Tui complaints

kalibaan

Hi everyone, this is my first post so please be gentle:

As none of us were sick or injured solicitors don't seem to be interested and "don't really do this sort if thing" so I'm coming to you for advice.

My wife, twin (5YO) girls and myself traveled to St Lucia in May to have a once in a lifetime trip and dream beach wedding. We paid a not insignificant sum of money for all of us to travel with Tui, staying at the Royalton St. Lucia. The holiday turned into anything but a dream. We encountered the following problems:

1. We flew in premium class meaning we got to choose our seats almost a year in advance (including 2 window seats for the girls), 2 weeks ahead of travelling we'd been moved and had lost one of our window seats.
2. On the third day of our stay our twins were able to let themselves out of our room at 5 O'clock in the morning to go for a wander around the resort. We spent 6 days chasing our rep and the hotel for a response before someone got back to us. 6 days of not sleeping properly just in case. Their response was to downgrade us and give us a block of wood to jam into the latch on the door. The block of wood didn't fit into the latch in our downgraded room. We didn;t sleep properly for the rest of the holiday.
3. The room we were downgraded to was dirty, there was rust in the fruit bowl, soap scum and various hairs in the shower. We were in the room for 3 days, the hair and soap scum was still there when we left
4. The hotel staff stole half of our wedding cake, while we were sat down for dinner we were only served half slices of cake, which would only have made up half of the cake, we were not allowed the rest of the cake because all of a sudden "there was none"
5. My wife and children all got ear infections. As this was the only time they used a pool without me and I didn't get an infection while away I can only assume they got them in an outdoor jacuzzi on the resort.

The rest of our complaint is niggling quality of life issues, but it is my belief that they did not provide us with the holiday that we paid for, there were massive health and safety implications from our children being able to get out of our room, my wife and I definitely came home more tired than when we left.

The rep at the resort offered us £2000 in Tui vouchers in resort, but we refused saying we'd make the complaint when we got back. Having gotten back and made my complaint with Tui they are now saying that because the rep made an offer at the resort they can't go any higher than she offered us. Should I throw in the towel and just accept their offer? Or should I take this further through ABTA or maybe MCOL?

I appreciate and look forward to any help or advice that follows.

Greg

LadyDee

Whatever the merits of your case, Tui is talking nonsense - the rep is given a maximum they can offer. If they offered £2,000 then it's obvious you are entitled to at least that (and probably more) and certainly not vouchers. Make a formal complaint to the company giving a figure you would be happy to accept, and if they mess you about a solicitor's letter would be worthwhile.

agrinnall

£2000, especially if you can get it in cash, seems to be a pretty decent pay out for what are really ony very minor niggles. I don't really understad your point 2, why didn't you simply tell your twins not to leave the room rather than causing a fuss that ended up with you being put in a worse room?

NoodleDoodleMan

I don't really understad your point 2

Could the door not be locked from the inside under adult control ?

kalibaan

Hi noodledoodleman and agrinall

Thank you for your responses.

agrinall - The twins already knew that they shouldn't have been leaving the room without an adult present, however they chose to do so. They then got to spend a very boring day in a room with my MiL being told all sorts of horror stories about what could have happened to them. They didn't try to get out again, however there was every chance that they could have and if they had done so, maybe we wouldn't have been so lucky with the various pools around the place (they aren't strong swimmers yet) or the wrong member of staff picking them up. All we wanted from the hotel was some way to prevent this from happening again.

Noodledoodleman - The deadlock automatically disengaged when you pressed down on the door handle from the inside. There was a metal L shaped latch, which had a similar function to a door chain, but you flicked it into place and back again. If this had been out of reach there would have been no problem, unfortunately standing on tip toes the twins could reach the latch and flick it back to its disengaged position with ease.

NoodleDoodleMan

I'm not clear on what you expected the hotel and/or TUI to do in respect of preventing the twins from leaving the room.

waamo

I'm struggling to get my head around this. Is the hotel supposed to have a system that allows two 5 year olds to be locked in a room without adult supervision? That's how it's reading to me.

The consequences if there was a fire or something could be horrific so I can't see that happening.

k3lvc

kalibaan wrote: »

On the third day of our stay our twins were able to let themselves out of our room at 5 O'clock in the morning to go for a wander around the resort. We spent 6 days chasing our rep and the hotel for a response before someone got back to us. 6 days of not sleeping properly just in case. Their response was to downgrade us and give us a block of wood to jam into the latch on the door. The block of wood didn't fit into the latch in our downgraded room. We didn;t sleep properly for the rest of the holiday.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Seriously - this is heading for the 'non-complaint of the year' award - Are you suggesting TUI are responsible for your kids because you or other members of your party can't keep an eye on them or trust them during the night

Being honest I'm surprised TUI even gave you the courtesy of a response on this one

NoodleDoodleMan

The consequences if there was a fire or something could be horrific so I can't see that happening.

The hotel provided a DIY device to secure the door latch.

Whoever authorised that expedient should have some questions to answer.