sun holidays with haven,temp disability issue.

amac78_2

Hi i was wondering if anyone could offer us some advice that may help.

We collected the suns vouchers for their £9.50 holidays at the time of booking we also took out their insurance policy,we were later allocated a weekend break at reighton sands (haven) in yorkshire for the 13th to the 16th of april 2012,we also paid the park directly for an upgrade to luxury (they dont even have a luxury standard?) and for the beds to be made up and park passes etc...

Everything was fine and we were looking forward to our holiday, up until 3 days ago when our 9 year old son had an accident and badly broke both bones in his left leg and is now confined to a wheelchair for the forseeable future,we though it would be best to contact haven to let them know what had happened and to request a ramp to enable us to get our son and his wheelchair in and out of the caravan,we didnt think that would be asking too much considering they must have disabled people visiting their parks on a regular basis...We have phoned both the park directly and havens special needs teams and both times have been told that they have allocated all their low level caravans already and our only hope of gettin one with access for our son would be to unpgrade to a prestige caravan at a further expense of £97 to ourselves...We are not really in a position to pay out any further money to upgrade (we wern't even requesting an upgrade just a ramp). We considered cancelling due to this and looking for somwhere else with better access but when we read through the insurance policy it doesn't cover for cancellation under any circumstances and so wasn't worth even taking out! another waste of money!!

Im at my wits end with this now and feel like im bashing my head against a brick wall, any advice would be most appreciated

The_mangler

Its a pretty poor show from haven but having holidayed with them for 14 years (before we saw the light) I cant say it surprises me. My husband is disabled and I have always requested parking outside of the caravan, I've lost count of the number of times we have turned up to find no parking available.
Have you really played the sympathy card with them? You may just get the one sympathetic person on duty that day who offers more help, failing that Id go to the papers and give them as much bad publicity as I could. Who are they trying to kid that it just so happens none are available in the level below that you have paid for, only a price band up. haven sicken me, money grabbers all the way.
Good luck

amac78_2

Thanks, the park manager is meant to be calling me back in the morning, I wont hold my breath....A transfer to a more appropriate accomodation at another park would be acceptable but i doubt we will get that either without incurring further costs....I have already emailed the sun as it was through them that we booked but as yet i haven't received a reply.

baza52

What does the insurance you took out cover?

I can imagine it not being as straight forward as you think.
Nowadays health and saftey would probably stop them putting a ramp to the van in case you or your son were injured.
If all suitable accomodation is booked then you have litttle choice than to either pay for the upgrade or cancel the holiday via insurance (if you can)

Its not the parks fault your son has had an accident and they are under no obligation to meet your needs as they were not present when you booked.
At least you took out insurance so all may not be lost,

blossomhill_2

How about asking the local Yorkshire paper to do an appeal searching for loan of a temporary ramp to help you out as Haven can't help - might change Haven's mind

baza52

until they arrive and see the van how are they going to know what size ramp to get???

Ive stayed at Haven a few times and every van had different access. Some are on level ground, some on a hill.
You would probably have trouble getting a full size wheelchair through a standard caravan door anyway, not to mention trying to manouver it around inside.

Surely for a few days you could "help" your son out of the van and lift him into the chair. he still has use of one his legs as well as his arms.

Perhaps it would be fairer on the child if the holiday were postponed as they are hardly going to have as much fun in a chair as they will when recovered.

amac78_2

I have already suggested posponing which upset my son very much,cancelling now would be like adding insult to injury. I didn't get this holiday for free,infact i checked on their website and all in all i've paid as much as i would have if i'd booked directly with them. Im not asking them to do anything that would leave them financially out of pocket, I also offered to take a downgraded accomodation from that which i have already paid for as long as it is suitable to get his wheelchair in, he is 9 years old in a childs wheelchair it will fit through the doors, all i asked for was a little compassion, after all my son didnt break his leg on purpose.

"helping" him in and out of the caravan (using what from my experience have been nothing more than unsecured stepping stools) would be far more dangerous from a health and safety point of view than a ramp would.

whitewing

Would the insurance cover the cost of the upgrade as it was for a special need due to an accident?

amac78_2

This is what it says on the insurance forms which arrived several weeks after i booked the holiday.


Apparently the insurance so called offers..
Personal accident - £5,ooo(under 16 £2,000 on death 70+ £1,000 all cover)

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Additional expenses -£2,000

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Hospital Benefit -£300

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Personal baggage - £1,000
Single article limit - £250
Valuable limit - £250
Sunglasses - £75

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Personal money - £250 (£100 cash)

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Personal liability - £1,000,000

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Car breakdown and recovery - £3,000

**THERE IS NO CANCELLATION UNDER THIS POLICY**

^^^^ Thats the basic gist of it and then in small print it says we are only covered from the day we leave until the day we return home (none of this information was available at booking otherwise i wouldn't have bothered i'd have sorted my own insurance)

HAYLEY8005

do you have any insurance through your banks at all that may be worth looking into seems odd they supply insurance but wont pay out leading up to it have you called and asked insurance company

amac78_2

We are having trouble gettin hold of anyone at the moment with it being a bank holiday weekend..Im not sure we have any other insurance policies, none which cover my son anyway.

Its just very unfortunate that this happened to him,we would just like to be able to salvage something as he feels bad enough as it is.