Villa Holidays

[Med]

Has anyone hired a villa through the internet direct with the company abroad, or can anyone recommend a villa, as the ones in the travel agents brochures seem so expensive.
Help would be greatly appreciated.

[Tlb]

Catalonia is beautiful avoiding the more tourist hotspots of Salou and Cambrils. I worked there as a rep many moons ago! I am in love with barcelona and Tarragona used to be very pretty.

On the villa front I wouldn't recommend Simply travel as we travelled with them when our daughter was 10 weeks old to Corfu and they forgot to send us a cot so she slept in her car seat for two nights! We asked for an apartment which was pushchair friendly - ha! no way steep cobbled hills we were frightened to push her up and down for fear of shaken baby syndrome!! They then cocked up the taxis home as they hadn't allowed room to have all passengers and a baby seat they were very very disorganised and didn't have the knowledge of the resorts they claimed to have. That aside the apartment was nice and the resort was lovely.

I do however recommend two companies who I have travelled with extensively since. One is CV travel who cover the whole of the med and are very very knowledgable and efficient as well as friendly and helpful and have some of the best villas I have ever stayed in (and not an arm and a leg in cost either!) And Mallorcan farmhouse holidays (mfh.com) they need a bit more supervision and nagging but again they come up with some beautiful places in Mallorca and they can arrange babysitting etc.

[Med]

Thanks everyone for your help. I found a site called Tourism@Catalonia, and they've got loads of different properties they rent out, so I will see if they can help, I don't even know if Catalonia is nice! I don't really know Spain at all. But I will investigate all your ideas. I'm determined to find something nice for our honeymoon (but not expensive!). Thanks again, Med

[Selja]

Have you looked in the Holiday Villas magazine (get it from WH Smith)? It has loads of villas/apartments in all the popular holiday spots (Florida, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal etc). I rang up a few when we went away in July and although a lot were booked (too short notice) they all very kindly gave me names and numbers of people in Spain who might be able to help. This time we've booked one for December/January from the magazine and we deal direct with the owner. Obviously when I come back I can let you know how it was. Whatever you do if you come across a company called Spanish Dreams run by a Madeleine Burns then run a mile. They were a nightmare (long story) and her husband was always drunk when he turned up (he was supposed to be a director of the company as well).

[Nao]

We hired one in Calella de Parafrugell (sp?) on the Costa Brava in September 2000 through www.villarama.com. They have loads of villas all over the world. We dealt directly with the guy who owned the villa and I think, for 2 weeks, the cost was about £700 plus £120 odd for return flights to Gerona. Our son was about 15 months old and the villa wasn't really suitable for him (too many steps) but we had a brilliant holiday anyway. Would recommend it though for older children. There was a town called Llafranc a little way up the coast which had a brilliant beach for children with very gentle sloping beach. Maybe worth searching for villas there on the site if you're interested?

HTH and good luck with your search.

[Debsb]

Havent hired a villa but have hired apartments. I found it easier to go through one of the smallet travel agents, and can recommend Diamond Holidays, who cover Mallorca & Menorca. They tend to look after private villas and apartments for the owners, but are covered by the usual travel agants blurb. They have a web site, but I can't remember the name. Do get in quick though, if you want school hols. We've just booked next years and couldn't get any of our first choice weeks. If you're interested, I can get the phone number. The problem with booking through the net is you have no comeback if there are problems whith the accomodation.
BTW our accomodation plus flights worked out £900 cheaper than an identical deal through 'First Choice', and thats 2 adults & 2 kids.