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Useful Villa Rental information Ambient noise & activity In and around popular holiday destinations there will be ambient noise by day and by night. If you are on holiday in a busy resort area that you have chosen for its lively atmosphere, there is likely to be traffic and other noise associated with a built-up area. At night-time there may be noise from music bars or discotheques, control of which rests with local authorities. In rural countryside noise can be caused by domestic pets such as barking dogs, or local wildlife including birds, farmyard animals or equipment such as slow moving tractors or other occasional passing vehicles. Local fairs or festivals may also be the source of temporary noise and this is all part of your travelling and holiday experience. Local assistance We appreciate the independent nature of the holidays that we offer, and the fact that many people are experienced travellers to Portugal, although for some this will be the first time you have considered visiting our shores! Our villas are managed by the property owners and their support staff, with whom we are always in contact. Our office is near Almancil in Algarve and we will give you a 24 hour telephone number where we guarantee one of us will be available to assist you in any way we can. If that is for some local advice we will be happy to share our knowledge and our love of your surroundings. If you have a problem or an emergency then be sure you can depend on our 100% support at all times. Your villa & its amenities The villas available on our website are all individually owned. They are decorated, furnished and equipped by their owner to the owner’s individual taste. Whilst endeavouring to bring our villas and their local surroundings alive for you through our descriptions, we take great care in ensuring that the descriptions accurately reflect the individual amenities of the property, as well as the location in relation to local places of interest and other facilities. Our villa descriptions indicate the configuration of the property in terms of the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and many other key details. We offer the following additional general information, but we are always happy to discuss any aspect of a property or an area with you personally. Driving directions to your villa We will provide you with written directions in order to arrive at your villa. The directions are based on arrival at the nearest airport to your villa. If you require the directions from another point within Portugal please let us know at least 4 weeks in advance of your arrival. Directions to certain villa locations in the countryside may not necessarily be accurately represented by GPS services and we whilst we may provide a GPS locator we recommend using them in conjunction with directions that we provide to find the villa upon arrival. Location of your villa Certain villas are located in rural areas and may be accessed by un-surfaced roads or bumpy tracks. Our directions will always give full details of what is ahead of you on the road. It may be a good idea to equip yourself with a torch for use when arriving to the villa after dark. Occupying your villa Your villa is normally available to you from 3pm on your arrival day. It will have been fully serviced following the departure of the previous guests. We ask that you vacate the property on your final day by 10am in order that the owner or housekeeping staff can have full access to the villa to prepare it for the following guests. If you plan to arrive earlier than 3pm it may be possible to leave your luggage in the villa whilst the housekeepers complete the service but you should not expect to occupy the villa until it is fully prepared for you. It might be a great opportunity to check out the local restaurant for lunch or have a look around your local surroundings! Cleaning & Maintenance A cleaning service will be provided during your stay and the frequency will be stated on your booking confirmation. Upon arrival you will find your villa fully prepared for occupancy, including clean bed linen and towels. This counts as one cleaning service. Your housekeeper’s duties include general cleaning of floors and bathrooms, making the beds and replacement of bed linen and towels when due. Your housekeeper is not responsible for washing up, the tidying of personal effects or doing personal laundry or ironing, although you may be able to arrange this privately. You are asked to be responsible for the disposal of household rubbish on a daily basis to avoid attracting pests such as ants. There will be a wheelie-bin for your rubbish in the road close to the property. Cleaning products such as washing up liquid, dishwasher or washing machine tablets or powders are not provided as a rule. There is not normally a cleaning service provided on Sundays or public holidays unless it is a changeover day. We would respectfully ask you to note that the cleaning or housekeeping service is an entitlement of the property owner and may not be declined by our customers for any reason as it is an essential part of maintaining high standards of accommodation. Gardens and swimming pools have their own regular maintenance requirements and will be attended to on occasions during your stay. Your co-operation in allowing staff unimpeded access to the outside areas of the villa to do what they have to do will be appreciated. Villa Maintenance As in any home, routine or essential maintenance needs to be carried out