I've just got back from a weeks holiday in Turkey which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. Sorry this is a bit of a long post but I've tried to keep it as short as possible.
The journey:
It first started with the journey from the airport to our hotel. The only contact that we had with our rep was at the airport where he asked our names and which hotel we were going to. He told us to wait to one side for everybody else. He then herded us onto a coach with everybody else then left without giving us any information at all. After being on the coach for around 1hr 45mins (we expected the transfer to take around 2hrs) the driver stopped the coach and called out the name of our hotel. The driver then told us and a few other travellers going to the same hotel to get off the coach. We got off and he unloaded all of our cases. He then muttered something in broken English about a minibus coming to take us to our hotel, then drove off, leaving us (two girls and other travellers, four other couples) standing in a residential street in Marmaris with our cases! We were understandibly very concerned and confused about what was going on. About 10 minutes later a minibus arrived with a driver who also spoke very little English. After driving for around 30 minutes the driver realised that he had gone the wrong way and had to turn around. We we finally got to the hotel 4 1/2 hours after leaving the airport! It should have taken 1 1/2 - 2 hours. When we booked we were told that the hotel was 35km from Marmaris. We decided that we were going to spend most of the holiday at the hotel but wanted the option to be able to go into Marmaris some nights if we felt like it. As the hotel was so far away from Marmaris (or anywhere else) we couldnt' do this and felt like we were stuck there.
The hotel:
When we arrived at the hotel we went straight to our rooms and were immediately very disapointed with the standard of accommodation. We had booked what had been described by the tour operator as a '5* all inclusive hotel'. The rooms were very shabby, with peeling wallpaper, the T.V didn't work, the toilet wobbled, one of the beds wobbled a lot making sleeping very uncomfortable, the bedsheets had stains on them, there was a large crack on the wall with plaster crumbling onto the floor, etc. We got a couple of hours sleep then went down for breakfast. The food was absolutely disgusting. I'm not a very fussy eater but the food turned my stomach. Nothing was covered and there were wasps and flies crawling all over the food. I filmed the wasps on the food with my camera as evidence. We had a quick look around the hotel and decided that we simply could not stay there. We couldn't eat the food and as the hotel was in a very remote location we couldn't go anywhere else to eat. We went straight to reception to complain to the rep and found that the other people that we arrived with were there also demanding to be moved. To cut a long story short we managed to be moved to another hotel in the afternoon. The alternative hotel was 3* and in Marmaris.
We accepted the alternative hotel as we felt like we had no choice.
I really feel like the holiday that we booked and the holiday that we actually got were so different that we should be entitled to a lot of compensation.
We booked a '5* all inclusive hotel' with 24hr all inclusive, nightly entertainment and disco, private beach with free beds etc, two large pools and 'excellent food'. The 3* hotel that we stayed at only had all inc until 11pm when the bar shut, no entertainment at all, the beach was nearby but we had to pay for sunbeds, food was very limited, our room was near a very noisy hotel which played loud music throughout the day and did not stop until 12pm every night. This was made worse by the fact that our patio door had a large gap at the top when it was 'closed'. We booked to stay in a location that was outside of Marmaris but near enough to visit. Whenever we left the hotel we got a lot of hassle from the locals as we were two girls travelling alone, which is exactly why we did not want to stay in Marmaris. We spent so much money (which we didn't budget for) as our hotel bar shut at 11pm every night so we had to go out of the hotel most nights.
The rep was absolutely awful. He didn't travel with us to either hotel but met us at the alternative hotel. When we saw him at the 3* hotel he didn't give us any information about the hotel, its facilities or the resort. He tried to get us to sign a blank form which stated at the bottom 'I agree to all of the above additional charges'! He was very unfriendly and at some points quite aggressive.
We tried to make the most of our holiday but to be honest we didn't really enjoy it at all.
We wanted a quiet beach holiday in a nice hotel with some peace and quiet, to just relax. I think we ended up more stressed and a lot more skint than when we left England!If you are still reading this then thanks for your patience. Do you think that I deserve some form of compensation? If so what kind of compensation am I likely to receive and how do I go about it? I think that the holiday company should have given us more suitable alternative accommodation to what we had booked, i.e a 5* or at least 4* hotel with similar facilities to those advertised for the hotel which we booked.
Thanks for your help.
Nikki
