fliers and Frequent fliers blaming V Holidays, eventually I was told that no FF miles would be given end of. What a way to treat customer who spend thousands of pounds with this company every year over a few hundred FF miles, it is not the miles now, it is the principal and the poor customer service, my money will now be spent with anyone other than Virgin Holidays....”
“We rang the call centre 4 times over the course of 2 days to see if they would match a price, and we are talking £30! They made such a fuss about it - so we gave up!”
“I wanted to confirm a couple of details on the hotel so I called the 'dedicated specialist' number as the detail I wanted was not listed on the Virgin site, the guy on the phone said I don't have all details on all the hotels we use, real helpful attitude. I went online and contacted the hotel myself, I suggest you do the same rather than wasting time and money calling Virgin. A shame as in my previous experience with virgin a couple of years ago I thought they were worth the extra money as the service was so good. I hope that the other areas within the business do not reflect this lack of focus and service, time will tell.
Bottom line with Virgin you pay more and expect more in return, but in this case if you want something doing then do it yourself.”
“I have used Virgin Atlantic over 20 times, normal on flights "London to LA". The flights are always on time and the staff are nice enough but all too frequently the flights are understaffed. Another issue is that the plane used on the London to LA route is quite old and is nowhere near as nice as the Air New Zealand plane.”
“Initially on cover page, had problems trying to enter required dates to travel. would only allow current month.
Trying to book complete package holiday was confusing, but once correct page found, very straight forward.”
