Dad Haydn Brown described the apartment they were given at Pontins Prestatyn Sands resort in Wales earlier this month as a "hovel" and said it was "worse than a detention centre."
The 38 year old said he was then moved to another apartment which was "just as filthy" and claims he even had to clean up dried faeces off the floor while the bathroom was strewn with what looked like used toilet paper.
Former firefighter Haydn booked the £100 last-minute stay at the resort with carer partner Kylie Cox, 29, and three children Eve Cox, 12, Noah Cox, 6, and one-year-old Amelia Cox, so they could visit a sick relative living nearby.
Haydn, from Manchester, said: “I’ve slept in hostels all over the world and I’ve stayed in some absolute hovels but this is by far the worst.
“I remember going to Pontins as a kid and it was always clean and tidy. It was actually a nice place to be. Not any more."
He continued: “The site itself was vile. There was a smell of weed blowing through the arcade and the lockers in the swimming pool area were broken. One lady was in tears saying she didn’t feel safe there.
“We were staying for two days to visit a sick relative nearby. I’d tried everywhere else but it was the only place that had spaces.
“The first room we went into was filthy, it was like a crack house. There were empty beer bottles, dirty nappies on
the floor, takeaway containers and old cigarette packets on the sofa.
“I poked the takeaway packets and a load of flies came out, the smell was awful. It was really upsetting, we didn’t need the stress what with visiting our poorly relative.
“It hadn’t been professionally cleaned. We didn’t even look in the other rooms, I just went straight to the manager and asked to be moved.”
After complaining, the family were given a different apartment but Haydn said from then on it was a "comedy of errors."
Haydn said: “We got to that room and there was ketchup on the kitchen floor and I could actually write my name in the dirt that was on the cooker.
“I went back to speak to the manager and told them the room was a mess and asked if they could send someone to clean it.
“They sent a man with a dustpan and brush and a mop and bucket but no cleaning products. I asked him where his cleaning products were and he said he was going to clean it with water.
“I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was disgraceful.
“We went to the restaurant and when we got back he’d made a half-hearted attempt with the dust pan and brush. "They didn’t clean any of the kitchen, the grill pan and kettle were rusty."
He added: “They told us they’d cleaned it but they didn’t. They cleaned the front windows and the sofa and picked up the loo roll but that was it, it was filthy.
“I’ve spent 20 years as a firefighter and I’ve come out of houses that have been on fire that have been in a better condition.”
He ended up buying his own cleaning equipment and spending four hours tackling the mess himself.
Haydn said: “There was even a piece of old poo on the floor of the bathroom, I think it had been there a long time.
I tried to scrub it up with baby wipes but it didn’t work.
“The bedrooms were horrible. I pulled one of the beds out and you could see it had not been cleaned for a long time, there was so much dust.
“I even bought my own bleach and actually spent the first four hours cleaning the apartment myself. It was an absolute dump, it looked like how I expect a detention centre would.”
Haydn complained numerous times but said he was only given a ‘solutions form’ and told he would have to send it in the post to request a refund.
Hayden said: “If they would have refunded me maybe we could have found another hotel room, but we had no choice but to stay there for two nights.
“There were so many people in the reception area crying and getting upset. I know it’s not a posh place but you expect it to be clean.
“None of the televisions worked. There were signs in reception saying they’re in the process of fixing [them] but you could tell those signs had been there a long time."
Haydn said he felt sorry for the ‘lovely’ staff who had to deal with many complaints that were lodged during his family’s stay.
Haydn said: “The evening entertainment was okay for the kids and the staff were really nice.
“I can’t fault the staff, they were lovely especially as they had to deal with some very irate people."
Sun Online Travel have contacted Pontins for a comment.
Source: Read Full Article