Policies (Terms and Conditions)

We try to keep our paperwork to a minimum and have a contract that we ask all our gusts to sign that is only two pages long. Heck, you're going on vacation not buying a house! Basically, please look after our villas, we have worked hard to get them and are working constantly to keep them in nice condition. To help keep the honest people honest (and our villas nice) we do have a security deposit that is refundable as long as you don't leave us with any problems. Security deposit amounts vary based on our experience of exposure to risk, so older family groups have lower deposits than younger groups. Basically, security deposits start at $300 for family groups and increase as the groups get younger and bigger. We will ask about your group during the booking process to help us set the deposit.

When we say don't leave us with any problems, we mean common sense things like:

  • Don't break anything
  • Tidy up before you leave
  • Don't try to leave late, someone will likely be coming in after you so please respect their vacation and our staff's time and stress levels to get the villa ready in time for the next group
  • Don't leave us with a massive clean up
  • Don't smoke
  • Don't bring your pet
  • Don't let little Johnny bring anything home with him that he 'found' in our villa
  • Don't move the furniture
  • Don't rewire our electronics
  • Don't upset the HOA or the neighbors

and the list can go on forever but if you wouldn't do it in your Mom's house, please don't do it in ours. Think of it this way, if we have to pay someone to undo or repair what you have done, or we get fined by the HOA (which is not common but does occasionally happen) then there is a good possibility that your security deposit will be impacted.

Cancellations

A word on cancelling your vacation. Obviously, most people wishing to stay with us have to do some planning as they are bringing a large group, so folks generally book well in advance. Therefore, if a group cancels relatively close to their check-in date then we stand little chance of re-booking that slot. Is it not therefore unreasonable to expect a 100% refund having held our villa off market for an extended period of time? Unfortunately, some groups even book early and then cancel late looking for a cheaper cancellation elsewhere. We hope reasonable guests therefore understand why we cannot simply offer a 100% refund at any time for any reason.

Sometimes a group has a genuine reason to cancel and if they give us enough notice we can sometimes re-sell their slot. If we are successful, and the slot is sold for a comparable amount then we have, in the past, given refunds. However, this is a courtesy and our contract does not attempt to document all the caveats this route may expose.

Therefore, insurance, insurance, insurance!!! Travel insurance is cheap, and you can tailor your coverage to meet your needs. Heck, we even found an insurance company that will cover a group for a cancellation "for any reason" recently. We obviously prefer groups to purchase their own insurance, but, if you absolutely are unwilling to do this and would rather have us locate insurance for you, we can do that but we would ask for a fee to cover our administration time. The resulting insurance contract would be between the guest and the insurance company. We would simply act as a finder.

Payments

Depending upon the cost of the vacation and how far in advance a guest is booking, the vacation total can be broken into as many as six or seven payments. Particularly if a group reserves more than one villa for the following summer season. However, as a rule of thumb, most payments end up being between $500 and $1000'ish. Simply email if you would like more or less payments, we're flexible.