A family’s dream £10,000 all-inclusive TUI holiday turned into a nightmare after constant fighting at the bar.
The Fife family say their break to a four-star resort in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote, over Christmas was a total disaster – with rowdy guests brawling over beer as well as explicit graffiti daubed on the wall.
Melody and Paul Simms travelled to the Canary Islands on Christmas Eve with their four children for what they hoped was a luxury getaway but instead they say were just left desperate to get home.
They say the fury erupted after the all-inclusive bar stopped at 11pm and guests had to start paying for drinks.
Paul and Melody also claim that in addition to the fighting between holidaymakers, the maintenance in the hotel was poor – with no working wifi, overflowing bins, broken lights and faulty locks across the resort.
Ex-military worker Melody, 45, from Fife, said: “It was wild. It was like living in the wicked Wild West, it ruined the holiday,” reports The Mirror.
The pair had already been disappointed after they discovered the hotel had been demoted to three-star just one month before their stay – but say TUI refused their request to swap hotels.
Melody said: “We’re far from posh but our kids are not brought up around fighting.
“I feel devastated as a mum because I’ve ruined their Christmas – they get no presents at Christmas because they understand that we’ve paid for the holiday.”
The mum also claims that there was nothing for her children – aged between 12 and 16 – to do.
She said: “The darts was only once every three or four days and it was absolutely heaving because all the kids were bored and wanted something to do. There was a dart board with a penis on it.”
She added: “You feel helpless and stuck because you can’t go home and you don’t want to be there.
“You’re kind of wishing the time away to get back to your house and your bed. If we could have paid for and afforded flights to come home we would have.”
Ex-force and oil and gas security worker Paul said the family didn’t return to the hotel bar to avoid the constant fights between guests.
He said: “You could feel the tension because it was so busy in that place. You were queueing for 20 minutes trying to get a drink.
“It was only a little bar and they only let you get two drinks at once.”
He said “a few scuffles” started over near the bar and guests started getting drinks from behind the bar.
He added: “There were only a couple of bar staff and no security, so then it all kicked off.
“A little five-year-old got chucked in the pool and then World War Three erupted.”
From that point the family say that they had to avoid the bar due to the post 9pm scuffles and the couple now want the hotel removed from TUI’s selection.
The hotel said it “cannot prevent customer fights” but claimed they “do everything possible to prevent them from happening” and that any graffiti is painted over as soon as possible, reports The Mirror.
Paul said they later were contacted by TUI and told the firm couldn’t be held responsible for the behaviour of other guests – but that it was investigating the family’s complaint and offered compensation equivalent to around 10% of their trip cost.
Express.co.uk has contacted TUI for comment.
