Woman who spent £1,100 on all-inclusive hotel horrified to find room that hadn’t been dusted for ‘months’
You won't need me to tell you that this summer has not exactly been the best in terms of weather. In fact, it's felt like autumn at the best of times.
As a result, millions of Brits have flocked abroad with the hope of enjoying some sun and experiencing a bit of luxury. Unfortunately, though, not everyone has that experience.
Estelle Keeber, 40, recently had a nightmarish holiday after taking her two sons, Jed, 14, and Obi, 12, to Turkey in June.
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Despite paying £1,100 for an all-inclusive stay at a four-star hotel, Estelle's experience was far from what she expected.
After taking the four-hour flight from East Midlands Airport, Estelle and the kids were ready to get some rest at the Alexis Beach Hotel, after landing just prior to midnight.
However, Estelle says that when she arrived at the hotel, she was told the room wasn't ready and that they'd need to stay in another hotel for the first night.
The accommodation the family stayed in for the first night was 'basic' according to Estelle, while she also described it more as a hostel instead of a hotel.
But when the family finally got into their actual hotel the following day, things only continued to go downhill.
After waking up at 6am, Estelle marched over to the hotel she was supposed to be staying in, Alexis Beach Hotel, to ask when her room would be ready.
Estelle claims the hotel said her room would be ready around lunchtime, something the holidaymaker was not exactly best pleased with.
After a bit of back and forth with 'unhelpful' hotel staff, Estelle says she was moved into the room at around 9am but was horrified by what she was met with.
"The room itself was dirty on arrival, I again raised my issues with different members of staff, they said that they would have somebody to come and clean our room [but] I felt like I was just chasing my tail every day because they were coming in, certain things were being done, but not to a decent standard," Estelle said.
She continued: "You can see from one of the videos, I literally wiped my finger [through the dust], nobody had dusted in that room for months, it wasn't just 'oh, the room had been missed'.
"They put dirty sheets onto the bed, there were all stains on the sheets, the floors were constantly dirty. It's pretty obvious when you're on a beach holiday that there's going to be sand in the room from beach bags and off your clothes.
"Every single day, you could clearly see that the room hadn't been cleaned."
As for the rest of the hotel, well, that left Estelle in 'constant worry'.
"The pool area was unsafe, there were slates missing, tiles missing in the smaller pool," she said.
"I should be able to just let my kids run free within that space and I felt constantly on my guard that I needed to be watching what they were doing because of all of the unsanitary things that were around."
Estelle says she would often venture outside of the hotel for grub as the food was 'extremely poor', and the entertainment was apparently not much better.
"We had paid to go into a four-star all inclusive, because we expected for the entertainment to be there, for the food to be available, and you know, even down to the standard of food, the food was extremely poor... It was just very basic," she added.
"Definitely not to the four-star sort of level that it was being advertised by loveholidays as."
Even though she experienced many problems, Estelle stayed in the room for the entire week's holiday due to the solution she claims was offered by loveholidays - the provider she booked the holiday with.
She said it was difficult to get in contact with anyone from the company due to the 'really poor' Wi-Fi at the hotel, but when she did get a response, she was told she would have to pay out of her own pocket to move accommodation.
Estelle added that loveholidays instructed her to take photos of the hotel, something she did, and to feed them back when they got home.
Loveholidays refunded Estelle with the full cost of the hotel and also provided her with a £200 voucher for the travel agent.
However, the holidaymaker expressed her 'dissatisfaction' at the compensation, feeling the travel agent hadn't provided enough.
In a statement provided to LADbible, a spokesperson for loveholidays said: "We’re sorry to hear that Ms Keeber’s holiday did not live up to expectations.
"We recognise her experience fell short of our usual high standards and have therefore provided her with a full refund for the accommodation costs alongside an additional voucher.
"We’ve also fully investigated the issues raised and stopped sale of this hotel on our website as a result."
LADbible reached out to Alexis Beach Hotel but did not get a response.
Topics: Travel
Callum Jones