A HOLIDAY-MAKER has been left fuming after arriving at her five-star hotel to allegedly find her room infested with bugs, and dead rats lying outside the restaurant.
Suzanne Walder booked a stay at Riu Touareg hotel in Boa Vista, Cape Verde last month with a group of pals for a friend’s 50th birthday.
The 58-year-old booked the all-inclusive, week-long, £15,000 stay through travel company TUI, who had promised a resort leaving you “wanting for nothing“.
However, Suzanne, from Ashford, Kent, quickly saw their dream trip turn into a holiday from hell as she claims they arrived at a “filthy” hotel ridden with vermin and pests, and falling apart at the seams.
Suzanne claims that when she and her pals first arrived at their rooms, they noticed bugs in the bedsheets and soft furnishings, as well as falling from the vent in the bathroom.
She also alleges that the all-inclusive meals that they were promised were the exact same every night -consisting of microwaved burgers, sandwiches and a fruit bowl.
The holiday-making Brit claims she also spotted two dead rats outside of the main restaurant, and that the swimming pool was so dirty that people’s legs weren’t visible when taking a dip.
Complaining to the hotel, Suzanne says that her group was offered complimentary champagne, but three of their party ended up suffering from diarrhoea the following day.
Images allegedly snapped at the hotel by Suzanne show unsanitary conditions throughout the premises, with dead rats lying next to walls, stains on their bedding and mould on the curtains.
Chipped pool tiles and cloudy swimming water is also visible, as well as countless rat droppings littered around the resort.
Sharing the images alongside a post to Facebook yesterday Suzanne wrote: “A party of 10 adults arrived at Rui Touareg five-star platinum hotel booked with TUI.
“We arrived on 18 August for a seven-night 50th belated birthday and a relaxing holiday (well how wrong were we) we were all put into block nine in the hotel which we found out had an infestation of bugs.
“We had to put towels down [on] both sides of the door to stop the bugs coming into the room, bugs in the clothes, in the bed, and falling from the vent in the bathroom.
“After two days of complaining to the TUI rep we were all moved to block three, a bit better but a strong smell of stagnant water.
“[In] The main dinner hall, the food is the same every day every night, what doesn’t get eaten is warmed up again for the evening, disgusting.
“The floors are so greasy you’re slipping everywhere. I saw one of the cooks try to pick a hair from the tray with her gloves on.
“She couldn’t pick it out so she tipped the cooked food on top of it. [There were] stained tablecloths and chipped cutlery.
“[In the] Open-front restaurant the birds have a feast at breakfast and lunch-time, sitting on the large lanterns, waiting to fly down onto the pastries.
“The snacks in the evening were leftover cooked burgers, sandwiches and fruit in a bowl. If you wanted a burger, you put it in the microwave to reheat. Disgusting.
“The main swimming pool is absolutely disgraceful – filthy, broken tiles in and around the pool. You cannot even see people’s feet standing in the water, that’s how dirty the water is .
“I don’t know how anybody gets into pool; the water is filthy. Drink cups all around the edge of the pool with lemons floating in the water from people’s drinks, the pool needs to be shut down.
“The entertainment is very, very poor, finished at 10:30 every night.
“Drinks – lemonade, Coke, flat cocktails, premade in a slush puppy machine. And if you’re going to drink water drink it from the bottles, not from the jugs of water they give you at lunchtime as it tastes awful .
“There were cats everywhere and now we know why, we saw two dead rats and saw a cat catch a mouse outside the main restaurant.
“We could not get booked in any of the pre-booked restaurants as fully booked.
“After having two meetings with the managers, regarding the rooms, the pool, the restaurants, and the rats, one of the managers managed to get us booked into the Asian restaurant with a free bottle of champagne – the next day, three people from our party had sickness and diarrhoea.
“Out of our seven days of what we thought was going to be relaxing and celebrating a belated 50th birthday, we spent hours every morning with the TUI rep trying to get updates sorting rooms out.
“After speaking to Scott, he offered us a holiday voucher per couple which we all excepted.
“We came home on 25 August and none of us have received our voucher yet but it does say on the confirmation which he sent us it could take up to 28 days so we are keeping our fingers crossed.
“We paid a hell of a lot of money for a holiday we didn’t get.
“Please, if you’re thinking about booking this hotel and you’re expecting a five-star platinum hotel you’re not going to get it.”
The post has since received over 100 likes and more than 150 comments from users left disgusted by Suzanne’s claims.
Jean Hall Hampton wrote: “Disgusting, it’s put me off booking it.”
Gemma Lund replied: “I went here beginning of June and found the same with the resort, was my first time to Cape Verde and trying a five-star hotel, no way should this be advertised as a five-star hotel.
“The food is disgusting and half cooked as well as repetitive. From the moment I stepped off the plane, I couldn’t wait to get back on it.
“The rooms are terrible, parents letting their kids run all over the place and staff not saying anything about it, to parents or family members.
“This experience has now put me off trying anymore so called five-star hotels and returning to Cape Verde ever again.”
Robin Dixon added: “Would want a full refund discussing.”
Lesley Barker commented: “That’s a disgrace. Public health should close this place down and shame on TUI for putting you at risk.
“Time TUI were called out on TV for their ever-increasing shabby treatment of customers.”
Speaking today Suzanne said: “I booked this holiday for ten of us for my sister in law’s 50th birthday and obviously feel awful but the reviews don’t reflect the reality of this hotel.
“I go away a lot with TUI and other holiday companies and we do as a group, we have never complained and we totally get that five-star varies around the world.
“But this hotel is one of TUI’s biggest and should have been one of the best and as a big company a five-star rating should be a standard service across all their hotels.
“It was dirty, bug-ridden and dangerous and we have all suffered bad stomachs since staying here. The staff were great and beaches were amazing but that was the only part that we liked.
“They [initially] offered us a sand dune ride, a meal then £450 per couple. Then, when we went into a meeting due to being ignored, we were offered £1,000 a couple but we never received anything.
“The holiday was £2,800 a couple so not even half was offered. Plus, airport parking and hotel stay the night before was so expensive, so the holiday was £15,000 for the ten of us.”
“It is definitely the worst place I have stayed.
“I have done cheaper holidays over the years and lower star holidays but as we as a group have got older, we tend to book nicer holidays and this was definitely soul-destroying.”
Suzanne continued: “I arrange most holidays and felt awful that my sister in law’s birthday holiday was a disaster.
“We didn’t feel it was a relaxing break at all, we spent an hour most mornings with the rep who probably wanted to hide from us, but we weren’t the only people complaining.
“We didn’t realise the medical facilities were so bad on the island either and, as I had a bad accident a couple of years ago, with how slippery the floors were there – especially when it rained – I was worried all the time about falling again.
“I class myself as someone who is pretty fit but after smashing my hip and leg and having a new hip, I am very wary.
“We have only decided to follow this up to try and stop others experiencing this as families with children should not be using these pools and having to waste time and a lot of money on what’s meant to be a five-star dream holiday.”
TUI has been contacted for comment.
