It was absolutely awful. Never stay at Papas Palapas or do business with Tammy Rubio!
What happened:
I secured our rental of a bungalow' back in April with a $325 deposit for our planned stay in Papas Palapas, Sayulita, Mexico from 9/11/08 to 9/16/08. I paid the rest in full, as agreed through the website of www.sayulita.com of the remaining balance of $425, on August 6th, the total of the 5 night stay was $750.
We called Tammy Rubio again the day before we arrived to make sure someone would be there to greet us and were told we would find the place easily. But, when we arrived in Sayulita on the 11th, a Thursday morning, we not only couldn't find the place, but there was no one there to help us - even though we called you the day before we left to clarify that.
We stood there with our bags on the beach calling the two numbers she provided and an out of service number for the 'property manager' with no answer. We discovered that the surf rental place worked with Papas, but they didn't offer to help us get in touch with anyone, stating they had no record of any rental this weekend.
When somebody finally offered to help get in touch with the property manager', he also couldn't find any history of our rental which was the Upper Garden Suite.
He was given the directions to take us there and that they'd figure it out when the manager got there, but as he led our bags to the door - the unit was already rented out and people were sleeping in it.By this time it was 12 noon.
He mentioned perhaps placing us in the other bungalow - but no body could find the keys to it, let alone find our reservation.
We were stranded there for 3 hours locked out in the heat with no idea what we were supposed to do, in the middle of no where in Mexico. Tammy told us to call when we got there if we had any problems and all of these things are major problems for a party that had just spent $750 for a suite rental.
This is when Nova, a representative of Playa Escondido, and who's property manager apparently also manages Papas Palapas, arrived and after voicing much of our frustration she offered to put us up for the night. We were weary because we really wanted to get out of there and back to Puerto Vallarta before we were stranded completely for the night. She assured us that we could stay in Playa Escondido for one night for free since no one could get in touch with Tammy, and there was no internet access near Palapas to find another hotel.
When arriving there we made reservations at another hotel in Puerto Vallarta, expecting that we would get a full refund. Nova suggested we made these reservations because she couldn't accommodate us for another day.
We ended up spending over $180 USD there on food and beverages alone, because there were no other options, as you know, in that area.
Apparently, Tammy wasn't returning my calls because she was getting her hair done in preparation for her daughter's wedding. She also kept reiterating that check-in was at 3pm and that's why there was no record of our reservation. We were only a few hours early and it was painfully obvious no one would have even been there to change their sheets and clean, etc by our check-in' time.
She finally returned my calls at about 7pm that day, after we had traveled to Playa Escondida, and told me she'd give me my money back both on the phone and through email. However, in the last two weeks, she's been saying my check is in the mail and she is avoiding all calls.
I finally got her on her cell number on September 30th, and when I suggested I might take legal action she said, Well that's your problem if you want to waste your time with that, and told me my money should be on its way but she's not sure because she wasn't at the office. And then she hung up on me.
I've called small claims in San Francisco, where I live, and they told me it would be tricky to sue her because she is based in another city, and I booked the whole thing online. Also I only have a PO Box for her, (no where to serve subpoena papers), and the rental was in a city in Mexico. I've also contacted my credit card company to see if they can reverse the charges since it had been less than 60 days, but that is an 8 week process that might not even get approved, and it's only for the remaining half of the total cost.
We got scammed, please pass this information around so that no body ever has to experience this again!
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