thompson holidays rip off misold see what u think

cam101

On the subect of table sharing, my o/h and I spent 2 weeks at a Thomson small and friendly (too friendly?) hotel, where we had to table share. We had no idea until we got there, and it was allocated by room number so no option to change around.

Half board, so 2 weeks of this :-(

The other couple were very pleasant, but it was just so awkward, as we were 20 and 21, they were in their 50's (i'm not ageist at all, but it was difficult to find common ground). So, we came up with a system where we used the table 7-8pm, and they used it 8-9pm. We all agreed we would prefer this, no disrespect intended.

The thing is, they weren't happy and didn't realise either, so the solution worked for everybody!

I'm sure you will have a lovely holiday, just wanted to point out that if your sharing partners feel the same- you could do this!!

Cam

Nenen

Thanks for that idea Cam... it's good to know I'm not the only one who isn't thrilled by the prospect of forced sharing! :beer: :beer:

It wasn't the Cesare Augustus hotel in Italy you went to was it? That's where we're going to, so if you went there I'd love any comments you have.

budgetflyer

If you are picky, why go for a "late deal"?
If I was picky (which Im not anyway), Id start early, do my reasearch, book EXACTLY what I wanted.
By leaving it to last minute bargains, you are reducing your choice. Its then a bit late to start dictating what you should have and not have.
£800 for 2 is hardly pop star money for a 4* half board high season in Italy btw,so its not like you are getting hard done.

MarkyMarkD

Nenen wrote: »

Thanks for that idea Cam... it's good to know I'm not the only one who isn't thrilled by the prospect of forced sharing! :beer: :beer:

It wasn't the Cesare Augustus hotel in Italy you went to was it? That's where we're going to, so if you went there I'd love any comments you have.

It's the Cesare Augusto. Amazingly it's the same hotel we stayed in, in Italy, more than 10 years ago - and our first experience of table sharing.

Any comments I can give you will be ages out of date. But it hasn't moved ... so it's quite a long way from the centre of Sorrento. They provided a free minibus service when we stayed there, but if it was full (and it often was) it could be a long wait for it to make the return trip.

They let you keep part bottles of wine - I like hotels which do that.

Sorrento was lovely.

Not sure what else I can remember!

MMD

shellsuit

budgetflyer wrote: »

£800 for 2 is hardly pop star money for a 4* half board high season in Italy btw,so its not like you are getting hard done.

The OP said : I booked and paid (over £800 each)

Nenen

budgetflyer wrote: »

If you are picky, why go for a "late deal"?
If I was picky (which Im not anyway), Id start early, do my reasearch, book EXACTLY what I wanted.
By leaving it to last minute bargains, you are reducing your choice. Its then a bit late to start dictating what you should have and not have.
£800 for 2 is hardly pop star money for a 4* half board high season in Italy btw,so its not like you are getting hard done.

I've never been for a late deal before, without wanting to go into details, family circumstances dictated we had to at this time as we weren't sure until 2 weeks ago that we could definitely go away this year at all. Usually we plan foreign holidays months if not years in advance (we haven't been able to afford to go abroad every year and often have just stayed at home, had short breaks or gone camping). When our three children were young I wouldn't have dreamed of tryng to book last minute (even a campsite ).... and we had our first holiday 'sans children' last year to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary... booked well in advance for that one!

With all the lastminute, latedeals, teletext websites etc I had heard about and Martin emphasising how to screw travel agents down on cost, grab bargains etc, I had no idea how difficult it would be to find what we were looking for at a late stage... basically anywhere in the world that was warm (but not more than 40+) near the sea and not too seedy or in enormous faceless hotels... We had a budget of £700 EACH (thanks for reading carefully and pointing that out Shellsuit :beer: ) I was sincerely under the impression that with just two of us we would have plenty of choice and lots of bargains by booking a couple of weeks before going..... wrong again! :wall:

I didn't think I was being too picky at the time... how wrong I was! We ended up going £200 over budget for something that isn't exactly what we'd wanted but I'd hoped near enough! The shared tables fiasco is just the last straw of a very frustrating experience for me... probaly worse as we've had an extremely stressful time as a family during the past few months and this was supposed to help us relax and recooperate a bit!

We haven't travelled that much before compared to a lot of you experts on here but it has been a steep (and expensive) learning curve!

In future I will plan and book my own holidays, avoid online/telephone travel companies and book well in advance!