General Holiday Enquiries, Hints and Tips

General Holiday Enquiries? Got General Hints & Tips? Post Them Here.
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Can't say I've had a bad holiday because I try and know as much as I can about a destination before travelling so there's things I want to see and do when I get there. No point going otherwise! For me, it's just as important to be in the right company as the right destination. As long as the company is good, you can make the most of any situation. White sands, blue skies, turquise seas, bit of culture, dive centre and sharks are still a must though. And good views of aircraft at the airports!

Darren
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I must say we had a bad hotel in Quara in malta abou 11 yrs ago and the hotel we stayed in "palm court" was on watchdog while we was there. Loads of brits got moved but not us lot with sunset I think it was. However although the hotel, food, staff etc was dire we had a really good time and loads of us stuck together and made the most of it.
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worst was definitely Punta Jabillo in Costa Teguise in December 2004. The island was hit by a tropical storm that lasted 4 days, the hotel flooded, which probably added to the quality of the place to be honest...half the guests got food poisoning and the other half ( myself included) came down with chest infections. I was ill for over a month after I got back home. Everything about the place was just diabolical.....
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Playa Blanca in Lanzarote staying at First Choice Holiday Village.

Never again!! :roll:
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Faliraki, Rhodes, about 15 years ago. Didn't know where I was going 'til I got there. Arrived early hours of the morning, to find we were just off a main street, loud music, neon lights and kids throwing up in the street. Beach packed like sardines. Half the island washed their cars with a hosepipe run out of our apartment, and consequently it was like a mosquito-infested swamp.

The maid used to come into our apartment whenshe felt like it Wwhich was usually early morning to get it al done) to wash bedding for the whole block in a washing machine that I begged them to take out. I spent every night trying to get rid of mossies, to no avail (mind you, couldn't have slept for the loud music and the intense heat anyway!), and lost count after 100 bites. By the last night every limb was swollen. I could barely walk, and I couldn't even cut my own food, my fingers were so swollen. I was wheeled on and off the plane in a wheelchair, and had a team working on me in A&E in the UK, as I had blood poisoning and severe allergic reaction. Faliraki, never again. Allocation on arrival - never again either! :roll:
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I think so far your holiday sounds like the worst one on here Phoebe!

That sounded like a living nightmare for you :(

Hope you have had many more good ones to compensate the bad :wink:
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We used to go to Majorca twice every year and loved it! One time we stayed at the Hotel Tobago and it was horrendous! We were in a sort of annexe and it was full of drunken idiots who played football on the corridor in the early hours of the morning, kicking the ball at the bedroom doors. They were vomiting all over the place, urinating in the pool, bursting the children's Lil'os, climbing naked in daytime from one balcony to another. One night I went to reception when the noise was unbearable and the night staff had locked themselves in the office!
My husband had his trainers stolen from under the sun lounger while he was dozing on it. One day (very early morning) there was a right commotion, they had thrown mattresses off the balcony and other stuff as well. One hour later the police came, and carted them off, most of them in just their underpants lol. We all cheered like crazy and clapped as they left. Never saw them again thank goodness, but it put me off. Only been back once since. Must say I was ashamed as they were from Yorkshire and I am too. We spent the rest of our holiday trying to convince everyone that not all Yorkshire folk are the same.
Not as bad as yours Phoebe, that must have been terrible. Linda x
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Alcudia for me too!! Although in fairness not totally down to the place, even if the hotel wasn't great.

Started off badly when my daughter who was 4 at the time spiked a temperature at the airport. Thought it was all down to the excitement as we were in the departure lounge by this time- it blew up into a major chest infection and we spent a week seeing the doctor almost on a daily basis to get her sorted. My husband then went down with the same.

Not the most sucessful of holidays really, one of those where the best part is going home, except the flight back was awful too. Don't much like flying really but I had our 18month old on my lap, with husband and elder daughter either side and we struck turbulence- to put it discretely, we ran out of sick bags. They were ill to say the least.

