Cortijo La Rijana

What a place. Fantastic villa. High up in the mountains with cracking views. Couldn't ask for more. Plenty of rooms and bathrooms with plenty of space to lounge and cook etc. The swiiming area brilliant. Pool is a very good size and the bar area is full of power points for music. The village below has wonderful food and entertainment available. Highly reccomend.

Great villa fantastic views amazing food from La Rosilla catering

Our group (27 - mix of adults and children) spent 2 weeks in this villa (17-31st of August 2024). Although the overall holiday experience was ok, but this was mostly because we were enjoying our holiday time, there is a number of facts worth mentioning as a review: Firstly, the property was not prepared for us to enter until about 8pm despite declarations that it would be ready by 4pm – we were asked to specify arrival time and 4pm was agreed. We could enter the property at 4pm but it was not ready until 8pm Secondly, the water in the pool had been quite filthy on a few occasions. Someone came to clean it out, but not as often as it should have been done, which in turn led to the pool being unusable on a few occasions. Thirdly, the games room (which played a major role in us picking this particular property initially) was pretty much good for nothing. The ping pong table was crooked, full of indents and therefore impossible to be used. There was only one tennis racket provided for the court, pool cues had no tips. It is completely useless in my opinion. Fourthly, the hot water in the showers was a hit and miss. It was impossible to deem when it would work and when it would not. Most of the time, everyone ended up having to bathe in cold water. Issue was reported a number of times – on each occasion maintenance person came to fix it but it only worked for a day or 2. Lastly - the most important and biggest issue we faced. There was an absolutely putrid smell coming from both toilets in the smaller house attached to the main property which lasted for most of our stay despite a number of attempts to fix it made by the house-keeper. Also, one of the toilets next to the main kitchen was blocked for almost a week. Issue was reported on day 2 and resolved on day 7 despite declarations that it will be done within a day or 2. Smell coming from this toilet was so bad that the kitchen within the house was unusable as the smell pierced through the whole house - staying in there for a prolonged period of time was simply impossible as the smell was that intolerable and vomit-inducing. We had to stay away from the kitchen as much as we could which completely defeats the purpose of renting self-catering villa. We paid almost 10 thousand euro for our stay and, considering the above, our experience and entire holiday in this particular villa was fairly disappointing. I am aware that maintenance problems can occur in any property but firmly believe that the situations and circumstances described above are not acceptable and should lead to some form of significant compensation. I have described all of the above in my complaint mail to Novasol and was advised that (quote from Novasol): "We unfortunately can't offer compensation in this case since everything was remedied during your stay within a fair amount of time" In my eyes Novasol claiming that the inability to use the kitchen in a so called 'self catering villa' for almost half of the stay is fair, seems slightly ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that we were charged 420 euro for heating (oil) in cash, upon arrival. For obvious reasons, there was no need to heat the house considering it was the end of August. In this case, the most logical explanation for this charge is for the use of hot water... which was not present for most of our stay. So what exactly did we pay for? Now, to the readers - feel free to make your own judgements here...