We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
Thomson Holiday, Dreams Palm Beach, Dominican Republic, Review/ Advice
Bunterdog
Posts: 4 Newbie
We trusted Thomson to provide us with the perfect honeymoon after our perfect wedding day in August 2012. Little did we know what we were letting ourselves in for. We have started this thread to make sure other people do not make the same mistake we did and as a plea for help and advice as to how we can pursue our claims with Thomson.
After a 5 hour delay we were finally seated ready to take off to Dreams Palm Beach, Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. The honeymoon that we had worked so hard to afford and had looked forward to for over 12 months. We hadn't even landed in the Dominican Republic when our disaster began. Despite the fact that it was a long haul flight, 8 hours, we were provided with no inflight amenities, not even the simplest of things such as a blanket or pillow. We mentioned this because we know that most other airlines flying long haul provide their passengers with not only the basics, but extras to make their journey the most comfortable it can be. During the flight we were served a 'hot' meal of barbeque chicken. Shortly after eating Beth became very nauseous and was violently ill whilst still in the air, if this alone was not bad enough, the flight attendants failed to take the request for assistance seriously which resulted in complete humiliation of vomiting into the only available item, her cardigan.
Upon arriving at the 5 star resort, Dreams Palm Beach (copyrighted as Ultimate Luxury Defined) we were directed to our room to discover the disappointment that lay within. To be honest the room was an utter disgrace, it was filthy - it was clear that it had not only not been cleaned before our arrival, but had not been cleaned properly for weeks. The bedding was a disgrace, the sheets were dirty and stained, and the pillows had holes in them, looking remarkably like they had been chewed by animals. This was not all, the bed itself was thoroughly broken, the legs were rusty and cracked in half - creating an extremely unsafe, not to mention uncomfortable stay. All surrounding furniture was thick with dust and grime. The sink was loose and riddled with ants - not the ideal place to be leaving your toothbrush, nor any other personal items. The toilet did not flush properly and there was a loose grate in the shower which was not only unsafe, but unsanitary. Plug sockets were hanging from the walls which was exceptionally dangerous, if a child had of been in our room there could have been a serious accident. The air-conditioning was inadequate and the fridge was warm.
After being confined to our hotel room for days with very little support or provision from the Thomson holiday representative or hotel staff it became clear that Beth's condition was worsening. We approached the Thomson holiday representative and asked for guidance of how best to manage the illness and to look into the possibility of returning to the UK to enable Beth to seek professional medical advice, to which the response was dismissive and uncompassionate - 'If she doesn't eat she will die and I am going home and on leave tomorrow so cannot sort a flight for you' As you can appreciate this was not the best thing to say to any ill person, thousands of miles away from home finding it difficult to cope.
During the night Beth's symptoms had worsened requiring a visit to the Resort Doctor. Beth was immediately transferred to the local hospital to be admitted suffering from dehydration and acute gastroenteritis. During admission Beth was given various medications and recieved IV fluids throughout the inpatient stay. Upon discharge Beth was provided with dietry guidance and various courses of medication. When we returned to the resort we tried our hardest to adhere to the dietry guidance provided by the Consultant, however upon request for the listed items - it became apparent that the hotel staff were willing to provide us with none, they refused to provide us with plain food and advised that fruit juices, even the most common such as apple and orange were not available within the all inclusive package, however these could be purchased from the onsite shop at our own expense. Our Thomson holiday representative advised us to visit the local supermarket, however he also advised us not to take any money or valuable belongings as there was a risk of mugging.
The following day Beth was reviewed by the onsite Doctor who made it very clear that the dietry guidance needed to be followed, and if this wasn't possible it could result in further admission as the illness would worsen again. The Doctor advised us to purchase electrolite fluids to ensure Beth did not dehydrate further. We discussed the possibility of returning home to the UK to which the Doctor agreed would be the best option for Beth to make a speedy and full recovery both physically and mentally. We then approached our Thomson holiday representative to ask for advice of how best to manage flight bookings to return to the UK and how this would be managed through our insurance - to which he responded 'I cannot do it and I am too busy to look, so make the arrangements yourselves! You do not need to contact your insurer, you will have to submit a claim form on your return!' We tried to contact Thomson to confirm this via their international holiday helpline numbers, of which all did not work, this resulted in further cost to ourselves to the point of the mobile networks cutting us off because of the unusual high usage. Following the Thomson holiday representatives advice we proceeded to book our return flights to the UK, this came at a considerable cost to ourselves, we are also unable to claim for the expenses of the return flights as we surprisingly found out upon trying to claim on our return, we did exactly that, however the insurance company have advised us that this was not the correct procedure to follow and we are now unable to claim expenses for our return flights.