Put me off package holidays for a good 4 years, it was self drive for us after that!! Although we never have been back to Majorca.

Pam :D
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gran canaria - drink was spiked and ended up in hospital :(
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Our worst holiday, several years ago, was also to the Palm Court in Qwara Malta. It was disgusting. Changed rooms 3 times 'til we found one that was bearable!!!.
After a few days we all got food poisoning and I cried every night for two weeks until we came home. On our second to last night they pushed a flyer under the door to say we could stay for an extra week for free if we wanted!!!! I wouldn't have stayed an extra week if they had paid me thousands of pounds.
When I came home I discovered this site and when I looked up Palm Court there were hundreds of posts all complaining!!!!
Now I never book a hotel until I've checked what you helpful lot say about it.
Regards Denny
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Lindasmith I would of been at the managers office insisting the police were called after the first night. How terrible. I could see the tonga from out hotel, didn't like the look of it. The other hotel that is full of brits was the haiti hotel, full of brits, walked into the bar to see what is was like, the amount of mutton dressed as lamb, and thick with smoke. I just walked back out again and back to the gran vista.

Phoebe

How terrible for you, must of put you off holidays for years. I hope you sued the tour op. I won't AOA I would rather pay more and know where I was going to stay. I am very fussy now and to choose a holiday on the hotel first and the country second. Nothing below a good 4* for me.

Since my holiday nightmares I research the hotels but something I think is more important I won't stay at a cheap hotel, I could of got a 3*H/B this year for £465 3 of house late booling with thomson, instead spent £1000 on a late booking with thomson and stayed a really nice hotel. No yobs, no drunks. Anybody who has a bad time in majorca find some decent accomodation and give another try.

I stayed a in a 2* millor sun in cala mirlor with portlands. The brochure said it was a quite relaxing hotel. The only problem was it was full of yobs in the pool until 3 am shouting a singing, woke stuck to the rubber matteress. The bloke in the next room who turned up at 4am each morning with his girlfriend in high heels clanking on the stone floor, shouted out 9am one this hotel is so noisy you can't sleep. Brought a smile to my face being woken up by him every night .

The other bad hotel in majorca was the hotel linda c'an pastilla, just after I booked it on the phone it turned up on holiday watchdog saving a family from the hotel. Bad stomachs, cut feet in the pool and having to eat out everynight. I got £400 back, took the money at that stage in case the evergreen travel went to the wall. 2 Months later evergreen went into receivership. I think it was a good move getting settling for the £400 and banking it.

But the gran vista hotel c'an picafort a lovely hotel, but 97% german. The pool area was peaceful and relaxing no loud music playing all day, the food was good, no good if you have kids club is german and the evening entertainment wasn't anything to write home about. Anybody want to try majorca try the gran vista and sit in the roof top bar evening having few drinks with views across the resort. abosolutely lovely.
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The holiday I mentioned above was the only bad holiday I've had. The combination of factors was all a bit much for me! I've always done nore research since then, and made sure I know about the resort/accommodation I'm staying in. I've travelled to Goa, lots of times to different parts of Greece, and stayed in Morocco and Turkey, amongst others. I usually stay in guesthouse or apartment accommodation (only once styed in a hotel), and have had some brilliant holidays. Just never a place like Faliraki again, and never AOA. Oh, and I do my best to minimise mosquito contact. Doesn't alsways work 100%, and I have tested out a few medical facilities, but I've never suffered again as I did on that particular holiday! :)
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One of the worst things that ever happened to us was we had saved for about 16 months to go to Antigua for the 4 of us and we got there on the saturday afternoon and by the sunday morning our daughter was covered in chicken pox!!
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The worst holiday/resort I've ever had has to be PD Americas in Tenerife. Most places I've been to I wouldn't go back to but would definately recommend to a friend but Las Americas I wouldn't even recommend to my worst enemy, horrible place.
The only other place I hated was Praia Da Rocha/Algarve, hated it and was only there for 1 night.
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Until a week ago I was fortunate enough not to have had a bad holiday but just got back today from Menorca and it was by far our worse holiday ever. It was nothing to do with Menorca itself - we really like the island - it was just the awful weather. We had only one sunny warm day in the whole week. The rest of the time it was cool and cloudy, windy and often wet. It's the first time I've actually looked forward to coming home just to feel warm again as the Vista Picas apartment we were staying in didn't have any heating. We did more driving in the hire car than normal (450 miles in a week on an island only 30 miles long!) just to keep warm and even resorted to using the hairdryer and turning the hob on to warm the apartment up a bit ! :( It won't put us off Menorca but it will probably put us off going at the end of October again.
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sadly ive had 2 very bad holidays where ive had to use solicitors to get any money back

