A British father’s holiday of a lifetime turned into a trip from hell after the Mexican hotel he was meant to be staying in told him he had „no booking.“
Gerard and Natalie Brodrick from Glasgow, paid £8,000 for a two-week break at the stunning Moon Palace in Cancun.
The pair made the costly trip with their son Lennon, 11, after booking the jaunt to Mexico after missing a previous family break due to the pandemic.
When the family arrived on June 5, they were told they could not stay at the hotel because TUI had „failed to pay“ for the family’s stay.
As a result they were relocated to an alternative nearby hotel, half the price of their original booking.
Gerard said: „The staff were extremely rude and appeared to smirk at us and our situation. They told us that TUI had failed to pay for our booking and that if we wanted to stay, we’d have to pay in full – again.“
„I couldn’t believe it, we saved up 18 months for this. If we wanted to stay for the night, they were going to charge us $600 (£472).“
For three hours they attempted to sort out the situation before the airline moved them to new accommodation.
However, prior to a taxi arriving to collect them, Gerard alleged that hotel security staff threatened to throw the family-of-three out onto the streets, leaving poor Lennon „terrified.“
The angry dad went on: „At one point, they got three security guards to stand behind me and threatened to chuck us out if I continued to speak. My son was terrified, it’s not exactly the safest place to chuck a family onto the street. The whole ordeal was horrific, we are heartbroken. It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime.
„It might be the last holiday that our kid wants to come on with us before he turns into a teenager, so we wanted to go all out,“ he said.
„We genuinely booked this holiday for Moon Palace – it is the place to be in Cancun, it offers a premium family holiday and that’s exactly what we wanted.“
Gerard went on: „It had amazing reviews and is highly reputable, so it seemed like the perfect holiday for us. The hotel we have been moved to is fine but it isn’t a patch on what we paid for and expected to get.
„The quality and prestige that Moon Palace offers just isn’t here, it is really inferior in comparison. We paid for a jacuzzi in our room at Moon Palace and they obviously don’t have that here. It’s the detail we wanted.
„We’re gutted and angry about the whole situation and it’s left us pondering over what we can do to salvage this holiday.“
It was reported that a few customers have been prevented from entering Moon Palace due to a contract dispute with TUI.
A TUI spokesperson said: „We are so sorry to hear about our customer’s experience in Cancun. Our goal is to ensure customers have the best possible experience, so this is not the way we wanted their holiday to start. Our destination team is working to get this resolved as quickly as possible.“