Name: Portobello Apartments
Address: 60 Bulevar Gobernador Nicolaas Debrot, Kralendijk, Kralendijk, Kralendijk, 0, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
Rating: 5

Air conditioning

Smoke-free property

Ticket assistance

Garden

Terrace

All Spaces Non-Smoking (public and private)

Reception desk

General

Fridge

Shower

Laptop safe

Safe (in room)

Rooms

Safe-deposit box

Luggage storage

Services and amenities

Coffee/tea for guests

Kitchen

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet access

Internet

Tour assistance

Tourist services

Sun Deck

Recreation

Parking

Garage

Cycling

Sports

Location

At the apartment

Room amenities

Flamingo International Airport

Portobello Apartments

Kralendijk

Spacious and clean. We were woken up in the middle of the night by a donkey eating a cardboard box outside our window. The place was for sale at the time we stayed. No concierge but the price was right. Convenient location, good for the independent traveler.

OK inexpensive place to stay in Bonaire

For what I have to say...check the photos I uploaded to back some of the points up.

This place is ghetto and it should have been more obvious to me before I left.

I booked on an internet booking site.  This is the first time that in doing so I’ve had a follow up of an email from the same booking site asking me to contact the hotel using ‘the details above’ and let them know when I would be arriving because they have limited front desk hours.  Not wholly surprising because I had read there was very limited front desk hours for the staff in one of the reviews.

What was not obvious however, was there was actually no front desk.

Anyway, I put a fax together and sent it to the fax number.  The fax didn’t go through.  Then I realized the phone and fax numbers provided were the same.  I just left a voicemail instead.

Done.  Or so I thought.

Later in the week (the week prior to departure) I received an email from a hotmail address.  Now this wasn’t an email from the hotel/apartments email address, it was a more or less random hotmail account that I’m surprised wasn’t put straight into the junk email folder.  The name on the email was ‘el romantico autentico’.  The email asked me for details of my arrival.  I thought it didn’t look authentic and the email (despite having some context) could be from anyone.  I explained I’d left the details on the voicemail and I doubted the authenticity so I’d prefer to stick to the voicemail.  I left another voicemail.  I also contacted the booking company, stating I was concerned to get a dodgy looking email from ‘el romantico autentico’.  The booking company saw why I might be concerned and tried to phone the ‘hotel’.  They got no response too.  I left another voicemail.

I got another email explaining there’d been no voicemail and again soliciting the details.  I asked if someone from the actual location could contact me because, well...this looked as dodgy as hell.  Eventually I got an email from a portobello dot com email address.

Finally!  Either way I thought it was very unprofessional to contact me like that, especially given there was actually an official email address for the location.  They explained the contact details on the booking site were actually wrong and that was why they had not received my voicemails.  As you learn...it seems several details about the apartments are wrong on the booking site, to the point where I would suggest ‘false advertising’.

We were met on location for the check in as arranged.  It was after hours, but there was no front desk anyway...just this ‘el romantico autentico’ dude hanging around at the gate.  He didn’t look dodgy or anything like that and frankly he seemed nice/helpful.  But then again, he didn’t need to look dodgy because by this time I was already suspicious of the setup anyway.  I asked where the office was.  He said there wasn’t anyone.  It became obvious he was the person I was supposed to meet and I got a key.  He told me someone would be back to check me in properly on Monday (it was late Saturday).

We couldn’t get onto the Wifi.  We tried to guess the password.  Little did we know we actually guessed it correctly (the name of the ‘hotel’) it’s just that the Wifi was dodgy and rarely worked.

Nobody turned up on Monday to check us in.  By that time of course, we wanted to know the Wifi password and contact them about a few other problems.  But with no method of contacting them, no Wifi and no front desk or office...not easy.  We ended up going to another location to use their Wifi and we sent an email to the at portobello dot com and ‘el romantico’ addresses.

