Beachfront Home Events Celebrations Groups @ 8BR Private Beach, Palapa Pool Pier

I asked the reviewer in email: Hey "Valued Guest" I was wondering what “Flaky” meant in the attached review. I want to make sure we took care of you in the best way possible. Best Regards, Patrick The Reply: I am so sorry. Auto correct got me. I should have proofread it better. It should be FLAWLESS. Everything was amazing.

Thanks Jennifer. We loved hosting your group and Johnny and Cora loved showing you some of the aventures Belize has to offer. Please come back and stay with us at the new house that will be open in Dec 2025!

As the guest stated they had family issues and most of the guests left after 1 night/ 1and 1/2 days, so no one really was happy in this group. Even the ones that stayed never even check out or communicated with us. I will say that it was unseasonably warm In Belize for the first few days of their stay. Yes we did have 2 AC'S that needed attention and as soon as we were made aware of the issue we did get all of our AC's serviced. I would have like to have been given the opportunity to fix this while the guest were here as it was a simple and quick fix, but we were never told of any problems while they were here. Bugs. We were told of the bugs and we did take care of the ant issue right away. We did find food left out in the location mentioned and leaving food out will attarct insects including ants. I'm not sure if the guests that gave the review have spoken with the guests that ended up staying. Roof furniture. We have seating available for 100 on the roof upon request, but do not leave it out as it could blow off the roof. During our house welcome we explained that we would put out the table and chairs for 20 inclusive with the stay whenever they wanted. They never requested that we put the tables and chairs out. While we strive hard to make our guests stays perfect sometimes things happen, but given the opportunity we will always try to fix things or make things right. But some things are completely out of our control. The guest we having a miserable time in Belize because of "Family Issues" I think we could have made everyone happy if we had been given a fair chance. I don't believe we were ever given that opportunity. I feel bad that there trip ended the way it did and they left the house because of issues with the group.

