Claudia C.
Google
I will tell you about the terrible experience I had with this quoad rental agency, which I advise you NOT TO TRUST. We rented 3 quoads from this agency for 3 days from August 19 to 21, paying an advance deposit of 135 euros. We had the ferry to Maio from Praia on August 18 at 5:00 pm. Unfortunately, the ferry was unable to dock at the port of Maio due to rough seas and took us back to the port of Praia, leaving us stranded on the island. All the passengers on the ship, including us, were very ill due to seasickness. When we returned to Praia, we had no place to sleep and so we suddenly found ourselves having to look for accommodation for the night. The next day, in the morning, we went to the port of Praia to ask if there were any ferries leaving that day and unfortunately no ferry was leaving for Maio. The first ferry was scheduled to leave on Wednesday, August 21 (the day we were due to return from Maio). We then wrote to the rental agency explaining the situation, which they obviously already knew about since no tourists were able to disembark on Maio and since they had also cancelled all flights to the island for 3 days. So at 10:15 we notified the agency that we would not be able to go and collect the quads. Obviously understanding their situation, we asked if they could refund us 50% of the deposit paid since we WOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE POSSIBILITY to return to the island due to a situation that did not depend on us. The agency representative "kindly" offered to transform the money into a voucher that we could use at their agency. The question is WHEN? We are tourists, we live in Rome and we are here on a trip, what do we do with a quad rental voucher on the other side of the world? A voucher that the owner knew very well, therefore, that we would never have been able to spend. In order not to lose the money spent, we decided to accept the voucher and to do it in the name of the owner of the apartment we had rented in Maio, who, on the contrary, was completely available and did not withhold any deposit for the house that unfortunately we could not rent. The contact obviously had to make us feel the weight of the fact that he was doing us a FAVOR by doing the voucher in the name of another person.
Since the quad rental agency also owns a restaurant, the person to whom we gave the voucher asked the contact if the voucher, instead of using it for the quads, could be used to take the children of the AICCA association of Maio (a children's charity) to eat pizza, so that at least our bad experience could be transformed into an act of generosity. Obviously the rental agency refused to transform the voucher.
Given the whole experience, I can't definitely give more than 1 star to the agency which probably, if this is their Modus Operandi, works hoping that the ferries to Maio never arrive, keeping the deposits of all tourists.
