We were on the first coach to arrive at the Holiday Village Costa del Sol on 1 May 2004. Loads of facilities in the hotel were not yet complete, the "beach" they said in the brochure was "across the road" consisted of rock boulders, there were no pavements outside the hotel yet, they were currently being laid so we couldn't even walk to the beach 10 mins away unless we wanted to walk in the main road, the bus stop which as the brochure said was outside, wasn't even there yet and we had numerous other complaints. First Choice managed to write to us 10 days before our departure to tell us the Beach Club was not ready to open, but failed to mention anything else that was not complete at this hotel. Eclipse (First Choice) had been fobbing us off since our complaint in May and we decided to issue court proceedings in December. After receiving these proceedings they started to take us seriously and they offered us compensation which we came to an agreement about a couple of weeks ago.

So if you have a valid complaint keep at it - the tour operators just try to fob you off. Issuing proceedings cost us £120 in all but we got that back along with our compensation. They obviously knew they were in the wrong and that when the case went to court they would lose.