Apartamentos rurales La Columna

very expensive!

Ragnar Castillo

The apartments offered by La Columna proved a comfortable and pleasant stay. Postcard courtyard and bang in the centre of Chinchon. The price, however, was very high and beyond acceptable. As with many other tourist infested towns, greed has the better of it. The hotel apartment was offered at 80€ for the night with a surcharge of 20€ for our 7 years old son. Breakfast included. We were shown the place before committing to the offer and told that we did not have to take it and that VAT was included. That should have made anyone with a hint of self dignity shy away! We, however, accepted it. The following morning, we went to the restaurant associated with the place to have our paid for breakfast. A waiter came, acknowledged that we were quests at the apartment hotel and queried as to what we would like to eat. We established the order comprising of a couple of omelettes, 3 glasses of fresh orange juice, coffee and a ham and cheese toasty. Later when checking out we noted a breakfast charge of 20€ was added to the bill. When kindly highlighting the fact that breakfast was included in the deal we were told with an attitude that we were in effect silly to expect such a classy breakfast to be included. The Spaniards do not subscribe to the notion that the customer is always right! They told us that we had been told by the waiter what was part of the breakfast deal. He never did. To cut a long story short, we ended up paying 120€ for the night. That is the same cost we paid the night before in the most expensive hotel in Chinchon. The additional cost of the “lavish” breakfast was negligible to the establishment but sufficient to cause an argument with us. That made the experience a lousy one and prompted me to write this note. You can get a much better deal elsewhere.