the first bad one holiday we had was 7 years ago in gumbet turkey. we nearly died, the gas leaked from the cooker all night and all kids were ill, my son then about 10 and my baby 12 mths were rushed to hospital, vomitting uncontrollably both sleepy with violent headaches. my oldest daughter was 13 and she wasnt so bad nor were we, we only had headaches and tiredness. ive never been so worried, the hotel were dreadful and the manager ran in opened all windows ,doors etc ,took cooker out,then proceeded to deny any gas leaks despite the strong smell and the state we were all in, luckily i had witnesses. this happened within the first 2 days of the holiday, kids were ill for about 4 days, we couldnt move rooms as they were full, so we had no cooker for that week. we changed rooms week two, then after we were feeling better the family from hell moved in

shouting ,jumping in the pool from 3am til 5-6am and all apts were around the pool, hubby went out and asked them to be quiet and ended up with a mouthful of abuse,that went on all week, nightstaff wouldnt help as they were afraid of these roughians and joined in the singing etc with them. we had to go to court over this as TO refused to admit fault , happy to say we won the case and everyone was ok

the 2nd bad one we had was about 3-4 years ago in hammamet tunisia. the weather for the second week poured with rain and thunder and lightening which didnt help the situation, as there wasnt much entertainment for the kids so they were bored

firstly we had asked for a quiet room and we were put over the disco, so loud thumping music til late the first night, day 2 we asked to be moved to quieter room and also we had found a cockroach in our room !!!

food was diabolical, hubby had maggots in his peach, i had onion skins in my strawberries, ants in my salad. i saw a cockroach run around the outside of the hotplate and shouted to the chef who promptly splattered infront of me with the food sign grrr , with that i felt sick. a lot of the meat was raw in the middle, the place was waiting for serious health problems. loads of complaints went to the rep who didnt care and her reply to cockoaches was you are in a hot climate what do you expect and think yourselves lucky cos next month these cockroaches fly omg !!! we also had ants in the rooms and had to constantly get insect spray for them

there was a fight amongst some guests and the police were called one single mam and her kids were escorted off the premises and moved to another hotel,after causing so much trouble threatening another single mother, verbally and hammering on her door and pushing her this was done infront of a lot of us which left a bad atmosphere there

my son had an accident playing table tennis ,he slipped due to wet floor and there was a nail sticking out the corner of the table and cut all his stomach which bled quite a lot and as he fell banged his head too so had a black eye

another guest we spoke to had sexual harrassment when she went on a camel ride organised from the hotel

whole holiday was a disaster, ros helped me with this and won nearly all my holiday money back for me as i had photo evidence

so ive had 2 very bad holidays and both had a lot more minor problems that i havent bothered to mention as in my opinion these problems were bad enough
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Hope all your really bad experiences have all but disapeared now that you're members of this wonderful website. I never book a holiday now without researching on this site and weighing up all the pros and cons.
Good work HT.
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We went with friends for a b'day party to Playa De las Americas and can honestly say I would not go back if you paid me. Admittedly we are used to and like quiet little Greek villages and this is as different as possible, and to be fair it does admit to being a party capital. However the hassle from the time share touts, the drunkeness and rudeness of the general holiday clientele, the constant sirens plus the views of towerblocks make it my hell on earth...each to there own though ......
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