8/10
We had a great time at Villa Pinella. It's a beautiful, older Spanish villa, with lovely gardens and outdoor space and a huge, deep and utterly fabulous pool. We were 2 adults with 4 teens with us aged 14-19.
Pros: Amazing pool; pretty house; well equipped kitchen with new oven and hob; super outdoor space (lots of different sitting & dining areas and a fab bed/hammock/swing); peaceful area.
Reasons not a 5* review: when we arrived the pool wasn't as clean as it should have been. The pool guy came to sort it immediately at our request, but he then didn't come back again during the week, which he should have done and the pool filter didn't work brilliantly. (This is very fixable). The house itself was pretty and full of character and the bedrooms are very well air-conditioned. However there's no aircon in the kitchen which was a little challenging in the heatwave. Downstairs there is a very good sized double with en suite bathroom & plenty of storage. Upstairs are 2 smaller rooms with an excellent jack&jill bathroom between them, and there's also a separate additional toilet downstairs. The upstairs twin room is pretty small - would be ok for small kids. The villa would be too small for 3 couples but for parents and kids it's great.
As others have said, there is no info at all in the house and we really needed to know about how things worked (it was challenging working out the induction hob or finding the fuse box!) and also what to do in the area. It's such an easy thing to fix and would have made a huge difference.
The villa is close to Denia which is fun and we found a couple of decent beaches, but La Xara itself is fairly characterless - though maybe we didn't find the best of it. There are nice bakeries & a supermarket in the village, but we only found them half way through our stay - again we needed more info.
We were surprised a cleaner didn't come during the week & that we didn't get a change of linen during our 9 night stay - this is standard at other villas I've stayed at but maybe not in Spain!
The management company were excellent and highly responsive when we needed them.
If you like the area, want an amazing pool and can put up with no aircon in the kitchen and 2 quite small bedrooms, then I would highly recommend this villa. For us, the pool absolutely made the holiday and we'll be hard pressed to find as good a pool anywhere else! (They just need to make sure the pool guy comes more often).
Claire C.
Bodde hÀr 9 nÀtter i augusti 2022