Holiday accommodation issues

Honestly, I thought as a customer my rights would be protected. Apparently, it's one thing I can easily forget. We booked a place to stay for two nights in Cape Town through the website. The ad looked and sounded fab. A luxury apartment with a balcony overlooking the city. Having made the payment, we were conveniently informed that there is load shedding. I wonder why this info was never mentioned in the ad. No balcony in the room either. A window overlooking a train line with train passing by at least every 30 minutes, making tons of noise. No need to mention that the view from that only window was less than pleasant. The location is also shady. None of that information was shared on the website. When we requested cancellation since the actual place failed to live up to what has been described through the website we were warned that 76% of the total amount would be withheld. Had we canceled 10 days before, we would have been refunded in full but the problem is we wanted no cancellation since we thought the place would be nice. Nobody warned us about the real state of things as definitely I would have never booked a room overlooking a train line. Unfortunately customer service in agoda decided not to assist. We feel deceived since we were never warned of what we would get in the end and when we found out, it was conveniently too late for a full refund. Pathetic service and no customer support whatsoever.