Deirdre: Hi love, how's things!
Sharon: Madness! Work is crazy and my co-workers are complete numpties! 
Deirdre: No change there then?
Sharon: How was Portugal this time?
Deirdre: Not too great, actually! Just finished my email to Vivaldi head office.
Sharon: Why, what happened? You usually have a great time.
Deirdre: Well, we do, but the complex has been taken over by new management and they are a bunch of lazy twats, not to put too fine a point on it!
Sharon: Oh my God, what did they do?
Deirdre: How long have you got! First, we booked in and they'd given away the only ground floor apartment available to someone else, so I was cross to begin with. I was watching little Ben like a hawk around that balcony. I did specify ground floor only when we booked too!
Sharon: How irritating!
Deirdre: Exactly! Well, next day, we all decided to go in the pool, James and Ben went in the toddler pool and I took Rosie and Megan in the big one with me as they can swim pretty well. Next thing we know, we have to get out as our eyes are streaming and Ben has grabbed a large floating toddler poo from his pool and is playing with it!
Sharon: That's vile, was it chemicals in the pool that did it?
Deirdre: Yep, far too much chlorine, awful. We could hardly see for a couple of hours and both pools were evacuated immediately, of course! So not a great first day!
Sharon: You poor things, did  everything improve at all later?
Deirdre: Not really! They did have some great entertainment at night, to be fair, but every other night, they seemed to carry on playing music until 2 or 3 am AND we were right over the bar and restaurant. Awful! We did complain, but nothing was done about it.
Sharon: How was the food?
Deirdre: Nice actually, most of the time, but there was so little of it, we were still hungry. The girls being 12 are growing like weeds and need decent amounts. I thought half board would be good, but we had to buy snacks quite a lot of the time to fill the gaps!
Sharon: That Vivaldi lot really are shit! The tv adverts make them sound really high end.
Deirdre: Well, we're obviously asking for compensation, especially because of the chlorine incident. A lot of people are furious, you should see the comments on Trip Advisor!
Sharon: Gosh, I hope you manage to sort it, what a pain!
Deirdre: Yes, we are certainly not going to that place again. Luckily, the timeshares in the UK have all been fab. Anyway, see you next week, Sharon! Cut and blow dry, Tues. at 6pm, wasn't it?
Sharon: Yes, my love. Good luck with your complaint, Bye!
Deirdre has just returned from family vacation in Portugal. It was bad, they got the wrong apartment, the food was scarce, the pool water was dirty and had too much chlorine in it. She's going to ask for compensation from Vivaldi. She and Sharon are going to meet on Tuesday at 6 pm.