Upon returning home we have tried to contact and discuss our case with Thomson on numerous occassions to which their first response took months - this differing from the 28 day response they so willingly boast about. They suggested a of a £110 holiday voucher to use with themselves, may we make it clear that this was only provided because we gave photographic evidence of the filthy room which we were a custom to at the 5 star resort. The voucher is redundant as we will never holiday with Thomson again and to be honest this 'solution' which they approached us with only added insult to injury. In the response from Thomson it became apparent that they had given minimal attention to our case, they apologised for Steve's illness - even though it was Beth who was ill. They then went on to give an explanation for the delay of our return flight - although we had explained to them that we had booked an early flight home to the UK using a different airline. Their response made it extremely clear that the situation on a whole was just tough luck.
Although this is only a brief review of the events which took place as well as a small insight into how our case was managed by Thomson, we are sure you can appreciate that our honeymoon was less than magical and the customer service we have been a custom to at the hands of one of the UK's largest holiday companys is not only disappointing, but shambolic.
Any advice as to how we can manage our case from here to enable us to gain the compensation we deserve would be greatly appreciated.
To give a rough idea of costs please see below:
holiday - £3,200
flights - £1,800
phone bills - £230
Many thanks in advance for your help.
After a 5 hour delay we were finally seated ready to take off to Dreams Palm Beach, Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. The honeymoon that we had worked so hard to afford and had looked forward to for over 12 months. We hadn't even landed in the Dominican Republic when our disaster began. Despite the fact that it was a long haul flight, 8 hours, we were provided with no inflight amenities, not even the simplest of things such as a blanket or pillow. We mentioned this because we know that most other airlines flying long haul provide their passengers with not only the basics, but extras to make their journey the most comfortable it can be. During the flight we were served a 'hot' meal of barbeque chicken. Shortly after eating Beth became very nauseous and was violently ill whilst still in the air, if this alone was not bad enough, the flight attendants failed to take the request for assistance seriously which resulted in complete humiliation of vomiting into the only available item, her cardigan.
Upon arriving at the 5 star resort, Dreams Palm Beach (copyrighted as Ultimate Luxury Defined) we were directed to our room to discover the disappointment that lay within. To be honest the room was an utter disgrace, it was filthy - it was clear that it had not only not been cleaned before our arrival, but had not been cleaned properly for weeks. The bedding was a disgrace, the sheets were dirty and stained, and the pillows had holes in them, looking remarkably like they had been chewed by animals. This was not all, the bed itself was thoroughly broken, the legs were rusty and cracked in half - creating an extremely unsafe, not to mention uncomfortable stay. All surrounding furniture was thick with dust and grime. The sink was loose and riddled with ants - not the ideal place to be leaving your toothbrush, nor any other personal items. The toilet did not flush properly and there was a loose grate in the shower which was not only unsafe, but unsanitary. Plug sockets were hanging from the walls which was exceptionally dangerous, if a child had of been in our room there could have been a serious accident. The air-conditioning was inadequate and the fridge was warm.
After being confined to our hotel room for days with very little support or provision from the Thomson holiday representative or hotel staff it became clear that Beth's condition was worsening. We approached the Thomson holiday representative and asked for guidance of how best to manage the illness and to look into the possibility of returning to the UK to enable Beth to seek professional medical advice, to which the response was dismissive and uncompassionate - 'If she doesn't eat she will die and I am going home and on leave tomorrow so cannot sort a flight for you' As you can appreciate this was not the best thing to say to any ill person, thousands of miles away from home finding it difficult to cope.
During the night Beth's symptoms had worsened requiring a visit to the Resort Doctor. Beth was immediately transferred to the local hospital to be admitted suffering from dehydration and acute gastroenteritis. During admission Beth was given various medications and recieved IV fluids throughout the inpatient stay. Upon discharge Beth was provided with dietry guidance and various courses of medication. When we returned to the resort we tried our hardest to adhere to the dietry guidance provided by the Consultant, however upon request for the listed items - it became apparent that the hotel staff were willing to provide us with none, they refused to provide us with plain food and advised that fruit juices, even the most common such as apple and orange were not available within the all inclusive package, however these could be purchased from the onsite shop at our own expense. Our Thomson holiday representative advised us to visit the local supermarket, however he also advised us not to take any money or valuable belongings as there was a risk of mugging.
