Arrived at hotel to find pool closed?!? 😩😩

LilElvis

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Presumably the pool wasn't important to you though, because if it was and you accepted that, you've been taken for a mug.

Faecal contamination happens in pools all the time. They close for a short period till the water has circulated through the filters sufficiently, then re-open. At most a couple of hours.

If the pool remained closed for a week and environmental health were involved, it was something completely different to that.

You are wrong on every level.

The pool was very important - we turned down an offer of a free villa because it only had an outdoor pool which was not going to be warm enough (1st week in April in Spain). Fortunately my husband's client rearranged to get us into a resort with an indoor as well as 2 outdoor pools. Our daughter started swimming lessons at 3 months - it cost us £2,500 over 4 years (40 sessions a year) and she now goes to a private pool with her Dad every week at a cost of £100/month. She swims like a fish at age 6 and having a pool for her to swim in is at the top of the list of requirements for any holiday we book. In this case a lovely family let their kid use the pool as a toilet - the pool was fully drained, cleaned and then refilled. That took more than 24 hours. The hotel was not allowed to reopen the pool until environmental health checked the readings and gave the ok for it to be used, but weren't available to do so for days. Our local Hilton (used for Waterbabies swim lessons) also had to do a total drain and clean if one of the kids pooped in the pool - one reason why they insist on neoprene swim pants on top of swim nappies. Happened several times a year despite this - lessons cancelled and money reimbursed.

I'm not a mug, but neither do I rant and rave when I could see that it was outside the management's control. We just let the sprog jump in the freezing outdoor pools. I was so traumatised and annoyed that we've booked to go back for the half term at the end of May for another week this year.

London50

I would hope that if the pool is out of action for any reason for more than say 54 hours an agreement would come in that holidaymakers could use one of the other hotel pools close by.
I know it is not the thing that is expected when you go away but far better than sitting beside a tiled hole in the ground that should be there for enjoyment.
It happened to me just once back in the 1960's and we were given a pass from our hotel to show at one down the road so we could use that pool.

JReacher1

I'm always impressed how threads can go off topic. This one is the best so far.

It's gone from a complaint about a pool being unavailable for the OP's holiday to how long it takes to get a turd out of a swimming pool.

Impressive ��

karcher

Important to know where you are.

It'll be too cold to even dip a toe in the pool in most Mediterranean destinations and whilst not ideal you weren't fore warned, you aren't missing much.

Pools do need to be maintained but it's bad form you weren't told in advance.

Try a trip to the beach instead. The water will be just as cold but it's lovely to lie on the sand, enjoying the warmth of the sun looking at the sea which looks tempting, but far too cold to even go paddling in

Zandoni

*Kat* wrote: »

So I booked a hotel with a pool, because that's what I wanted

I arrived today to find that the pool is closed the entire time we are here. It is pretty important to me that we have a pool.

What can I do?!? I checked booking.com but nothing to say pool is closed and nothing on the hotels website either

Help please!! 😩 I'm gutted.

I'd try to get some Compensation from whoever you booked it from for the loss of the pool.

ThumbRemote

LilElvis wrote: »

I'm not a mug, but neither do I rant and rave when I could see that it was outside the management's control. We just let the sprog jump in the freezing outdoor pools. I was so traumatised and annoyed that we've booked to go back for the half term at the end of May for another week this year.

If this is so, then I'm afraid you have been taken for a mug. The hotel were contracted to provide the advertised service. They failed to provide it. The fact that you think that's acceptable just backs up the point.

It may not have been their fault, but it's still their responsibility as a business to provide what's been agreed. If they can't do that then the contract price should be adjusted accordingly.

ThumbRemote

JReacher1 wrote: »

I'm always impressed how threads can go off topic. This one is the best so far.

It's gone from a complaint about a pool being unavailable for the OP's holiday to how long it takes to get a turd out of a swimming pool.

Impressive ��

Until we know which country the OP is in, there's nothing that can be done to advise them.

ThumbRemote

LilElvis wrote: »

The hotel was not allowed to reopen the pool until environmental health checked the readings and gave the ok for it to be used, but weren't available to do so for days. Our local Hilton (used for Waterbabies swim lessons) also had to do a total drain and clean if one of the kids pooped in the pool - one reason why they insist on neoprene swim pants on top of swim nappies. Happened several times a year despite this - lessons cancelled and money reimbursed.

If environmental health were involved, it was a substantially more serious incident than faecal contamination. This would be backed up be the fact they drained the pool, rather than treating the wayer and allowing the filters to do their job.

If the Hilton 'have' to do a complete drain and clean, then they have no filtration in the pool and I'd strongly advise not swimming there until they sort that out. If they are choosing to drain the pool then that's a different matter - but they certainly wouldn't need environmental health to be involved.

There are guidelines here. See https://www.pwtag.org.uk/technical_notes/?download=26

LilElvis

ThumbRemote wrote: »

If environmental health were involved, it was a substantially more serious incident than faecal contamination. This would be backed up be the fact they drained the pool, rather than treating the wayer and allowing the filters to do their job.

If the Hilton 'have' to do a complete drain and clean, then they have no filtration in the pool and I'd strongly advise not swimming there until they sort that out. If they are choosing to drain the pool then that's a different matter - but they certainly wouldn't need environmental health to be involved.

There are guidelines here. See https://www.pwtag.org.uk/technical_notes/?download=26

Environmental health were involved in the Spanish hotel.

The Hilton is in the UK. It does have a filter system but a babies swim nappy exploding creates one hell of a mess -75% of the time they chose to drain, the other 25% they just closed for the remainder of the day and the staff dealt with it.

LilElvis

ThumbRemote wrote: »

If this is so, then I'm afraid you have been taken for a mug. The hotel were contracted to provide the advertised service. They failed to provide it. The fact that you think that's acceptable just backs up the point.

It may not have been their fault, but it's still their responsibility as a business to provide what's been agreed. If they can't do that then the contract price should be adjusted accordingly.

I still don't think I was a mug. It wasn't the hotel's fault, they dealt with the problem as speedily as they could but were delayed by environmental health. Everything else about the stay was fine so I decided that wasting valuable holiday time arguing the toss about what percentage of £1,000 would be reasonable compensation wasn't worth it, coupled with the fact that we didn't pay for the accommodation in the first place. I obviously pick my battles in a different way to you, but I have complained in the past when I have been unhappy about hotels and have generally been happy with the resolution, such as an upgrade to a suite when the original room was ridiculously tiny and $250 cash added to my account when we couldn't check into our room for an hour in Las Vegas.