A family of tourists from the UK went on a long-awaited vacation on the island of Rhodes with a ticket from a well-known tour operator. On site, the hotel turned out to be terrible and not at all “All Inclusive” as promised. Travelers asked to change the hotel, but were shocked by the amount of additional payment they were required to pay, writes Mirror. Note that such a situation would be completely contrary to Russian law.
Tourist Sophie Yesufu, her husband Abs and their five-year-old son from Manchester dreamed of their first sunny holiday on the Greek island of Rhodes after three years of the pandemic. They booked all-inclusive at Atlantica Princess, an exclusive 4-star hotel by the German tour operator TUI. When the family arrived, they thought the hotel didn't match the promotional pictures.
“What should have been a four star turned out to be below that level. I just wanted to cry when we arrived. I thought “all inclusive” meant “everything”, but there was almost nothing included – not even a regular cappuccino. Complimentary cocktails were non-alcoholic and drinking water had to be taken from dispensers rather than bottles as is usually the case. To make matters worse, the water was warm as most of the dispensers were outside in the heat,” Sophie complained.
A few hours after checking in, the family turned to TUI representatives with a request to transfer them to another hotel, but there were no vacancies that day. The tourists had to spend one more night at the hotel.
“Everything was a disappointment, starting with the fact that everything looked different in the photos than in reality. For example, the children's pool in the photos looked huge, but in reality it turned out to be tiny. People were already queuing at 7 in the morning to take a sun lounger, and then in another queue to eat at a restaurant,” the tourist said indignantly.
As a result, the family decided not to stay at this hotel for the whole week. When an alternative option appeared, the tour operator demanded an additional payment of 1,411 pounds sterling, that is, almost 139,000 rubles, as well as 110 pounds sterling, or almost 11 thousand rubles, for a taxi. The travel agency explained this by saying that the only available room had direct access to the pool. However, this surcharge amounted to almost two-thirds of the original cost of the trip.
“After we have already paid thousands for the tour, surcharges are the last thing we wanted to do. But you go on vacation wanting it to be perfect, and that's the way it should be for so much money. We live in Manchester where the weather is terrible and we have been waiting a long time for a vacation. My son was so excited to be on the plane and so were we. It was the joy and anticipation of an amazing vacation, and then a feeling of complete disappointment. Everything was not as we asked, and even worse – it cost more than what we had already paid. This is simply unacceptable,” Sophie said.
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