The following day Beth was reviewed by the onsite Doctor who made it very clear that the dietry guidance needed to be followed, and if this wasn't possible it could result in further admission as the illness would worsen again. The Doctor advised us to purchase electrolite fluids to ensure Beth did not dehydrate further. We discussed the possibility of returning home to the UK to which the Doctor agreed would be the best option for Beth to make a speedy and full recovery both physically and mentally. We then approached our Thomson holiday representative to ask for advice of how best to manage flight bookings to return to the UK and how this would be managed through our insurance - to which he responded 'I cannot do it and I am too busy to look, so make the arrangements yourselves! You do not need to contact your insurer, you will have to submit a claim form on your return!' We tried to contact Thomson to confirm this via their international holiday helpline numbers, of which all did not work, this resulted in further cost to ourselves to the point of the mobile networks cutting us off because of the unusual high usage. Following the Thomson holiday representatives advice we proceeded to book our return flights to the UK, this came at a considerable cost to ourselves, we are also unable to claim for the expenses of the return flights as we surprisingly found out upon trying to claim on our return, we did exactly that, however the insurance company have advised us that this was not the correct procedure to follow and we are now unable to claim expenses for our return flights.
Upon returning home we have tried to contact and discuss our case with Thomson on numerous occassions to which their first response took months - this differing from the 28 day response they so willingly boast about. They suggested a of a £110 holiday voucher to use with themselves, may we make it clear that this was only provided because we gave photographic evidence of the filthy room which we were a custom to at the 5 star resort. The voucher is redundant as we will never holiday with Thomson again and to be honest this 'solution' which they approached us with only added insult to injury. In the response from Thomson it became apparent that they had given minimal attention to our case, they apologised for Steve's illness - even though it was Beth who was ill. They then went on to give an explanation for the delay of our return flight - although we had explained to them that we had booked an early flight home to the UK using a different airline. Their response made it extremely clear that the situation on a whole was just tough luck.
Although this is only a brief review of the events which took place as well as a small insight into how our case was managed by Thomson, we are sure you can appreciate that our honeymoon was less than magical and the customer service we have been a custom to at the hands of one of the UK's largest holiday companys is not only disappointing, but shambolic.
Any advice as to how we can manage our case from here to enable us to gain the compensation we deserve would be greatly appreciated.
To give a rough idea of costs please see below:
holiday - £3,200
flights - £1,800
phone bills - £230
Many thanks in advance for your help.
0
Comments
-
Hi
Firstly congratulations on your wedding and sorry to hear about the issues you had. We travel quite often with Thomson to the Dominican Republic so I will try and comment on the points raised.
If your flight is delayed more than 3 hours you are able to make a claim under Regulation EC 261/2004. If the delay was more than 4 hours you can claim €600 per passenger. There is plenty of information about this on the forums and you can find a template letter from the CAA website to use. We have just had successful claim paid with Thomas Cook for a similar length flight delay. If you provide your flight number, departure airport and flight date I will check the actual delay time for you. Alternatively, you can check this yourself online.
I assume you have not flown long haul with Thomson before, but am not sure what amenities you were expecting. As the outbound flight is a day flight they do not provide every passenger with a blanket and pillow although they do normally have some available if you ask the cabin crew. On the return flight which is usually overnight you should have got a pillow and blanket on your seat, which is what normally happens. You should have also received the main meal and a snack before landing. It does sound very bad how the cabin crew treated the illness though.
The room you had sounds really dissapointing, did you raise your concerns with the hotel reception? In our experience we have always found the staff in the Dominican extremely helpful and I am sure they could have moved you rooms or fixed the issues you had. We have not stayed in the hotel you mentioned but have stayed in another Dreams resort in La Romana and found the staff great and always rectified problems quickly. If the room was that bad, did you speak to your rep to request a room change?
If your daughter was ill why did you go to the rep in the first instance, surely if you were that concerned you should have took her straight to the resort doctor. Every resort we have been to in the Dominican has had an onsite medical centre and if you didn't know this you could have called reception from the phone in your room.
Unfortunately, not all items are all inclusive, normally you can get juices and stuff witout issue from the bars, or was it fresh juices you required which are not normally served during the day. I'm also suprised that you could not get plain food in the buffet, every hotel we have stayed at there has been a huge choice of items in the buffet.
When you were away, did you read your travel insurance document? I know in our policy we have to ring the insurers if something is seriously wrong. If your daughter was so ill and needed to come home your insurers would have probably arranged this for you and they would have then paid out. Or did you make the decision to fly home yourselves without contacting your insurers first. If you did, I think this will be an expensive lesson learnt to speak to the insurers first, especially if the issue is so serious you needed to return to the UK.
I think in this situation the best you can expect is to claim for your flight delay. If they do pay out and offer vouchers, you can reject these and ask for a cheque instead. Although you mentioned you took the pictures of the dirty room, I am sure this could have been resolved directly by speaking to the hotel reception or your rep.0 -
Jamie_Yorkshire wrote: »Hi
Firstly congratulations on your wedding and sorry to hear about the issues you had. We travel quite often with Thomson to the Dominican Republic so I will try and comment on the points raised.
