"BEWARE TUI Holidays! Don’t book with Tui ever!
No reimbursement for unsanitary, dirty, unsecure and uncomfortable room after 9 months of dispute.
Almost a year ago on the 28th May 2025 we booked a holiday for the four of us to Ibiza for £6,216 for 7 nights in a ‘4 star’ one bedroom apartment with a sea view, for our two daughters and ourselves. We hadn’t been abroad for 7 years, so this was supposed to be a real treat and had never spent this kind of money on a holiday before. So it was a lot of money, hard earned money, the girls were excited about going somewhere hot and sitting near a pool. We were expecting clean, beautiful decorated rooms of the Insotel Tarida Beach Resort and Spa, but instead we were booked into the Insotel Club Tarida Playa on the same street. Surely not a big deal, surely we could make do as the hotel lobby looked okay? That’s until we saw our room after lugging our luggage to what looked like a dinghy staff apartment outside of the main hotel complex, having to walk down a public pathway of steps to then carry our luggage up three flights of stairs - suddenly understanding why we hadn’t got any help from hotel staff with our luggage! If your holiday says ‘Annexe’ get a refund straight away, because this is the hell hole we were put.
The lighting of our room was dinghy, the whole place felt unclean on first walking in and on closer inspection it was unclean. The floor on the balcony was noticeable unswept with pieces of debris and dust left, the floor in the apartment wasn’t much better. The windows had fingerprints and greasy marks on the inside, and were filthy on the outside so much so that you could barely see through them. There was a fake nail left on the window ledge that hadn’t been cleaned away after the previous occupant. The paintwork of the room was scratched, had dirty filler, unmaintained and required repainting. There was a large section of the balcony wall which had been badly filled and repainted, with crumbling masonry to an edge of the wall which hadn’t been repaired. In the bathroom there was noticeable damage to the toilet flush button and the general dinghy feeling again. After a short period of time there was noticeable water residue along the side of the tiles beside the toilet which seemed to be moving in the direction of the wall adjoining the bathroom to the hall / living area. In the morning we awoke to find a large puddle of toilet water that had pooled in our living room, just near where our daughters had been sleeping. Our apartment smelt badly like sewage / toilet water. The smell along with the growing heat of the day made the smell unbearable and not conclusive to a habitable environment. Our beds were like bricks, our teenage daughters had to use the sofas as their beds which were not suitable for sitting on let alone sleeping in. The whole apartment block was unsecure with direct access from the public access to the beach, the main door was propped open allowing anyone to enter. A window in our apartment was damaged making it easy for an intruder to enter, putting ourselves and our belongings at risk. We put our bags over the door during our only nights stay to keep us safe but causing a fire risk at the same time. There was not even basic services like Wifi or tea making facilities. To say this room was horrible is an understatement!
Needless to say after entering this room we didn’t want to stay. We couldn’t believe that this was what £6,000+ paid for in Ibiza. Despite all our best efforts to contact Tui on the phone and in person they said they couldn’t move us, that we had to wait 48hours. We didn’t want to stay one night let alone two days or the seven days we booked for. The receptionist wasn’t the least bit embarrassed that we had been placed in such a hellish room, and said that £6,000 was the going rate for that time of year - beginning of August. We booked extra BA flights and returned to the UK the next day.
We have taken up our dispute with Tui Holidays via Hays Travel who we booked our ‘holiday’ with, then MBNA our credit card company who refunded us momentarily to then withdraw reimbursement after finding a loop hole in that Tui wasn’t paid directly by us and so therefore as Hays wasn’t responsible for our awful holiday then didn’t need to pay the refund. We have since been in contact with ABTA who has offered us the Arbitration route. So at this point we feel that we have given Tui ample amount of opportunity to recognise their error and respond with a full refund. Time and time again they have slowed the process down hoping we would give up trying to get our money back. All they have offered us as compensation is the pitiful amount of £50 or £100 Tui holiday vouchers - like we would ever in our right minds consider going on a Tui holiday again after our experience!
This is why we are writing this review. Please please do not consider using Tui for your holiday, they DO NOT value their customers or attempt to right a wrong when a failure in their service has occurred."