from time to time in order that property standards remain as they should be for the benefit of all our customers and villa owners throughout the season. We will endeavour to inform you in advance should somebody need to go to your villa for maintenance reasons. If you notice something requires attention it is very important that you inform us so that we can put things right for you as soon as possible. Alarms If your villa is fitted with an alarm and it is standard practice is for the alarm to be armed for arrival you will be informed in advance of the location of the alarm and any codes required. In other circumstances details will be available for you at the villa. The alarm is fitted for your security and the security of the property. Please familiarise yourself with its operation and if in any doubt contact our local office. You are advised to arm the alarm whenever leaving the property unattended. Some alarms are designed to operate when the property is occupied, being armed in nominated areas of the house whilst other areas are disarmed, for example at night. Full details of the alarm system will be available in your villa. Safes If your villa is fitted with a safe, please use it to safeguard items of value such as cash, credit cards and passports. We would advise against travelling with personal items of great monetary or sentimental value if it is possible to do without them on holiday. Details of how to operate the safe will be available in your villa if applicable. Television Where a television is shown as being available, domestic Portuguese channels will be provided, and there may be English language programmes shown as Portuguese television companies do not tend to dub the programmes. Many villas provide satellite or cable television but subscription channels are not provided. Certain free to air English language channels may be available but we do not guarantee the provision of any particular channel. Where DVD or CD is shown as being available, please bring your own discs with you as these are not provided in the villa. Air conditioning & Heating Villa descriptions state if air conditioning is provided within a property and in which rooms. There may be a local weekly charge for air conditioning and if this is the case it will be mentioned in the description and is payable in resort. Electricity costs are soaring in Portugal as in other countries, and there is an environmental cost to be paid also. If you do use the air conditioning in your villa, please be mindful of saving energy as much as possible and do not leave it on unnecessarily. During the spring and autumn months the weather in Portugal is cooler in the evenings and at night. If your villa has air conditioning it is likely that heating is provided by the same method. Other properties may have alternative central heating systems, wood fires or portable radiators. As with other energy systems we ask you to be mindful of environmental concerns and energy conservation at all times. Water supply Water is a precious commodity in a hot country like Portugal with little rainfall in the summer so please do your very best to avoid wasting water and never leave taps running unnecessarily. On occasions local authorities may restrict water supplies to certain areas for a period of time without advance notice. This is out of our control and we would ask you to be patient and understanding in the event that there is a temporary water shortage. Many properties now use a solar system to heat water which, naturally, depends on good hours of sunlight. There will be an automatically generated back-up system in the event of extended poor weather. Large numbers of people taking a bath or shower simultaneously or in a short space of time may temporarily exhaust the hot water supply. Tap water in Portugal meets European quality standards but you are likely to find bottled water more pleasant to drink. Electricity Electricity is becoming more and more expensive and we ask you to ensure you are not wasting it when occupying your villa. On occasions there may be a power outage and electricity supplies may close down temporarily in the area of your villa. This is seldom prolonged and supplies are normally restored quickly. In some individual villas if too many power-thirsty electrical appliances are being used at the same time, the trip switch will activate. This normally requires some equipment to be turned off, and then the trip switch can be flicked back on to re-engage the supply. Location details of the trip switch will be available in your villa. Kitchen equipment The kitchens in our holiday villas in Portugal have the following equipment as standard: a sink unit, cooker, regular oven, microwave oven, fridge with freezer section or complete fridge-freezer, iron and ironing board and a kettle. Sundry kitchen cooking utensils are provided, and cutlery for at least the maximum number of occupants in the property, although often there is considerably more. Where properties are shown to have a dishwasher or a washing machine, washing powder or tablets are not provided. You may wish to bring your own small supply if you do not want to buy boxes of these locally. Washing machines may be located in an adjoining utility room or a separate laundry. Bathrooms & Shower Rooms A bathroom contains a bathtub, shower-over, single or twin washbasins, toilet and at least one bidet in the property. A shower room will contain a walk-in or step-in shower. Where other equipment is available this will be specifically detailed in the villa description. A