Golf holiday ruined, please read this.
May 2023
Ref: Booking *******
Conclusion from recent trip to Vilamoura
Having spent 1 year organising this golfing holiday with GolfDirectholidays, 3 rounds (laguna,Pinhal,vale do lobo) inc golf buggies.

We arrived and over the holiday we found you hadn't booked or paid for the buggies and to top it off our main event Sunday 11.am tee off at Vale do lobo, hadn't been booked that's the golf and buggies, so 12 months in planning and the whole trip ruined.

Friday arrive at laguna spent 1 hour constantly phoning you guys and discussing with there club house, I ended up having to pay for buggies myself, as we where with the same organisation on Saturday Pinhal they informed us no buggies in place for Saturday so again same issue.

I was phoning golf direct and emailing, shocking lack/non help/assistance and no return calls made

Sunday went to hotel reception to arrange shuttle bus to vale do lobo all guys at the door ready and buzzing, then bang no golf booked at the course and no tees available as course was full, absolute nightmare, on the phone over 30 calls made no response from golf direct.

I worked with hotel reception and we found a course so we could at least have a game.

(ghd ESD) sent an email to me on the 19/05 trying to explain buggies were not included however he was looking at an old email quote so I sent him the quote showing prices with buggies included and all was on our voucher tickets/emails etc etc. So no excuses please.

GHD sent email on the 22nd asking how much buggies were, didn't even know about no golf at vale do lobo, so not sure who or how your communication works there as emails, phoning, leaving messages doesn't seem to help you people.

So as you can see and you must agree our holiday and especially mine was ruined, on the phone,emailing etc totally stressed out!

So I returned on the 23/05 and the next day sent you the costs for buggy hire x 3rounds and 8 players on the course we managed to play on the Sunday,

I spent 1 week chasing your company for payment, which I received on 31/05 total received £1440.00, I informed you my visa bill was £1469.49 which was 1644 euros, so again you don't even square me up and blame your accounts rather than do the right thing.

You then offer a voucher discount as compensation if we book another trip... so I inform our group and we agree to explore this thinking we get something out of the mess your company put us through.

You offer a weekend at Oulton Hall 1 night B&B evening meal + 2 rounds for £225 each, I looked on there website and they offer this with a free drink for £189.00, so again this is not compensation its just a whole joke with you.

As in the email below I mentioned putting a review on, which you said was threating and not something you wouldn't dream of!
You say its a one off mistake well maybe you should look through your reviews from the past, and address your errors and treat people with respect rather than disappointment, and don't even return my money correctly or compensate us correctly,
On Friday 23/05 I was informed by Golf direct my vouchers where cancelled due to advising them i will put a review on and there ESD was on the phone shouting at me saying there really busy and to stop emailing them he hung up before I could respond.

Apparently UK's largest Golf holiday company, that states we will lead you every step of the way to meet your requirements,

Well you failed by 100%

Having just returned from our golfing holiday to Albuferia I am left questioning why I had to pay Golf Holidays Direct.

Their ineptitude and lack of communication was astounding from the very first moment I made contact with them.

Needless to say, every single aspect of our booking was incorrect. Initially everything seemed great. As requested we were offered 2 bedroom suites (x2) for our party of 6, afternoon t-times and although we had to pay for buggies when we arrived, we were assured they would be booked for us. Deposit paid, confirmation through with all of the details correct apart from we were now at a "sister" hotel!

Fast forward a few months and final balance due (which they tried to take 2 weeks early). Once the balance was paid, confirmation was sent out and room type had changed to 1 bed apartments (x2), each with a sofa bed.
Mistakes can happen though and we gave the booking agent G an opportunity to sort this. Numerous emails and calls followed but radio silence. A week later I got a WhatsApp from him and all it said was that the accommodation provided was adequate!
It may have been adequate for a group of teenagers on a stag weekend G but it wasn't what we paid for and certainly was not adequate for a party of 6 guys in their 40's.

Because of this lack of response and zero effort to try and change the hotel rooms we thought it prudent to check our golf bookings were correct. Salgados was correct (although a 4 ball and 2 when 2 x 3's were asked for) but Alamos should have been at 2.24pm. We emailed the course directly to be told that we had a time of 7.40am! When challenged about this, Golf Holidays Direct said they could get us an afternoon booking at another course, at a cost of an extra €110 per person. Paying an extra €660 euros for something we had supposedly already booked was really beyond a joke! We were offered a private transfer to the golf course for this, but when it came through the time was wrong, surprise surprise!

Alamos Golf Course confirmed that Gus had booked the 7.40am tee time back in March when our deposit was paid, he must have just forgotten to tell us!

Now I'm sure anyone reading this will agree that setting an alarm for 5.30am on the first day of your holiday to get picked up by the bus to golf at 6.15 is not ideal. Again, not what we paid for and meant we missed breakfast in the hotel.

To this end we took golf holidays direct out of the equation and contacted all elements of our booking ourselves. We managed to change hotel rooms (having been told by Golf Holidays Direct this was impossible), booked our buggies and tried to change tee time which could not be done.

All in all I was just pleased to find that we had a booking when we arrived. You might think this is an isolated incident but we met 3 young lads at our hotel who only found out when they arrived that their room was wrong and their tee time was for 7.30am instead of 1pm. Their clubs were arriving at the hotel at 8am! Funnily enough they had booked with G too!

The only slight glimmer of hope for the company was EA. In customer services.

Gus Long wouldn't respond to any correspondence once he had our money. Company director LR did not reply to a very polite email and refused to come to the phone. Instead they chose to hide behind poor EA who tried her very best to sort things out for us. Unfortunately to no avail. Although she did manage to upgrade our all inclusive drinks package to premium and international as a gesture.

In conclusion, a shambolic company who obviously have a sales strategy designed to lure you in and hope you don't notice when the book an inferior product. Genuinely would have been better contacting NAU hotels directly as they are connected to the courses we played. G only had to send 1 email, how difficult could that be?

I'm sure they will reply to this review and try and turn it around on us as they have done on other reviews, but unfortunately Mr R I have all correspondence saved and I doubt you can refute it! Please get in touch if you would like to try.