Family blast ‘hotel from hell’ after ten-year-old is ‘almost impaled’ on glass sliding door and sandy beaches turn out to be covered in ‘eggy smelling’ piles of seaweed during £18,000 Mexican holiday
- The Johnson family, from Leeds, were left fuming after their son Ollie, 10, was ‘almost impaled’ on a sliding glass door
A British family who spent £18,000 on their holiday to a Mexican resort are fuming after their 10-year-old son was ‘almost impaled by a sliding glass door’ in his room.
They also claimed that they were lied to after the beach by their resort in Cancún, Mexico, was covered in decaying seaweed and ‘muddy’ water, despite these not being shown in the pictures of white sandy beaches laid out on travel agent TUI’s website.
The Johnson family, from Middleton in Leeds, took seven family members including grandparents Robert and Teresa with their son Gavin and his wife Emma and their children Ollie, 10, Luke, eight, plus Cousin Ashton, five, for 13 days to the region at the eastern tip of Mexico.
But grandmother Teresa said the family trip was ruined from the moment they arrived at the Azul Beach Resort Riviera Cancún, which is owned by Karisma Hotels & Resorts.
She told LeedsLive: ‘It was the hotel from hell. It was dreadful from day one.’
Ollie, 10, (pictured) was left bleeding from his head after he walked into a fragile glass door that did not have a warning sign near it
His grandmother, Teresa, said that the young lad was ‘hard as nails’ after suffering the injury
The family said the sliding door had no warning signs anywhere that would’ve been visible
Staff at the hotel told the Johnsons that one of their rooms had one fewer bed, meaning that Robert and Teresa would have to sleep in the same bed as their youngest grandchild.
The furious family said this was ‘unacceptable’ as they had already paid full price for the beds, and they were forced to wait for 30 minutes and get into a verbal confrontation with staff just to be given a room with the correct number of beds.
But even when they managed to get their correct rooms, they were hit with a ‘disgusting’ smell that they say was caused by decaying seaweed stacked ‘ten feet high’ on the guest’s beach, behind a wall close to the pool and their room.
They then discovered that the seaweed was being scraped off a separate beach reserved for guests who had paid a premium.
Teresa said: ‘The eggy smell was vile, absolutely disgusting. It was off-putting. We enjoy a beach holiday and we’ve never had this in Mexico before, you couldn’t even get down on the beach.
‘It was our five-year-old’s very first beach holiday, he’d never been on the sand before and still hasn’t now. We even brought his own bucket and spades from England.’
The Johnsons discovered to their dismay that seaweed from the premium beach was being piled on their beach
The Leeds family were furious that they were not told about the preferential treatment before they spent an eyewatering £18,000 on their holiday
The family were stuck in Cancun for 13 days after flying out to Mexico from the UK
The Mail has contacted the hotel’s owners, Karisma Hotels & Resorts, for comment
‘It absolutely disgusting, if we’d had been warned that we weren’t allowed down on the premium beach, we probably would have put up with that being dumped – but why should we? We were never told about it.
‘We know there is a problem on the island with seaweed, every other hotel we’ve been to there had the same problem and they’d buried it.
‘They stockpiled it, it was ten-foot high! It was decayed, it looked like it had been there for months. There were flies. Oh, it was awful!
‘The seaweed was that thick and piled high, we couldn’t even see any sand. Where was the white beaches and blue seas that they showed us on the pictures?’
But the worst was yet to come.
Teresa and Robert said they heard a blood-curdling scream come from the room as they were down as the pool.
‘It was horrific, I’ve seen nothing like it in my life. I was expecting little shards of glass like off a car windscreen – but it wasn’t. It was massive big three-foot shards of glass.
‘Luckily, he bounced off the door and fell backwards. If he’d have slipped or fallen forward, I’m kidding you not, he would have been dead. I just can’t help thinking “what if?”‘
Cancun is known for being a top holiday destination for traveller who flock to the region from across the world
They said the door had no visible warning signs, only ‘one tiny blue square’ on the fixed door which was ‘hidden’ behind a net curtain.
‘He walked into it headfirst. The head injuries took the blunt of the glass and that shattered it,’ she said.
‘Well it wasn’t even “shattered”. There were big shards of glass of about a metre long. He was covered in blood, all over his head, feet, stomach and hands. His mum couldn’t bear to look at him, she was just crying.
‘We had to pick glass out of the cuts and we couldn’t even put pressure on the cuts because of the glass that was in them. We still believe he’s got glass in his finger.
‘I had to keep my emotions under control when looking at him. If he sees anyone else crying, that’s when he gets emotional. He was still upset, he was crying and he really is hard as nails that kid.’
The Johnson family went to LeedsLive before reporting the issues to TUI. The travel group says they will be ‘following up’ with the family directly.
A spokesperson for TUI told LeedsLive: ‘We are very sorry to hear about Ms Johnson’s family holiday experience in Mexico.
‘We are working with our hotel partner to investigate some of the claims and we will be following up with the customer directly to update on the circumstances.
‘At TUI we aim to give our customers an exceptional experience and we’d like to reassure customers that health and safety is our highest priority.’
Hotel owners Karisma Hotels & Resorts has been approached for comment.
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