Nice villa when you can get in it. (Ron's Villa, Davenport)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	Ron's Villa, Davenport
Date:	15/09/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quiet area, roomy villa, private pool

Disadvantages: Incorrect lock combination caused unnecessary stress

Looking at the reviews on Villarenters.com I really thought my review of this villa would be wonderful, without a bad word to be seen. Unfortunately that's not entirely the case.

Accommodation

It's a 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom villa, with a kitchen/diner, living room and private pool. The main double bedroom has an ensuite bathroom with bath, double sinks, walk in wardrobe, shower and WC. The two twin bedrooms are joined by a shower room which has a WC and sink, and the 3rd bathroom is off the kitchen and also opens onto the pool area. There is a sink, WC and shower in this room.

The kitchen is fully equipped with an oven, microwave, large fridge freezer, dishwasher, garbage disposal, kettle, coffee maker and toaster. And of course there are all the necessary pots, pans, dishes and crockery you'll need. There's also a dining table in the kitchen area and patio doors to the pool.

In the living room there are two sofas, 3 side tables, an entertainment unit with a widescreen HDTV, cable box, DVD, video player, hi-fi system, a selection of books and games. There is a large set of patio doors leading to the pool area, and a door leading to the garage.

The garage is large enough to hold 2 cars, but also houses a washing machine and a dryer along with the dustbin and recycling bin.

The pool is a wavy shaped pool, with a shallow end and a small deep area, it also has shelves where you can sit and bask in the sun. The entire pool area is enclosed by a mesh frame to stop bugs getting in. There are sun loungers plus a table and chairs at the pool side, plus a small child's table and chair set.

Our Experience

After reading the comments on the website when we booked I imagined the most amazing villa, and don't get me wrong the place is absolutely beautiful and so roomy, it makes our house look like a hovel in comparison.

However, our experience was slightly marred the day we arrived. When I say day, I actually mean the early hours of a Saturday morning, we'd had a bad flight an arrived several hours late, so by the time we got to the villa it was 3am. I had the email from the owner in my hand and went to the lockbox outside the front door. The instructions said all I had to do was enter the code on the email and the box would pop open, revealing the key to the door, simple! Except I punched in the code and nothing happened, I tried several more times and still nothing. I tried a few combinations of the numbers given in the hope of accidentally getting the right one, but still nothing. So I tried to phone the number of the people in charge of the property over in the States.

That might seem a simple task as well, but Oh no it wasn't. Firstly I tried my mobile, initially just dialling the number, but that drew a blank, so I tried putting a zero in front, but then I just got the message to dial 100 and check the number, which I did. The operator was none the wiser and suggested using a pay phone. Great idea but it's 3.30am by now and I've no idea where there's a phone. So we set off to find one, and by chance we spy a McDonalds, I stopped there to ask where there was a phone and was told to try the 7-11 just on the next block. We found that okay and I tried the payphone, the number on its own didn't register anything when dialled, and adding a zero still did nothing, reading the information in the phone box it mentioned dialling a 1 first, so I tried that and still nothing. By this time I was almost crying, but trying to keep a brave face for the kids.

I went into the 7-11 and asked the man working there, who was absolutely wonderful, he let me use his personal mobile phone to phone up and dialled the correct number for me, but then all I got was an answer phone for the company who managed the properties in the area. I left a message and gave the man his phone back. He was very concerned because he could see the kids waiting in the car, and drew a map to get to Kissimmee and the main area for hotels so we could find somewhere to stay for the night.

Luckily just as I started the car my mobile rang and the management company rang back, they looked at their files and the number they had for the lock box was completely different. Thankfully when we got back to the villa and entered the details they worked fine, then I was able to ring the company back from the phone in the house. Whilst on the phone he said it was lucky he'd been called out to another emergency and had popped into the office at that particular time, otherwise he wouldn't have received the message until the next day, by then my battery would have been flat, as I hadn't expected to use my phone and hadn't brought a charger, as it was it died about 30 mins after we got in the house.

The first impressions of the house were great; it was neat, tidy and clean. The maid/cleaning service had organised the towels so the ones hanging on the towel rails were blue and white and shaped like shells, and on the double bed it was shaped like a swan with a rose on its back. Had it not been after 4am it would have been a really sweet touch.

So that wasn't the best of starts for the villa and its owner, but the villa itself was lovely. The pool was a huge boon as you'd expect and the kids absolutely loved it, although I and they found the rules a little overly strict, no running (well that's a given), no diving (hmm it's easily deep enough), no ball games (hmm again, what harm can passing a beach ball around do?), no horseplay (kids splash each other, it's what they do!) and no unsupervised children (well that's obvious too).


Another bad point, which is not the fault of the property owner but the neighbour, was barking dogs. Now this if a real sore point for me, because I hate dogs barking at the best of times, it really irritates me when people think it's funny to make their dogs 'talk'. This was on a different scale though; one of the neighbouring houses must have had a small dog, because it yapped all evening and half the night too. I think it was only allowed in the house about midnight, and considering the US is the land of guns, I'm surprised someone hasn't shot the irritating mutt already, I certainly felt like it.

Away from bad points and onto some good points, firstly the house has a working AC, which might seem to be an obvious requirement, but I remember about 10 years ago when I first visited Florida the hotel had a poor air conditioning system. So to have a fully adjustable and fully working system was great.

Another very small, but makes a difference item was the showers. At home we have a pathetic little shower that is barely more than a trickle, these showers were superb power showers that were lovely to use.

Having the washer and dryer was handy too, even in the heat of the day towels and swimsuits took a vast amount of time to dry properly, so it was easier to pop them in the dryer for half an hour and have lovely fluffy towels for the next dip in the pool.

I never really used the cooker so can't really comment about that. The fridge was a large American sized fridge freezer, which held plenty of pop and still had loads of room for beer, so you couldn't ask much more there!

The villa is quite a way from the parks, if you're visiting Disney then the drive isn't too bad, but we had the Orlando Flexticket for Universal/Seaworld/Wet and Wild/Aquatica and Busch Gardens. So the 20-30 minute drive scuppered our plans to go to the parks in the morning, home for lunch and an hour in to pool, and then back for the afternoon. Because even driving there in the morning, staying all day, coming home to shower and change in the evening and then going to Kissimmee for dinner was a bit of a chore on a daily basis.

Summary: .