A couple celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary say their holiday was ruined after they were given a 'filthy' hotel room in Tenerife and were unable to change it.
Dave and Laura, from Rochester, Kent, paid £1,460 for a six-night stay at Los Olivios Hotel in Costa Adeje, booked through Loveholidays. When they arrived on September 6, they claim they found a "disgusting" room that did not have the advertised air conditioning, contained clumps of hair left by a previous guest, and even had a live flea on the bedside table.
Complaints ignored
With just one day of their holiday left and having made multiple complaints to both the reception and Loveholidays, the couple say they have dreaded going back to the room every evening and are now demanding a refund.
Dave told The Mirror: "As soon as I walked in the room on Sunday, you walked in the bathroom and there is like, well I'm not exaggerating, you know, maybe stray hair or whatever, but this is clumps of hair everywhere. Pubic hairs and stuff all over top of the bin. Looks like someone's had a shave in there to be honest with you, it's disgusting."
Dave, 42, said he filmed a video of the mess on his phone and went down to reception to complain, where staff said it would be cleaned. But when he and Laura returned, the room was "no better". Dave said: "I got out of the shower and wiped a towel across the floor, lifted it up and it's just black. I mean they're not mopping the floors in these places - they're literally just going over them with a brush, maybe."
No air conditioning
Afterwards, he asked for a new room but claims hotel staff told him this was "not possible". On top of the cleanliness issues has been the "unbearable" heat in the room overnight amid local temperatures of over 30C, which he says has stopped them sleeping. Dave said the room was falsely listed as having air conditioning on the Loveholidays website.
"We've got yellow heat warnings out here at the moment, and there isn't even an air conditioning unit", he said. "I pulled up the man that I'd already spoken to and said 'can you tell me why I paid to sleep in a clean room with air conditioning, but instead I am sleeping in a filthy room with no air conditioning'? Forget anything else, when you book in a holiday to go into a hot country it's nice to make sure they got air conditioning at the end of the evening, you know? He told me air conditioning is at discretion of the hotel, depending on on how hot it is."
Live flea found
Their most unsettling discovery came on Wednesday night, where they found what appeared to be a live flea on their bedside table. "We got back to our room we sat on the bed and there's a little flea bouncing around on well on the bedside table which I'm poking around with my finger, I've got it on video jumping around - and really that's done it for my wife. My wife won't even walk around the apartment without a without her shoes on because she just doesn't feel comfortable with it, since the moment we walked in that room. She just wants to go home - what should have been a nice experience for us has been pretty cr*p to be honest."
"Don't get me wrong, during the day when we've come away from the hotel we go off and have a nice time because we've been here before so we know where to go... but we dread going back to the room."
The couple feel especially let down by Loveholidays, which he said had "shown an awful lack of interest" after multiple complaints throughout the week. At one point, he claimed they told him he had never made a complaint to hotel reception at all, which he described as "absolute nonsense".
"There's nothing that they can do now to change the experience we've had... I would never book with them again and I certainly wouldn't come here again", Dave added.
A Loveholidays spokesperson said they were "very sorry" that the couple's experience at their hotel in Tenerife "fell short of our usual high standards", adding: "We are investigating the issues raised directly with the hotel. We have contacted them [the couple] to offer our sincere apologies and will remain in touch with them as our investigation continues."
