A FAMILY had their dream holiday to Jamaica ruined after finding animal poor and dead animals in the hotel restaurant, as well as broken wardrobes and exposed wiring.
Lisa Wickstead, 53, spend £12,700 on the TUI holiday for her husband, two children and her parents, to celebrate her partner’s retirement from the police after 30 years.
The family, from Essex, paid using her pension pot for the “trip of a lifetime” during Christmas which ended up turning into a holiday from hell.
After arriving at the hotel, Lisa was horrified to find bird faeces scattered all over the hotel’s restaurant and also spotted a dead bird caught in a trap above.
Because of the unhygienic restaurant conditions, Lisa’s family were forced to eat elsewhere and her daughter had French fries and a bread roll for her Christmas dinner.
She said there were flies all over the hotel’s buffet spread and that the dishes were lukewarm and tasteless.
Lisa said: “In the buffet dining room, there was bird excrement. When I looked up there was a bird trap with a dead bird in it.
“After I spotted this the onsite coffee shop became my breakfast place of choice, a cup of tea and a lemon muffin was my breakfast for the best part of a week.”
She added: “I am disgusted by TUI – what is your advert says, we cross the T’s and dot the I’s with U in the middle… Really?
“We were neglected, forgotten about and my holiday experience left in tatters with poor transportation issues.
“This is the worst hotel I have stayed in and inadequate food, my older daughter’s Christmas Dinner was French fries and a bread roll.”
The family-of-six embarked on a week-long cruise with TUI and upgraded to a more expensive hotel option, The Jewel Runaway Bay, as part of their holiday package.
Lisa was shocked when she arrived at the hotel, saying it appeared old, dated and run down.
She said: “I wanted to pay a trip for my parents as a thank you for the years of unpaid childcare.
“I also wanted to treat our children as they have grown up with pressures that most other families do not have, with both my husband and I being police officers though we are now retired.
“It was not unusual for either both of us or one of us to be absent especially during Christmas time and other important events in their lives.”
After checking into their rooms, Lisa’s parents found their bathroom lights were not working, jeopardising their safety as an elderly couple who then couldn’t shower for two days while it was fixed.
Lisa’s father even had a wardrobe collapse on top of him, and they were unable to prepare hot water as there was no kettle despite them requesting one from the reception.
She also found water leaking from their air conditioning unit into the electrical sockets, loose door handles were loose and dead insects squashed all over the walls.
The 53-year-old said the walls and doors were so thin she could hear other guests’ conversations during ungodly hours of the night.
Lisa claimed the hotel was the “worst” she has ever stayed in her life and has since issued several complaints to the hotel and TUI about her experience.
She was given an emergency number to phone TUI, but because it was the Christmas holiday season and offices were shut, the number was out of service, Lisa said.
Lisa requested to change rooms at the hotel, but the family were met with similar filthy conditions in the other suites.
She was left in tears and devastated at her dream holiday ending up in ruins, saying it would take her a “lifetime to forget” the trip.
Lisa has since complained to TUI who have offered her a £1,755 voucher as compensation to be used on future bookings – at just a fraction of what she paid for.
Lisa wrote in her complaint: “I am disgusted by TUI – what is your advert says, we cross the T’s and dot the I’s with U in the middle… Really?
“We were neglected, forgotten about and my holiday experience left in tatters.”
She added: “My husband lost half a stone on the holiday and our first ever all-inclusive hotel experience as a family will NEVER be repeated.”
Lisa has since refused the £1755 voucher and returned it back to TUI, saying all her concerns simply fell on deaf ears.
Despite repeated emails, TUI has shut down any further communication with Lisa who doesn’t expect to receive her money back for the trip.
A spokeswoman for TUI said: “We’re very sorry to hear that Ms Wickstead was unhappy with her hotel following the cruise she went on.
“We take any matters like this seriously and have offered her a goodwill gesture for her disappointment in the second week of her holiday, as well as our sincere apologies.
“We’d like to reassure our customers that we regularly audit all of the hotels we feature in respect of health and safety, including hygiene.”
A family said their £7k holiday to Egypt was ruined after they were woken by builders every day during construction works.
Another group of tourists shared pictures of the raw food they found in their hotel restaurant during a TUI holiday.
A couple said their holiday was “hell on earth” due to raw food and guests snorting cocaine.