If your flight is delayed more than 3 hours you are able to make a claim under Regulation EC 261/2004. If the delay was more than 4 hours you can claim €600 per passenger. There is plenty of information about this on the forums and you can find a template letter from the CAA website to use. We have just had successful claim paid with Thomas Cook for a similar length flight delay. If you provide your flight number, departure airport and flight date I will check the actual delay time for you. Alternatively, you can check this yourself online.
I assume you have not flown long haul with Thomson before, but am not sure what amenities you were expecting. As the outbound flight is a day flight they do not provide every passenger with a blanket and pillow although they do normally have some available if you ask the cabin crew. On the return flight which is usually overnight you should have got a pillow and blanket on your seat, which is what normally happens. You should have also received the main meal and a snack before landing. It does sound very bad how the cabin crew treated the illness though.
The room you had sounds really dissapointing, did you raise your concerns with the hotel reception? In our experience we have always found the staff in the Dominican extremely helpful and I am sure they could have moved you rooms or fixed the issues you had. We have not stayed in the hotel you mentioned but have stayed in another Dreams resort in La Romana and found the staff great and always rectified problems quickly. If the room was that bad, did you speak to your rep to request a room change?
If your s was ill why did you go to the rep in the first instance, surely if you were that concerned you should have took her straight to the resort doctor. Every resort we have been to in the Dominican has had an onsite medical centre and if you didn't know this you could have called reception from the phone in your room.
Unfortunately, not all items are all inclusive, normally you can get juices and stuff witout issue from the bars, or was it fresh juices you required which are not normally served during the day. I'm also suprised that you could not get plain food in the buffet, every hotel we have stayed at there has been a huge choice of items in the buffet.
When you were away, did you read your travel insurance document? I know in our policy we have to ring the insurers if something is seriously wrong. If your daughter was so ill and needed to come home your insurers would have probably arranged this for you and they would have then paid out. Or did you make the decision to fly home yourselves without contacting your insurers first. If you did, I think this will be an expensive lesson learnt to speak to the insurers first, especially if the issue is so serious you needed to return to the UK.
I think in this situation the best you can expect is to claim for your flight delay. If they do pay out and offer vouchers, you can reject these and ask for a cheque instead. Although you mentioned you took the pictures of the dirty room, I am sure this could have been resolved directly by speaking to the hotel reception or your rep.
Daughter? I think she's his wife!Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman0 -
I'd say it was your responsibility to know/check what your insurers required you to do, OP.Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman0
-
notanewuser wrote: »Daughter? I think she's his wife!
Whoops, obviously I am as bad as reading as Thomson.
Apologies to the OP, I dont know where I got that from, especially as it was your honeymoon.0 -
Thank you, we did raise concerns with our hotel reception as well as the thomson rep at the resort. We were advised that the problems we had would be attended to within the hour, unfortunately after having to remind them on numerous occassions - nothing was resolved.
This is the first time we had taken a holiday abroad in over 7 years, therefore we didnt really know what to expect or what protocols to follow. I agree it has been an expensive lesson learnt. Unfortunately upon booking our insurance we were only provided with insurance certificates, but no policy, again a silly mistake to make and something we will learn from, but also something we werent familiar with.
The buffet consisted of fruits, fried foods, omelettes and sweet breads with dressings. The juice we were advised to have by the Consultant was apple, we did manage to purchase this from the on site shop, but did expect it to be included in the all inclusive package.
Thank you for the advice for the flight delay, is there a particular website I could use to check the exact times of delay?
Many thanks for your help and advice.0 -
It's unfortunate you couldn't resolve the issues when you were there. We have been to the Dominican on about a dozen occasions and to different resorts and they have normally been great, it's a shame you couldn't enjoy it.
It's a pity it had to be apple juice, orange juice, pineapple juice and cranberry juice would have been a lot easier to get.
If you go to flightstats . Co .uk (sorry i cant add direct links)you should be able to get all the times from here. You may need to register but it is free.
If you go to the CAA website and go to the passenger section on delays you will be ale to find everything you need to claim for the delay.
Hope your next holiday goes a bit better0 -
Thank you very much, your help is much appreciated.
Sounds like we had a spell of bad luck, we wil try somewhere new this year and hopefully have the honeymoon we dreamed of.
Thanks again,0 -
Was anyone else on the flight ill from the meal?0
-
Were not sure as only one other couple from the same flight stayed at our resort.
Many thanks,0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 349.9K Banking & Borrowing
- 252.7K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.1K Spending & Discounts
- 242.9K Work, Benefits & Business
- 619.7K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 176.4K Life & Family
- 255.8K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards