On Thursday, June 12th, the three of us arrived at the Regina Hotel in Albufeira, Algarve. I had already reserved and paid for this room for the three of us over a month ago. We presented a voucher for the room as pre-paid.
Upon our arrival, we went up to the top floor where check-in was located. I presented the pre-paid voucher to the man behind the check-in desk. He could barely speak English but he found our reservation with the voucher I gave to him.
He immediately said we had to give him a €250.00 security deposit, in cash. I instantly thought this was a big problem as he said it "had to be in cash" and not credit card, where I have sometimes had to do before, but never anything close to that amount. So, I asked him if I could see the room that was reserved for us. Thank God I did that because when he took us to the reserved room on the ground floor (Room 1), he opened the door for the three of us and I was stunned that it looked absolutely nothing like the pictures I had reviewed while making the booking. The beds looked like they had 30 year old sheets and covers on them, the air-conditioning didn't work, the TV did not work, and I found out later that my friend turned on the water faucet and orange rust came out and it was brown colored.
We went back upstairs to the 4th floor at the check in desk and my friends and I decided that there was no way we were going to stay there. So, being that I had already paid for the room, I called my travel agent and discussed my issue. I was told at the time there was no way we were going to get a refund at that exact moment. While speaking with her, she asked me to give the phone to the check-in agent who spoke Portuguese. When the phone was handed back to me, my agent suggested that I get pictures of the room and just find another place on Airbnb or Booking.com and that she would file a complaint.
So, I asked the check-in guy to take us back to the room to "look at it" again and I think he knew we were going to take pictures and just leave. So, he said, "only one person" could go down again but all three of us went. When we arrived on the first floor, he opened the door to a completely different room, Room 2, but I could tell it was in the same horrific condition as the first one he showed us.
After taking one step past the door, into the room, I raised my phone to start taking pictures. He put his hand up, covering my phone and said, "no pictures, NO PICTURES!! I told him I already paid for the room and asked why there was a problem taking pictures?? He shoved me in my chest with his hand and screamed at the top of his lungs, "GET OUT!". I said to him, "Do not touch me, Do not touch me". My friends were there to witness this and so was an English speaking Regina Hotel maintenance worker. He reached back, clinched his fist like he was going to punch me and I once again said, "Do not touch me". He screamed a 2nd and 3rd time, "GET OUT, GET OUT!!!". He said I am calling the police. I said, go ahead, because legally we had already paid for the room and had done absolutely nothing wrong.
At this point, my friends and I had already made reservations at another hotel in the vicinity so we knew we were just going to leave. I not able to get pictures because his hands covered my phone and he was pushing me out. We were in total disbelief how we were treated, and in fact, that day happened to be my birthday.
On the drive to the other hotel, we started reading the reviews for Regina Hotel on Tripadvisor.com. The reviews were all similar horror stories to ours: Fraud, Uncleanliness, Rude, Rip-off, etc. Thank God I did not give him the €250.00 as I read that others had been duped.
I believe this hotel should not be in business and I believe I should be fully refunded. This experience was horrible, but thankfully, the room we found was so much better.