Well I would like to say that we didn’t see this review coming, but we did. The reviewer was the lead person in a Facebook Travel Group for Older Single Ladies. She booked the house and as such, per the VRBO rules, is the only one out of 13 other guests that were able to leave a review. We have correspondence from almost all the other guests explaining that the reviewer was actually the cause of most of the issues in this review and 12 of 13 were upset with this review that was left from their group. This information is available on request in writing from the other guest. I think it would have helped if this guest (orgainizer) paid attention to all the correspondence we sent to them pre stay. Specifically: Our caretakers have one day off per week, Sunday. Sunday is for emergency issues only. Yes we agreed for this 8 day rental to change out the towels and lines, and we attempted to coordinate the change out several times. But, after ignoring our requests to coordinate earlier in the week she then “Demanded” this be done on Sunday. We didn’t find it super amusing but we did take care of it anyway. Further : Our contract reads: Toilet Paper “We provide 2 rolls of toilet paper per bathroom and 1 paper towel roll. Would you like to add this to your list? How many? Drinking Water “We recommend that you only drink bottled water during your stay. The house has 5-gallon water coolers and will come stocked with minimally two (2) full 5-gallon bottles + one on the cooler upon your arrival. You can exchange your empty 5-gallon carboys at most grocery stores for fresh water for about BZE $5.00. If you do not have an empty carboy, you will need to pay a deposit of $20-25 for a new bottle, so you’ll want to plan and take the empties to exchange. When you leave the house, please leave 2 full bottles at the house, or leave BZ$10/US$5 on the counter by the cooler. It is safe to brush your teeth with the faucet water, but take care not to swallow. Please note: We offer this shopping service for our guests for FREE and we provide an initial set up of these items for free. So to say she had to purchase all of them is an untruth. She was also told well in advance of this policy while she was able to cancel and find a place that more fit her needs and provides unlimited filtered water and toilet paper. Stripping the beds: Yes once again we explained in the pre stay correspondence that this is a COVID 19 Gold Standard Request so that we can minimize exposure of our cleaners and thereby the guest to Covid -19. Don’t know what else to say here. Heavily Soiled House: Well the house was just repainted inside and out in the last six months and we clean to the Belize COVID Gold Standard and are certified to this standard. We firmly disagree with this comment. But to get down to the real stuff. The reviewer wrote us two weeks before the stay and stated that we had changed the pictures and that pool and beach stairs and handrails no longer worked for their group. For the record no pictures were changed. She explained there were some in the group that were somewhat handicapped. We would need to install a ladder in the pool, rails on the stairs and ramps on the stairs. We flat explained that the house was exactly as shown in the photos, the photos had not changed, and installing these things in two weeks was not possible and even though she was inside of our no cancellation policy we offered to give her money back and explained that this was not the right house for the group. She insisted that she could not cancel and this point and that we were to address these issues prior to the stay. We at this point called VRBO who informed us we could not cancel the guest without penalty. So at this point we are between a rock and a hard place, and went forward with the rental. Our house is exactly as shown in the photos with regards to the access issues and we encourage guests to look at the photos and determine if they are fit enough to navigate the pool, stairs and beach. Keys were given to the reviewer at checkin and were kept from all the other guests during the entire stay. Our staff was constantly running to and from the house to let people in and out. Causing our staff to have a meltdown. The reviewer was even making these ladies sign communally paid for golf carts in and out. The guest that “Fell on the steps”. Did not fall on the steps. She passed out from the stress of dealing we the reviewer. She was actually rescued by “Nurse Cora” from all the anxiety being caused by the reviewer to all the guests in the house. At the request of the guest that fell, “NC” or just Cora picked her up and got her to a hotel in town to get her away from the stress, until we could arrange with her family to fly her home. We again have the correspondence from them and this is so outrageously untrue. To that end, this is the first 1 star review we have ever received in 18 years of doing vacation rentals. Our last review on 02-04-2022 for listing (1492246 same house different bedroom config) was 5 star. Our next review on 05-26-2022 was 5 Star “Amazing”. As the owners we were actually in San Pedro when the money was Stolen, and the reviewer was “demanding” pretty forcefully that our staff come in on Sunday. So right before we were to fly home we went to talk to all the guests. We once again offered to refund all the guests money. They put it to a vote. The vote was that all others wanted to stay but they asked if we would just refund the money for the reviewer. We then offered to just refund the money for the reviewer. The reviewer refused to leave even after her group voted her off the island. So here we are “Hostile Hosts”, with our first o 1 star review in 18 years. This is not us. This is not our house.

We did not have a dock at the time of this review so maybe they are thinking of our neighbors dock? I don't know what dock they are referring to as we don't even advertise a dock on this listing. The good news, we are building a new dock that will be ready and sparking brand new in May/June of 2022. We have curtains on all the showers except for the outdoor showers which are completely private and walled in. Curious about this review I walked the outside of the house and I could find no way a maintenance man, or any person for that matter, could see into a shower from outside? As for the toilet paper, we do send a welcome email to every guest. This email states “we do provide one initial setup of toilet paper and sundries. Further necessary items can be purchased at the local shop 1/2 mile from the house (Marins) or at any of 30 grocery stores on the island.” We provide our guests with only the best bath and beach towels imported from the US. The quality of our towels cannot be purchased in Belize. Not only do we feel its good business practice to keep stock of our towels and other household items so we have sufficient amounts for our next guests, but to get these to Belize we have to put these in a suit case and personally fly them in. We then stand in the customs line and pay at 33% luxury tax on these items. Keeping our house stocked with quality towels and linens is not an easy or inexpensive task, but we take pride in offering a higher quality experience to our guests and nice linens and towels are a part of the experience at Villa Mandevilla. If a guest looses one or two towels on accident then there is no issue, but that is not the case here. I guess I would rather have a bad review about how a guest carelessly lost a bunch of our nice towels and is mad we are charging them, than have a bad review about how our towels are garbage. I agree with the last comment our Cook/Chef does chef/cook up some great grub!

I don't know what happened here didn't even give us a chance to know what we did wrong. We thought they had a great stay?