A mum and daughter have slammed Thomson over ‘cold, inedible’ food on their £1,150 all-inclusive holiday – where a microwave was apparently placed in the dining room below a ‘just in case’ sign.
Carol Morley and her daughter Emma, from Edinburgh, had booked their holiday at the Globales Playa Santa Posa in Majorca, Spain, through Thomson, rebranded last week as TUI.
After allegedly being told the restaurant in their own hotel was closed due to not being busy enough, the duo claim they were sent over to the sister hotel next door.
Not happy: The offending microwave and sign in the neighbouring hotel (left) and the outside of the sister venue to the Globales Playa Santa Posa in Majorca, Spain
However Carol claims that once there they were met with a ‘fishy, stinking’ restaurant with ‘stone cold’ food and a microwave set out for the diners with the ‘ridiculous’ notice stuck above it.
Claiming they were ‘too scared’ to eat there for fear of becoming ill, Carol and Emma, 27, say they were then forced to splash another £600 on eating out instead.
Carol, 51, said: ‘It was terrible. The place was absolutely stinking. We didn’t dare eat any of the food – I was scared in case I’d get ill.
‘If Gordon Ramsay went there, he’d shut it down. It was a nightmare for us. We’d already paid £1,150 for an all-inclusive holiday – you don’t expect to spend extra money on food when you pay for that.
‘We hadn’t accounted for it in our spending money and in the end, we spent around £600 extra on eating out.
‘We had to go to McDonald’s for dinner sometimes because we didn’t expect to be eating out and hadn’t brought enough money. You don’t expect that when you pay for a holiday.’
Carol alleges the food looked as if it had been sitting there ‘since the day before and heated up again’.
Eat your heart out: An example of the food served at the hotel (left) and Ms Morley on holiday
Carol Morley (left) and her daughter Emma (right) have said they were encouraged to buy and microwave their own food at the Majorca resort, despite paying for an all-inclusive break
The pair only ate scrambled eggs, which Carol claims looked raw, before vowing to eat out for fear of food poisoning.
The mum-of-one said that the unidentifiable food, accompanied with the ‘stinking, fishy’ smell throughout both hotels turned the holiday into a nightmare.
Carol said: ‘The hotel opposite us was a sister hotel, I think, and we had to go there for lunch. We always had to go to the other hotel for food because the rep told us they were using the restaurant of the other hotel because theirs wasn’t busy.
‘The lunch there was inedible. They’d have cooked potatoes and boiled eggs, so I tried a boiled egg because nothing else there looked edible.
‘The food was the same all week and the smell was unbearable. Me and my daughter ate out all week because we couldn’t face eating the food. Everything was stone cold and that was the other joke – there was a microwave there for everyone to heat up their food.
‘You were sitting there next to other people who were also saying the food was disgusting and that they’d eaten out. It sat there uncovered and looked like it had been there all day. It was so dangerous.
Closed: According to Ms Morley, the restaurant, pictured, at their venue was closed due to lack of business
‘The bacon looked like it had been there since the day before and had just been heated up again. I said to my daughter “please don’t eat any of that”.
‘When we were in the restaurant, I never saw anyone change the trays. The food was stone-cold. You just wouldn’t eat that. There were no labels telling you what the food was so you had to take a guess.
‘It was really quite difficult to work out what some of the food was.’
Carol, who suffers from arthritis, was allegedly left in agony by the poor mattresses. On the final Friday, she claims she could not leave the room due to pain caused by the uncomfortable beds.
Carol said: ‘It wasn’t just the food. The rooms we had were loud and facing busy roads. I suffer from arthritis and the beds were like bricks. On the last Friday, I didn’t leave the room because I was in so much pain.
‘The smell, which was throughout the hotels all the time, was coming from the area behind the buildings where sewage was flowing by. You could smell a strong fishy smell all the time.’
A spokesperson from TUI UK said: ‘We are concerned to hear that Ms Morley was unhappy with her experience. We would like to thank her for bringing the notices to our attention and we are reviewing them with our hotel partner.
‘Upon investigation reports show that customers in resort continue to score this hotel highly, however we do take all customer feedback seriously and are in direct contact with Ms Morley to resolve the matter.
‘We’d like to reassure customers that we regularly audit all of the hotels we feature in respect of health and safety, including hygiene.’
The hotel has so far failed to respond to a request for comment.