How to complain about mezzanine "room" with no head height.

[year3onuke]

We are in Ile de Re in a "family appartment".
It's the kind where there is a main room with sofa bed then an upstairs Mezzanine with double bed. I have stayed in one before, in the same town, and understand that the ceiling slopes to a low place.
The problem in this appartment is that when you get up the stairs, it is impossible to walk from the top of the stairs to the bed and sit down (a distance of about two foot) without hitting your head on the rectangular beams sticking out of the ceiling. There is also only two foot breadth of head space that I can stand in at all (I am only 5'5).
So, we have put the children (11 and 8) in the bed and dh and I are in the sofa bed. But the children also keep hitting their heads on the beams.

I guess I have to complain, but how do I go about it without cutting off my nose to spite my face? It's unlikely that we will find alternative accommodation for four on the island at this time of year.

Is the first thing to do to ask them tomorrow if they can give us another appartment? And to say that we are not happy? But what then, assuming they are full?
Also, how do I stop this dominating the holiday?
Please help.

Bump!

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd complain. Presumably the mezzanine is only for sleeping, so it shouldn't be a problem to just watch your head or tell your dcs to do the same. I think most kids would see a bedroom like that as an adventure.

Not really sure how it would dominate your holiday unless you're having to spend an awful lot of time in your apartment - of course I realise there may be reasons why that might be the case. But otherwise, I'd just encourage the kids to see it as a cool and unusual sleeping space! And go out a lot

Having said that, if you do complain, the worst that could happen is they don't have an alternative apartment or aren't prepared to offer you one. I'm sure they won't turf you out of the current one, so you there shouldn't be any chance of you cutting your nose off to spite your face!

Thanks. I am encouraging the kids to look at it that way.
This was supposed to be our room (it has the double bed in it-but there is absolutely no way an adult could sleep in it unless they were prepared to roll off it then crawl along the floor).
Ds aged 8 bumped his spine yesterday by trying to crawl off the bed.

I may have failed to communicate how low this ceiling is!

Still, onwards and upwards. The manager says we are not the first to complain and that other people have got money back so perhaps we will too. Will pop out to the post office then it's done.

How was it described in the company's website/marketing info? If it didn't warn you about the reduced head height, I guess you may have a case.for being some kind of recompense, although if you booked it directly with an overseas company, your rights probably wouldn't be the same as if you bought the holiday from a UK company.

Thanks

I got it via booking.com.

Do you think that makes a difference?