A British family has demanded a £3,000 refund after claiming a nightmare holiday in Egypt left them sick from restaurant food, all while enduring 'filthy' and 'hazardous' hotel conditions throughout their stay.
Scott Edward, 36, from Newport, South Wales, travelled to Hurghada for a family holiday in January, accompanied by his wife Katie and his children Freddy and Alexandra. After an exhausting 18-hour journey filled with delays and transfers, the family finally checked into the four-star Eagles Downtown Zahabia Resort & Aqua Park.
Their trip got off to a rocky start when they checked into a 'filthy' room with no working Wi-Fi, forcing them to request a room change. From there, things only went from bad to worse. Renovations turned the family's holiday into a stay at a construction site, according to the father-of-two, who reported finding a 'mouldy, dirty' room and an unclean toilet.
He explained: 'That night we had children's music, like Baby Shark and other obnoxious music, playing outside our hotel room because the entertainment stage was being refurbished. The rooms were dirty and broken, there was faeces and urine all around the toilet that had not been cleaned.'
'The air conditioning was full of mold and dust and caused us all to have severely bad coughs so we just had to cool ourselves with cold water. Everything was run down, damp and moldy and plaster and paint flaking off the walls. There was also an exposed live fuse box outside our door.'
In addition, Scott alleges that he, along with his wife and two children, were left bedridden after eating at on-site restaurants, forcing them to miss out on pre-paid excursions while spending extra money to travel and eat elsewhere. He said: 'The food caused everyone to become violently sick and we were not able to eat at any of the restaurants. I had sore kidneys for two weeks after the holiday because of dehydration from the sickness. We ended up not attending most of our excursions due to the illnesses and we also spent a lot of money on transport and additional food because of the extremely dangerous food standards at the hotel.'
As well as falling ill, the Edward family claimed the children's resort amenities - including play zones and the kids' club - were unusable due to hazardous, broken equipment. The family further cited ongoing construction work that left a dangerous trail of debris, shattered glass, and live wires that delivered electrical shocks.
Recalling an incident that occurred while supervising his children, Scott said: 'All the playground equipment was broken and hazardous and there were exposed wires in the playground that I accidentally touched and received a painful electric shock from. The kids club was run down, dirty and full of dangerous items, such as trampolines with broken sharp metal springs sticking out and random pieces of wood with nails in them on the floor of the kids club and very low attendance from staff.'
'There were huge areas of the hotel that were in full construction with concrete pouring, jack hammers and drilling all day and rubbish like doors, windows, toilets and broken bricks, glass and rubble all over the place.' Scott further alleged the construction areas were 'completely accessible' to guests at the resort - so much so that his daughter was nearly left injured by a shard of glass on a pathway. He said: 'These construction areas were completely accessible to the public and one of our children nearly cut open their foot from broken glass on a path and walkway we needed to use to get to our room. Luckily her Croc took most of the damage stopping it from slicing through into her foot.'
Scott is currently expecting a £3,000 refund from Loveholidays, the company he booked through, after receiving just £104 initially for the family's ordeal. Despite offering round-the-clock support for all customers, the travel company claimed the family only reached out seven weeks after returning to the UK.
A Loveholidays spokesperson told NeedToKnow: 'We're very sorry that Mr Edward and Ms Hillman's recent experience at their hotel in Egypt fell short of our usual high standards. We offer 24/7 assistance to our customers via our On Holiday Support team, however Mr Edward did not contact us until seven weeks after he returned home. This unfortunately prevented us from assisting the family while they were still on holiday. As Mr Edward has initiated a chargeback, the refund process is now being managed through his bank. We are working closely with our dispute providers to expedite this and will ensure he receives a full refund for his holiday as quickly as possible. We have also escalated the specific issues raised with the accommodation provider to ensure they are addressed.'
Scott said of the trip: 'No one enjoyed it. It's created a huge stress for us all and created financial issues having to pay back the extra costs on the credit cards.'
