Virgin Holiday - lies on the phone

814man

I know its not the exact issue you are raising but I've stayed at The Grand Occidental Xcaret and its a pretty stunning place. Just looking at what is there I'm struggling to see how a teenager could possibly be bored. Whilst you didn't get the exact watersports you claim you were promised (and to be honest I'd give up on any hope of getting any confirmation of what you say you were told) I can only imagine that you have some wonderful memories of a fantastic holiday so I'd take the £200, which I think is more than you could have hoped for, and give up on this as it sounds like you are in danger of letting it ruin the memory of a great holiday.

glentoran99

debjacka wrote: »

It was The Grand Occidental Xcaret. I did read trip advisor reports but they didn't mention much about the watersports. This is why I phoned Virgin to clarify it. I paid an extra £1500 for this hotel compared with a similar hotel near there with a different company (and surfing/kayaking), which also flew from Newcastle instead of having to go down to Gatwick. This is what I've asked for, or 50% off another holiday.
I have no evidence of what was said on the phone. Would the courts have any power to demand that the phone calls are found? I don't believe for one second that they couldn't find them. If they have got a new phone system I wonder if they have strung this out know that the records would be lost on the new system.

If watersports were your main reason why didnt you pick the cheaper hotel with the closer departure?

Seems you booked a hotel for watersports that didnt mention watersports on their site, the tripadvisor reviews didnt mention watersports but you want compensation for no watersports?

Take the £200 and count yourself lucky they offered anything

jonesMUFCforever

If a particular hotel does not offer what you want - can you not go down the beach and see what everybody else is doing?

Archergirl

£60 for internet, are you crazy, your boy was on holiday he should learn to entertain himself with out internet for goodness sake.

MasterPoo

OP I have taken a look at the hotel website itself, there is zero mention of motorised water sports. When in doubt contact the hotel directly.

Seriously OP, £200 is plenty, you will be wasting your time and money trying to get compensation for this. I book all my holidays independently, I call hotels directly to ask questions, I trawl the likes of TA for info, I post questions on the forums, so with google being your friend you could've easily found this all out before being "miss sold" this holiday. I think you are being unreasonable in your demands.

GOOD LUCK!

debjacka

Thanks all for the responses. Just to answer a few questions:


The Virgin brochure mentioned 'Watersports'. As I was unsure exactly what was on offer I phoned Virgin and asked. I don't think it is at all unreasonable to expect to get the correct information about something you are about to spend £1000s on. I book the holiday at this hotel because it looked like a better hotel and still had surfing and kayaking.


If we'd booked surfing/kayaking locally and did this as much as we had intended on this holiday, I'm pretty sure we would have spend a lot more than £200. There are four of us and we were there for 11 days.


What is incredibly annoying is that the information I was given on the phone was clearly wrong. I believe that this information was given to persuade me to book the holiday. If the guy at customer services really had 'just come back from there' he would have known there was no kayaking etc. Virgin get to do this; tell blatant lies on the phone, and as they are the only ones who can actually prove what was said they get away with doing that. It is so wrong that this kind of thing happens. I bet I'm not the only one who has been misinformed.


814man: I think you're probably right. It is ruining what was on the whole a great holiday. Lesson learned, get it in writing. Time to move on....


Archergirl: He isn't the sort of person who is entertained by lounging around a pool. There's only so much waterpolo you can play! So yes, after a week he started to get a bit bored. To be honest, after a week so did I. We're more of a go and do thing family, adventure holidays etc. The trouble was, anything that was outside of the hotel cost an absolute fortune and after the outlay for the holiday we just didn't have the money.

MasterPoo

So where have you left it with Virgin?

debjacka

I have decided to take the advice of 814man and put the whole thing to bed. I wrote to Virgin and said I would accept their offer. I won't book with them again. I will make sure I have everything in writing in the future. What I was told on the phone was to persuade me to book the holiday. I annoys me that companies get away with stuff like this. But you live and learn. Overall we had a good holiday. It is a shame that this spoilt it a bit!

jonesMUFCforever

I think that is a sensible decision.