Poor service and invalid excuses. No refund and no valid reason.

My husband and I went to Cape Town on holiday last week from Saturday the 19th to Thursday the 24th.This was a long awaited holiday for us and we were incredibly excited to get away and see beautiful Cape Town.

We booked our first place in the beginning of October, then they contacted us 2 weeks later and said it was cancelled and we need to find new accommodation. We then booked another place, and 3 weeks later, were told that too was cancelled. After all that, we booked Egret Way through LekkeSlaap. This was for my 7 year old child, my husband and myself.

We weren't too fussy, but just wanted a decent place that looked in order and was safe and had everything working. We were expecting at the very least, for what we paid, a bed for ourselves, for our child and shower that worked.

When we arrived at Egret Way at around 9pm after a long drive to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth and a nice dinner out, we found the place to be incredibly small and disappointing. The flat had numerous issues namely:

The sleeper couch which was very uncomfortable. The "double" bed was actually 2 single beds pushed together, which made for a rather uncomfortable sleep, because I kept falling down the middle. The MAIN issue was that there was a shower only which only trickled out with almost no pressure and the drain was blocked and almost overflowed each time. They didn't provide any soap/shampoo/conditioner, nothing of the sort. There was only a tiny bit of hand soap left in a dispenser. The place was really tiny. The Wi-Fi kept disconnecting and didn't seem to work properly. My child couldn't watch anything without it stopping and buffering. There was 1 very small TV in the lounge where my child had to sleep on the couch. So once we put him to bed, we had nothing to do because there was no other furniture to sit on. The lights for the lounge were for the kitchen as well, and therefore after putting my child to sleep I had to scramble around in the kitchen not being able to see. The windows in the entire flat weren't sealed properly, so you could hear the wind loudly and it blew the curtains around. There were 3 massive windows in the lounge where my child slept and I was worried he would have wind blowing on him in the night. The only thing they left in the fridge was 1 bottle of water and a carton of long life milk, which when we poured over my Childs cereal in the morning we discovered was completely off. We saw it had expired in June. The lady told us she was away and we could have access to her pool. My child very excited rushed down there the following morning to go swim, only to find it was tiny like a jacuzzi and filthy dirty. The place also didn't have a full length mirror, in fact it only had 1 mirror. The bathroom was tiny and they still had a bucket in the shower expecting us to catch the trickles of water and use it to flush the toilet. Now I understand that Cape Town is recovering from a drought, but you should at least be able to clean yourself properly and wash your hair. This wasn't possible in that pathetic shower. The steps going up to the flat were so steep and sharp, I was very worried about my child going up and down there. It is by no means a child friendly flat. There was no view of the sea or mountains. You just see the neighborhood. There were only towels for my husband and I, so we had to share with my child.

All in all we were very unhappy there and didn't want to stay another single day or night. We were miserable and didn't want to have our long awaited holiday spoilt by terrible accommodation. We tried calling LekkeSlaap that night and they said they will sort something out for us in the morning. We then called in the morning and they just kept saying they would try get our money back, but probably not. We asked for other accommodation, (myself and my husband called multiple times) and they were of no help. My husband immediately got onto Bookings.com and found a place for us with a working shower, a bath and 2 bedrooms for the same price. We packed our stuff and left immediately. We spent the next 4 night, (Sunday the 20th to Thursday the 24th) in a flat in Pinelands where we were happy. If it wasn't for this, it would have been a very miserable holiday.

Money unfortunately does not grow on trees and we are living in tough times. We will be needing the money back for the 4 nights that we didn't stay there. We were unhappy and had valid reason for moving out. LekkeSlaap and the hosts are currently refusing to pay back due to cancellation policy but this should not apply if the place in not in good standing and worth the money paid for. We would like to book through LekkeSlaap in future, if you are willing to help us out and meet us halfway by refunding our money for the 4 nights. We moved out, so we did not use their water, electricity or bedding.