How to book luxury villas - Tips for guests

Whether you are planning to book a luxury villa for the first time or you already are a seasoned professional in this area, we believe that you will find these tips useful. In order to find the best option for your dream vacation as easily as possible, key is knowing what you want. As obvious or strange as this may sound to you, this is the most important part of the process of finding the best option. We often receive inquiries by e-mail from various guests, for example "Hello, I am looking for a villa for 4 people in August". According to these parameters, absolutely every villa from our offer responds to the guest's needs, so we believe that you understand what we are talking about. The offer of luxury villas and holiday homes is extremely large and if you do not narrow down your choice at the start by defining some basics, you will find yourself completely lost in the mass of different offers from which it will be difficult to find the perfect option for you. You will end up giving up on too many choices and you may not even get to look at the house that would perfectly suit your needs.

Also, you need to decide where to look for your villa for rent. Portals such as Booking and Airbnb have the largest offer of accommodation, however, most of the advertised accommodation there are rooms and apartments, and a smaller number of luxury villas. There is often a larger selection of luxury villas for a certain area with certain agencies than on the mentioned portals. Besides, on the website of the LUVA Villas agency, you can find the best offer of only selected luxury and unique villas for rent. Therefore, if you have decided to look for a luxury villa, we definitely recommend that you first have a look at our offer.

The following must be defined before starting the search for a luxury villa that will best suit your needs:

1. Total budget 

Defining the total budget is the starting point for commencin the search for your luxury villa for rent. You have to determine how much money you are ready to spend for renting a villa, and if you are traveling as a larger group, then consult with all group members who have an influence on the price. There is no point in wasting your time searching and looking at luxury villas whose daily rent starts from 3,000 Euros per day if your budget is up to 1,000 Euros a day. Thus, you can enter a certain amount in the search engine yourself or tell it to the agent, and you will already greatly narrow down the selection of your search. Also, our recommendation is that if you have determined that your planned budget is, for example, 800 Euros, enter the range from 600 to 1,000 Euros per day in the search engine. In this way, you will expand your choice a little, and we believe that you will pay a little more than you initially planned if you really like a villa. On the other hand, it is good to set the limit a little lower, because you might find a villa whose price is lower than you planned to pay or one that is currently on special promotion. However, we do not recommend setting the lower limit of the price too low, because this way you will greatly increase the choice, but mostly with houses in worse locations and with a lower level of decoration and equipment. Almost every house has a reasonable price considering what it offers, so if you have decided to spend, for example, 1,000 Euros per day on a house, it makes no sense to look at houses of 500 Euros per day because they offer a significantly lower level of equipment, decoration and the like.

2. Number of people and number of bedrooms 

The number of people going on vacation together is known in advance in most cases, but sometimes, for example, a group of 6 people goes for sure, but 2 people still have to give their final confirmation. This is something that you should define as soon as possible, because in the mentioned case, if 2 additional people are not going, all the houses with 3 bedrooms would suit you, and if they are going, they probably won't. In addition to the number of people, we suggest that you also pay attention to the number of bedrooms you would like to have. In most cases, the bedrooms have a double bed or 2 single beds that can be joined if necessary. However, with some houses you will find descriptions that they are registered for the number of people 8 (+2), 6 (+2) and the like, which means that 2 additional people will be accommodated on extra beds. These can be sofa beds in the living room or extra beds in individual bedrooms. On our website, you can find a detailed description of the beds in all bedrooms for each villa, so be sure to pay attention to that part as well. For families traveling with children, it will sometimes be acceptable for, for example, 3 children to sleep together in one room, but if you are traveling as a couple, this will not be an acceptable option for you. That's why LUVA Villas has a category for the optimal number of people and the maximum number of people on the pages of each villa.

3. Planned dates of stay

 If possible, we suggest that you be at least a little flexible in terms of the desired date, and of course the more flexible you are, the higher the probability that you will find the villa you want. If you want to go on vacation for 7 days and the ideal option is for it to be from Monday to Monday, we suggest that you be flexible at least a few days before or after in terms of arrival and departure. So you may be able to book the villa you want if it only allows stays from Saturday to Saturday. In addition, we suggest that if you are able to be flexible in terms of the duration of the vacation. For example, if you have planned a 4-night stay, think about whether you can extend it to 5 nights if necessary, because you may also expand your choice to villas that have a minimum stay of 5 nights. If you are not able to be flexible about the desired dates and duration of your vacation, then we definitely recommend that you start your search for a luxury villa as early as possible, while there are not many booked dates yet.

4. Location

 The next thing you definitely need to define is which locations you want to consider. Do you want to spend your vacation in Istria, Kvarner, Dalmatia, Dubrovnik or perhaps central Croatia? Also, it would be useful to define whether you are looking for a house at seafront, near the sea or inland.

The items listed above are the basic things you need to define before searching for a luxury pool villa to spend your dream vacation. In addition to them, below we will list a few more topics that would be useful to define in order to narrow down the choice and find the best option for you:

1. Facilities 

There are many additional facilities in luxury villas, and you have to decide which ones you definitely want to have available, and which ones you prefer. An outdoor pool is certainly the most requested additional feature, but also one that almost all villas have available. In addition, you need to decide whether you want a jacuzzi, sauna, fitness equipment, charger for electric vehicles... On our advanced search engine, you can search luxury villas according to all amenities.

2. Number of bathrooms 

In addition to bedrooms, it would be good to decide whether the number of bathrooms is crucial for you. Luxury villas categorized with 5 stars all have En Suite bathrooms, that is, each bedroom has its own bathroom, and most often an additional toilet is available near the living room. This is certainly the highest level of comfort you can have, and in addition, there are vacation homes that have fewer bathrooms than the number of rooms, which means that several rooms will have to share one bathroom. On our website, the number of rooms and the number of bathrooms are listed for each villa, so we suggest that you pay attention to that part when choosing.

3. Pets

 If you are traveling with pets, be sure to check beforehand whether the house you are interested in allows pets to stay. In some houses, you will see under the pets item that it says "On request", which means that you need to let us know what type and number of pets you plan to come with, and then the owner will decide whether to allow you to stay. Most often, in such cases, the owners allow 1 or 2 small dogs to stay.

4. Panoramic view 

A large number of people want to have a wonderful panoramic view in a luxury villa. Early morning breakfast with the sunrise or romantic dinners with the sunset and a beautiful view are definitely something desirable, and if this is crucial for you during your vacation, be sure to include it in your search to eliminate houses without a view.

Finally, you must know that luxury villas and vacation homes are a type of accommodation that has a practice of booking well in advance. Often, such very popular luxury villas are already full for the entire season in February or March, while the others are already full during the peak periods in July and August. That is why we suggest that you start looking for a luxury villa as early as possible, in February at the latest, and if possible even earlier. In addition, we suggest that when you have defined everything and found a luxury villa that suits you perfectly, you should not think too long about booking, because there is a real possibility that somebody else books that villa while you are thinking.