She booked a room with a view — and got a concrete slap in the face.
British mom Kim Antrobus says her girls’ trip to Portugal was “ruined” after paying extra for a view of the majestic Atlantic Ocean — only to find herself staring directly at a pair of drab apartment buildings.
Antrobus, 43, and her friend Louise Edlin shelled out over $500 for something called a “side sea view” room in Costa Da Caparica last month.
But instead of a sweeping vista, she claims they were greeted with a grim urban scene she said looked more like “Beirut or inner city London.”
“My friend had to climb onto the balcony bit, leaned right over and said ‘you can just about see [the sea],’” Antrobus told Kennedy News.
She went on, recalling, “I couldn’t see it myself. I’ve got a slipped disc and there’s no way I can lean that far over to see it.”
Loveholidays, the online travel agency through which the trip was booked, reportedly responded that the pair had received a sea view — albeit one that required some acrobatics to catch a glimpse.
“She said you can ‘see [the sea] with a stretch,’” Antrobus recounted.
“It doesn’t say on the website a ‘side sea view with a stretch over the balcony.’”
The duo ended up forking over more money to upgrade to a better room.
Antrobus, who works in marketing and is a mom of four, blasted the original listing as “misleading.”
“To me that wasn’t a sea view room,” she said. “It just didn’t look like we were on holiday by the sea. It wasn’t the view I was expecting.”
“It was a beautiful hotel, just a shocking side sea view,” she added. “We changed rooms straight away, I wasn’t staying in that room.”
Loveholidays offered a partial refund — but also passed the buck to the hotel.
“While every hotel classifies their room types differently, we understand Ms Antrobus’ disappointment, and as a gesture of goodwill, have offered a refund of the additional Euro 30 she paid to upgrade to a full sea view room,” the company said in a statement.
Still, the experience left a bad taste.
“It was a nightmare to get in touch with Loveholidays. It ruined my holiday,” Antrobus said.
She stressed, “I won’t book with them again now. I’d tell other people to steer clear.”