We complained of a number of things...that there was no laptop compatible safe as advertised, two breakfast dishes for a four person apartment, no toaster as an alternative for the other people who might be hungry and had no dish for cereal.  At the same time I also sent an email to the booking company complaining of additional things...things I knew would never be solved but I wanted to put them on record.  However, rather than detail everything said by email...I’ve just put together a summary list of all the problems with this apartment below.

Someone did turn up Tuesday morning, with extra dishes.  They explained the room service staff had been around the prior day and were unable to get in.  I don’t believe this was true because for most of the day, someone was in while I was out diving.  Either way, they asked if we would leave the door unlocked when we were out so the cleaner could get in.  Seriously?  In Bonaire?  They do know Bonaire has a petty opportunist theft problem right?  Obviously not.  I said no.  She looked kind of surprised at the suggestion I wouldn’t leave the hotel room unlocked all day.

Why not give the cleaner a key?

They said someone would be around to clean every day midweek and someone would turn up with a new microwave later on.

She gave me the Wifi password.  It was the same as what we had guessed.  The problem was that the Wifi was as dodgy as hell and on some days, even with the correct password you wouldn’t be able to get onto it at all.  The router I found outdoors hanging off the front of a shed so on one occasion I just went and pulled the plug to reset it, which as far as getting a connection goes worked that time.

Still speaking of Tuesday.  A cleaner did turn up yes.  It was the only time we saw them the whole week.  Actually I tell a lie...I did see them again later in the week, but not cleaning our place.  They were going out of the front gate so I think it was obvious she knew we were in if she had a problem accessing the apartment.  Seemed to me they just chose not to bother.

Next, Tuesday evening...a leaf blower was plugged in outside by a gardener and the electrics went off in the apartment.  I found the fusebox outside and it wouldn’t reset properly.  We were without lights.  Luckily, ‘el romantic autentico’ was contacted by the gardener and turned up quickly.  Turns out he was already heading in our direction with a ‘new’ microwave.  Took a short while and electrics came back on.  Phew.

The new microwave btw...when used, sounded like someone was being executed using an electric chair.  It also took six minutes to warm one slice of pizza.  It was terrible quality.

Wednesday...the bathroom door finally fell off of its hinges.  It was my fault clearly, because it was already in part hanging off and as a result you were unable to close the door.  Yes, we found this out on arrival Saturday...it was already hanging of the hinges which is the reason it would not close.  Sick of this, I closed it by force and it was too much for the thing and it fell off when I re-opened it.  Fed up now of making a daily complaint about something and just being labelled as difficult whiners we just put up with it.  What this means is the door stayed open and anyone using the toilet did so in full view of anyone in the kitchen or at the dining table.  Hey...we’re family!

All it needed was some longer screws in it.  I mean seriously owners...the door was already hanging by a thread.  Can you not be bothered to fix stuff?

Thursday...tried to use the hob but found that it wasn't connected to any gas supply at all.  In fact, there was a red pipe that passed from under the hob and into an adjacent cupboard and it didn’t have any fitting on the end at all, so I’m not sure how it might connect to anything even if there was a gas bottle to hand.

I think it was Friday night I saw ‘el romantico’ again and he asked if everything was okay.  I just told him yes.  I mean seriously...I just couldn’t be bothered to complain anymore.  All they’d done is bring some extra dishes and still broken microwave so I had limited expectations they’d resolve anything more serious.

So, that summary list:

