Puerto Feliz Aparthotel

My boyfriend and I wanted to have a week’s holiday in November somewhere in Europe that would still be hot and sunny. We chose the resort of Puerto Rico in Gran Canaria and we paid £321 per person. We chose the Puerto Feliz Aparthotel on a self catering basis because of it’s description in the Airtours Wintersun brochure (Nov 2004-April 2005 Third Edition); the description reads and I quote ...'set in a central but peaceful area of Puerto Rico, is just one of the reasons that the Puerto Feliz is such a popular choice with our customers, ideal for people of all ages...'
We arrived at the resort late afternoon, unpacked and went out to have a look around the resort. When we returned at around 11pm we could not believe the noise level coming from the "Shopping Centre" which lays in the valley below these apartments; this was a mixture of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and shops.
We closed our patio doors and bedroom window but the noise was still so unbelievably loud that the windows were actually vibrating and the noise level was barely reduced, in fact you would have thought we had a stereo playing in our apartment.
We could hear every word of the music being pumped out and the DJ jeering the crowd on, and the shouting and screaming from the crowd in the clubs.
This went on until 4am, every morning.
The next day we went to our welcome meeting and complained to our rep Duane Ellis, who, although was understanding and agreed that the noise levels could be really bad if we wanted to move accommodation we would have to pay. Another couple were in the middle of complaining to the rep with the exactly the same complaint we met up with them on the last day of the holiday and they had been told that there wasn’t any accommodation to move them to but they would have to pay an extra cost if there would have been. Why the hell should we have to pay to move accommodation?
I suffer from asthma and when I booked the holiday I requested a high floor specifically so that I would have decent air circulation as sometimes lower floors can be very stuffy, as we had to keep the windows and patio door shut every night when we returned to our apartment to keep out the noise I constantly had asthma.
We don’t feel like we had a holiday, we both returned home feeling exhausted from total sleep deprivation for a week.
I filled in an Airtours customer complaint form and wrote a letter of complaint, this weekend I will take it to the travel agent who sold me the holiday for them to send off to Airtours head office (I was told that Airtours have to respond to the travel agent within 14 days where as if I sent the complaint to Airtours head office myself I wasn’t guaranteed a response).
I feel that Airtours gave us as customers a false and untrue description of accommodation at the Puerto Feliz - there is no way that unless you were stone deaf you could possibly describe the Puerto Feliz as accommodation set in a peaceful location - it was a living hell for a week and I can not recommend strongly enough that you give it a wide berth unless you are stone deaf. We have swapped details with the other couple and together we will fight this all the way to get suitable compensation.