Misled in Mauritius

The reservation was made on my mums membership – (member no. 76358). It was for the 27/12/2018 – 04/01/2019. I’ve attached the confirmation of reservation sent to my mother. We consulted the website for the Villa and were happy with the pictures and facilities offered, so my mum accepted the quote. Much to our surprise we were faced with a very different experience on arrival. We arrived late on the night of the 27/12/2018 and were not impressed from the moment we arrived. Here are some of the horrific issues experienced: • On the night we arrived, we were sitting down on the couch and a huge rat came running out from the back of it. • Our entire party did not sleep that night, besides the rat, the beds were extremely uncomfortable and we were very itchy with the bedsheets provided. • We brought this to Richard’s attention immediately and he came to our “rescue” with a stick, a bottle of insecticide and a cage rat trap. • Based on his great rescue efforts, we found another rat in the kitchen on the second night. • The shower was broken and we basically had a pipe to shower with. • The bathroom ceilings were moldy and the cleanliness of the unit in general was substandard. • There was only a bed sheet and one pillow on each bed and the double bed was more like a ¾. Our phones were not roaming enabled so we could not get hold of anyone telephonically. My mother sent a WhatsApp to Sandy – the agent who sold us the timeshare, she said she will bring it to Desiree’s attention. The next day all Desiree said to us was that there is nothing she can do and everywhere else in Mauritius is too expensive. My sister then contacted her on our behalf and she said that she has never had complaints about the place and we are exaggerating. If you think we are, please review the attached pictures of everything described above. We have been loyal clients of Dream Vacation Club and this is our first encounter that was so horrible. We were forced to vacate the place and find alternate accommodation at the Westin Turtle Bay Resort which cost us a further R110 000. The confirmation sent to us clearly indicates that this dump that was supposedly 4 Star according to Desiree, cost R14 500 for the week but we had a total of 24000 points deducted (Which has a value of over R200 000)!!! I contacted the tourism council and the place is not even graded. I’m disgusted and demand that the points be reversed as we did not stay at the place for more than 2 nights. If this matter is not resolved and I do not receive feedback I will be forced to seek legal advice, cancel both our memberships (My member no. 85930) and take it further. Regards Karen Govender