- No laptop compatible safe.  There is a safe there.  It might fit your phone, but wouldn’t fit a 7 inch tablet let alone any larger like a laptop.
- Kitchen...well, the sink and fridge worked yes.  There’s not much else:
 - Microwave.  First one was dead.  I don’t know why you would rent an apartment with a dead microwave and advertize it has a kitchen.  I was also dirty and unsanitary (see photo).  Second one we wasn’t sure was safe and didn’t work well as explained.
 - Two breakfast dishes for a four person apartment.  Four more were brought.
 - No toaster as an alternative.  A ‘sandwich toaster’ was brought.
 - Stove...yes.  Working...no it is not connected to any gas or supply and again...I don’t know why the management is advertizing the unit has a kitchen if the services are not actually working or connected.
 - We bought some bacon.  We cooked it in the sandwich toaster because the frying pan was so dirty.  This was before we’d found out the frying pan was useless because there was no gas for the hob anyway.
- No warm water from any tap.  This isn’t uncommon for some apartments in Bonaire, but it is worth pointing out because it’s not for everyone.  The shower does pump out warm water.
- The shower head is not mounted (it’s one of those shower heads on the end of a flexible tube).  The mounting has broken off so it just hangs down (come on guys...really easy stuff to fix this!) and you can’t just stand under it and let it pour.  See photo.
- TV..yes there is one as advertised.  Signal is so weak you vaguely get a picture through the white noise.  It is not usable.  See photo...which shows the best signal we were able to get.
- There is no TV remote.
- Walls were painted...but it seems whoever did it didn't have a ladder because anything above reach had not been done.  Yes...a big line across the wall...new white below and older, faded paint above.  Laughable.  I mean can you really not be bother to either do it properly or pay someone who actually does own a ladder?
- Towels changed once during the entire stay.  One had blood on it...not ours.
- Apartment cleaned once during the entire stay.
- Beds made once during the entire stay.  I mean...we can do it ourselves, but if it’s supposed to be done every weekday why should we?
- Bed linens not changed at all during the entire stay.
- No dedicated parking.  If there is an event on you have to fight with everyone else for a space on the street and walk however far from the apartment that will be.
- Curtain and pole kept falling down in one bedroom.
- Noisy from above and road.
- Dodgy electrics.
- One bedroom has no working electrical outlets.  Probably explains why there was also a table lamp without a lead long enough to reach the sockets.  I mean...if there’s no electricity to the sockets in that room, why would you need a lamp with a lead long enough to use them?  Makes sense, no?  I tell a lie...I could have plugged that lamp in by running the cable under my pillow.
- Air conditioning only in the bedrooms.  Normally I would have no problem with that, but the lounge and kitchen doesn’t even have a fan, which it should if there is no a/c there.
- No Wifi.  Yes, I’m going to say No Wifi because it’s so unreliable.  There are days it does not work at all.
- The floors are dangerously slippery.

Recommendation:

With all the above notes, you can see in advance what you are getting into and probably should avoid at all costs if those things bother you.  Obviously this was my experience in one room only and other rooms might be better equipped, only...I see another review from the same week so I assume they didn’t sleep in the same room we did.

I will add a recommendation however that this is:

- Not for vacationers...no pool.  To be fair, this is obvious in advance.
- Not for divers...no rinse tanks or anywhere to store or hang gear.

It's a real pity...nice apartment with nice layout just totally let down by lack of maintenance, lack of care and many very obviously broken or wrong things.  So so obvious that it is simply not possible for the management to claim they pay any attention to it or care for the guests.

Now some might say this is cheap/value.  I would say it's cheap yes, but given the problems, it still does not represent value for money.

Like I said...this place was ghetto.  I can’t say I didn’t have obvious warning signs.  Consider yourself warned.

This place is ghetto.

Rooms were large, bright and very clean, with lots of nice furniture and a pleasant patio in front. Be sure to ask for one of the rear apartments, the front ones are subject to road noise. The view is nothing much, but you don't go to Bonaire to hang out in a hotel, do you? No hot water, which is not as serious a problem as you might think, after a day of snorkeling in the sun the cool, almost lukewarm shower was very refreshing. Might be a different story if you dive. 

The staff is a bit of a problem. They are friendly enough, and keep the place clean and the bed linens changed, but communication was a bit shaky, and we had to wait a day or two to get the propane tank connected so we could use the kitchenette, which was very basic.

Location is the strong point. You're right across the road from the Eden Beach Resort, which has Water Taxis to Klein Bonaire, and Bari Reef which has great snorkeling and diving right off the beach. Buddy Dive and Don's are right up the road, and two of the best restaurants on Bonaire are within walking distance. Downtown Kralendijck is 5 miniutes by car.

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