guest washroom, where mentioned, is a separate toilet with a washbasin. Telephones & WiFi Where telephones are provided these will be free to receive incoming calls. A metre may be installed to register outgoing call costs which must be settled before vacating the villa at the end of your stay. Where WiFi access is available this will be specified in the villa description. In some rural areas mobile telephone coverage may not always be available, or may not be available at all. Beds Beds are described as singles, twins or doubles. A twin bedroom means there are two individual beds separated by a gap or by a bedside accessory. A double bed may be one large bed for two people or two individual mattresses placed side by side and made up as a double bed. Bed sizes should be considered as standard unless specifically described as queen size or king size. We cannot guarantee the provision of any particular mattress type. In some villas bunk-beds are provided and this will be stated in the villa description. Extra beds, where provided, will normally be of the single, folding variety. Verandas, Patios or Balconies Many villas have direct access out on to a same-level veranda, patio or terrace. These will be furnished with outdoor or garden type furniture. Where these areas are described as shaded or covered this means that there is a section that is either beneath the superstructure of the house or is shaded by an awning or similar attachment. Villas with an upper floor may have balconies overlooking the grounds below. It is your responsibility to observe all sensible safety precautions whilst occupying a balcony and to ensure that children do not venture onto balconies unsupervised. Roof terraces Some properties have a roof terrace accessed by exterior steps from the ground floor. You are advised to use any roof terrace with caution and to ensure that children are not allowed onto the roof terrace without supervision. In some cases you may find that access to a roof terrace is locked or otherwise prevented. Barbecues All of our villas provide a barbecue unless otherwise stated. This may be a fixed or portable barbecue using charcoal, or a gas barbecue. Barbecue utensils are provided but fuel is not. Please exercise caution whenever using a barbecue, and do not allow children to wander near a barbecue unsupervised. Under no circumstances should you ever add liquid fuel to a barbecue once it is already alight. This is extremely dangerous, is a major fire hazard and may result in severe personal injury. You should ensure a barbecue is completely extinguished after use before leaving it unattended. Swimming Pools All of our villas have a swimming pool for private use. Pool dimensions and depths are shown on each villa description, these dimensions are approximate. All swimming pools should have clearly visible depth markings showing the depths at each end of the pool in metres and centimetres. Please ensure that everyone in the party is familiar with which the location of the deep and shallow ends. If depth markings are not evident please inform our local office. Please ensure that children are not allowed near or in the swimming pool unsupervised. Swimming pool water is sensitive and requires careful attention in order to remain crystal clear. The water can react to sun protection products, weather conditions, natural products such as resin from pine needles and simply to being in constant use. The pool will be serviced on a regular basis by villa servicing staff. If you observe a deterioration in pool water clarity please inform us immediately. Pests It is a certainty that the garden of your villa is home to numerous communities of insects, even if they are invisible most of the time! Ants are skilled at finding food. If enticed into the villa by an irresistible supply of food left on display, or crumbs and food remnants that have not been properly cleared away, you will be infested in no time at all. This includes outdoor eating areas and the barbecue. Make sure food is always stored in cupboards or in the fridge and that work surfaces remain clean. Insect sprays and powders are easily available in supermarkets in Portugal. If you are susceptible to mosquito bites it is advisable to take repellent cream or lotion with you. It can also be purchased in chemists. Plug-in mosquito repellents can also be bought for use indoors. Other creepy-crawlies will be evident from time to time and will normally be just visiting alone or in small numbers. If you believe the villa is suffering an infestation please contact our local office. If your villa is in a rural or countryside area then you will be sharing the landscape with other small creatures that may wander into the villa grounds (or the pool) from time to time. Please never feed cats or dogs near or in the grounds of your villa, however cute they may look. They will become a nuisance at the villa, if not to you, then to the guests after you. Guests The villa may only be occupied by the people named on the booking form, irrespective of any spare beds. This is a condition of booking. If independent guests wish to join you at the villa for a period of your occupancy, please inform us and we will advise you of the cost. Cots & Highchairs Cots and highchairs are available, and must be reserved at the time of booking. They are free of charge and are provided by the villa owners. Please be aware that this equipment may be different to the equipment you are used to at home. Travel cots may be used or cots with bars. Linen is also provided. |