Author: Anonymous

While doing some research for this past Pesach, I stumbled upon this program's website. I thought it sounded great and signed up almost immediately. I was looking forward for months and was excited to be boarding the plane. 48 hours later, my excitement switched to deep disappointment. Before describing the negatives, I would like to focus on some positives. I met some lovely people, the entertainment was decent, and the hotel staff was excellent. There were two staff members from the program who were exceptional. The Algarve is beautiful and I would recommend going for Pesach but on a different program. What went wrong: The first seder was a disaster, the wait staff was disorganized, the food was tasteless, and they ran out of dessert. My table was just getting our starters while the other tables were eating their desert. The Rabbi started to resume the seder but we had to ask him to wait because we were still eating our main course! The second seder was more organized but the food portions were tiny. We later discovered that they were holding food in the back but did not serve it. The food was terrible, produce was not fresh and meals consisted of the exact same food each day. In addition, lunch and dinner were both meat meals. The setup of the buffet was such that people had to storm if they wanted food. If someone came into the dining room an hour into a meal time, half of the food was gone. Dessert was gone within the first five minutes of a meal. They advertised a wonderful tea room that was open from 10:30-midnight. The timing was true but the tea room was sad. They had minimal food and it was only a small amount of cake and cookies, a small bowl of elite chocolate bars, and potato crisps. There were no "healthier" options. Plus, the food was repetitive. I had requested a low floor, because my mother has difficulties with stairs, which we were not given. We were assured that there would be people manning the elevators. However, the elevators were often left unattended. Twice my mother had to walk down the stairs, and a third time I pushed the button because I feared she would fall. When I discussed this eventually with a member of the family, I was told and she "wanted my mother to have the nicest possible room," rather than to own up to the mistake. On Sunday night, after the first days of yom tov, I contacted the administrator whom I had been in contact with throughout the process. Before the program, she was responsive but this time, she was not. Between myself, my mother, and some friends, we had contacted every member of the family and no one was helpful. I decided to post a negative review on the facebook group as a means of getting their attention. The positive of the review is that the program drastically improved for the second half of the holiday, until the last day when the food reverted to the same tasteless stuff. There were still some issues, such as, we were given desert to "share" but it was not portioned appropriately for “shared” desert. They also ran out of diet soda and some types of wine by day 5. Because they demonstrated improvement, I was planning to write a retraction but an incident occurred on the 7th day that caused me to change my mind (will explain in the next paragraph). After posting my review, the missing administrator (whom I later found out is the boss's daughter), came over to me and inquired about my review, her body language was oozing with hostility, (arms were crossed and facial expression was hard). When I tried to explain to her my reasoning for posting, she would not allow me to finish and disputed everything that I said. Over the next few days, extended family and family friends were posting reviews online and making rude comments to me for posting. Another daughter of owner falsely accused a guest of threatening physical violence toward her sister. One person, who is a friend of the owner , tagged me in his positive review because he disagreed with me. He also referred to me as a “complainer and a liar.” These constant comments and posting online culminated in a confrontation on the 7th day, when I was verbally assaulted by another friend of the owner and was told multiple times, "go home, we do not want you here." This incident occurred in front of every member of the Sassoon family and not one of them came to my aide. They sent out a staff member to speak with me, who insinuated that it was my fault because I posted a negative review. This experience left me feeling traumatized, which is why I am posting anonymously. I understand that this program is in its infancy years and there is room to improve. Even though I would not return, I might encourage people to give them a chance because there were some positives to the program and they did demonstrate improvement towards the end of the week. However, I strongly encourage people not to attend any program run by the Sassoon family. I am not in the habit of speaking ill of others in a public forum nor do I want to intentionally ruin a person’s parnosa. In this case, I feel it is my obligation to share this to prevent others from falling victim to this program. In running this program, the Sassoon family did not adhere to Jewish values. The advertising was false, and they promised things via email that were not delivered. When confronted with these issues, they ignored and denied, and when a guest was attacked and humiliated in public, they did nothing. There are enough programs that are run by honest decent people (unfortunately, I have not yet done the research to know which ones), and I would encourage you find them and give your business to them.