Holiday villa balls-up - please help!

[AndCallMeNancy]

Wondering if anyone has any ideas of sites I can search for a replacement villa for my family holiday please!

We had planned a holiday to Tuscany this summer as a family celebration for my lovely Mum who just turned 80. There will be 8 of us in total - my mum, my brother and his family, and me and mine. We all fancied Italy, somewhere peaceful where we could eat and drink and be together. A pool was a must, especially for my 9 year old and my brothers two teenage girls.

Italy is not a massive package holiday destination but I often book flights and accommodation separately so wasn’t phased by this. It took a lot of hours of trawling but I finally found something on Airbnb that looked perfect, a big villa in a village. It had an above ground pool which wasn’t my ideal but the listing stated that an in-ground pool was being built in time for summer ‘23. I message the owner and she was adamant the pol would be completed in time for our hol (this was late last year)
Booked it, booked our flights… all good. Everyone super excited.

Cut to today when I get an email from the owner saying the pool has not been built. It is 6 weeks until we fly. They’ve offered a 20 percent refund if we want to stick with the booking but state that even the above ground pool won’t be there. We really want a pool so I am going to cancel, they have said they will give a full refund. But I now need alternative accommodation! At very short notice.

I've checked Airbnb, VRBO, booking.com, owners direct ….. any other sites anyone else can think of to book holiday accommodation in Italy? Our flights are Jet2 so not refundable.

I don’t want tell my family about this mess until
i have a viable solution!

Thanks for reading this ramble… any suggestions would be so appreciated 🙏

For villas:

James Villas
Tui Villas
Oliver’s Travels
Simply Owners
Essential Italy
Tuscan Dream
Simpson Travel

Would you be open to hotels?

Where are your flights to?

What about looking at Umbria as well. Perugia is stunning as are Orvieto Sansepolco etc. There might be more late opportunities.

If you can't find something in the right area, try widening your search a bit and booking trains/hotels to wherever you can find?

Not sure of your dates or budget but theres options on booking.Com in the school holidays

Thanks @cherryassam this is a good list!
we fly to Pisa. Much prefer a villa for this particular trip but would def consider a hotel if I can’t find anything!

@BonjourCrisette yes that might need to happen. We are flying into Pisa so have been looking at Pisa province, which is quite a large area, but I think I’ll look at Florence and surrounds too. @Oaktree1233 i will look at connections from Pisa to Umbria too. We don’t love driving in Italy but I believe the trains are very good there.

OP - please be careful here. You shouldn’t cancel as you may risk losing the money you have paid. The host should be cancelling her, but they will be reluctant to do so as this will mean they can’t relist through AirBnB for those dates.

Also, all correspondence about this should go through the AirBnb messaging platform, if the owner has contacted you outside of this, that is another red flag.

Emma Villas

@HettieHelvetica great points!!

James villas look like they’ve got some with pools left in Tuscany but obviously depends on exact dates and budget!

Sawdays might be good?

It rains a LOT in Umbria, it’s not called the Green Heart of Italy for nothing.

You could try booking direct
https://www.agriturismo.it/en/

Villa plus

Take the discount and use it to have an above ground pool delivered by Amazon the day you arrive

We booked a villa through trip advisor one year! Good luck

We fly to Pisa and hire a car. last year had a week here which was amazing. And still has some act depending on your dates.

abnb.me/VoGbqst0WAb

Amivac.com covers quite a few countries, France, Spain, Portugal, but not sure about Italy.

What's your dates OP and how many bedrooms do you need ?

Thanks everyone, some good ideas here.
I will be busy this evening searching these sites!
dates are 5th-14th Aug - so 9 nights.
We need at least 4 bedrooms, but not 4 doubles, at least one should be a twin.

thanks again 🙏

@HettieHelvetica thanks for this advice. It has all come through Airbnb messenges but good to know she needs to cancel me, not the other way round.

One of the reasons you may be struggling is the 9 day period. You may have much better luck if you look for Saturday to Saturday and then a hotel or apartments for the last couple of nights.

This one from James Villas is pretty reasonable ( relatively speaking) for Sat- Sat

https://www.jamesvillas.co.uk/destinations/italy/tuscany/arezzo/empanda-24732?adults=5&children=3&infants=0&childAges=5,5,5&nights=7&depDate=05/08/2023&airport=-1&searchloggid=284179826&numhols=167

What's your budget Op?
Can't get the link to work but I've taken a screen shot of a villa, not sure if any good.
I'd trawl social media as that is his I found out villa in Spain this year