oh dear karen!
Sorry you are glad to be back!

Good to see you back Karen, sorry to hear you had a rough time after all the hassle you had before you went. Get a good nights sleep and tell us all about it tomorrow!
Ellie

read your comments on tripadvisor. What a shame, hope you're feeling well soon
Regards Rachael

Thanks for the wishes...we aren't feeling too bad.,..certainly bit better, but as with everything am sure it will take time.... but I also know that I could have stayed in this country and been poorly, so wouldn't let an illness mar the good times we had on our holiday...its a bit of a pain as we tried to much to avoid being in this situation and I do feel let down by thomson and indeed the rep who just couldn't have cared less.... but the hotel put in preventative measures as soon as the sickness started coming back out, maybe if they left them in place then the repeating illness wouldn't occur. I know its the bronchitis that Im going to have trouble shifting more than anything tho....

The only person who is laughing is the doctor...all the way to the bank...he even drove some patients to the cash point so they could pay him when their credit card wouldn't work....nice when you aren't well....lol

Karen x

Hi Karen,

Sorry to here about your troubles, in hindsight are you glad that you went, or would you have rather have had a refund from Thomson and stayed at home?

Hope you are all feeling better soon, I'm sure when you look at your photos of the first part of your holiday, this will lift your spirits?

Where next for your holiday?

Hi Coconutpalm

I have mixed feelings about the holiday, and did enjoy the good days and trips, but overshadowed a bit by the illness of course. Never nice being ill but being away from home, when i was at my worst I then had to try and look after bradley who was so violently sick...not the easiest...I had such a high temperature I didnt even know who I was lol

we enjoyed the good days, but I wouldn't choose to go back to the resort, doubtful I would go back to the Dom Rep, and with the illness I would have in hindsight have been happier changing the holiday which I had wanted to do in the first place...

Still...hindsight is wonderful....and as for the next holiday....well...dont know lol., this one cost me so much money and now I have to do battle to get the insurance money for the Doctors fees....but little one starts school in september so it becomes a different ball game. Will head back to Greece I think....have always had a fab holiday, fab weather, hotels etc, for a 1/3 of the price of this holiday...

What about you? How was it for you?

Karen x

Hi Karen,

Did you have to try that Pepto stuff...? and if so did it do any good? I did notice quite ominously that they sold it in their reception shops..mmmm..

We all had a great time and as we had been to the Mambo only 9months prior we could hit the ground running..LOL as it usually takes a few days to get use to place.

Would we go back to the Riu's? yes if the price was right but not for a while. We rushed in a 2nd holiday purely because of price, infants travel free and 12 and under are charged child prices, as soon as our baby is classed as a child we would need 2 rooms (massive difference in price and infact they would charge us a supplement which would been we would be paying for 4 adults and one child, regardless of childrens age)

Hi Coconutpalm

I took the pepto with me - in fact I took every medicine imagineable for sickness etc but didnt take anything with me that would have helped with the bronchitis that I got...but you are right they do sell it at the shops etc lol

Pepto would normally work for me if I felt sick etc at home, but it didnt in this instance, maybe as a result of all the meds the doctor gave me for the bronchitis I dont know. We spent nearly 3 hours in the doctors on nebulisers and then 4 lots of IV drugs followed by 3 lots of medicine and two lots of tablets. Hard to know what they were all for, altho he had given me something to stop the nausea and the extreme high fever that hit me. When it first hit me I didnt know where I was, I walked down to the Mambo with the little one cos he wanted to go to their kids club, but I dont remember even walking back to the room.

I know what you mean about prices...it does make a big difference. i have to pay adult price for the little one when we travel alone, so for us it was expensive as all he drank was water and he lived on cheese sandwiches for the 2 weeks...lol So in that way all inclusive works out expensive. I don't think I would choose to go back to the resorts, and doubtful for the DR. The people were the most wonderful I have met on a holiday though. But I think I will stick to self catering greece etc as I can have 3 holidays a year for the price this one cost me...not including the doctors bills lol

I am going to sit and write a review later in the week....

Karen x

Hi Karen,

Regarding your doctors bills, what would of happened if you had no money or credit cards with you? Could you have said that you had no means of paying but contact your travel insurance firm for authorisation to pay the bills direct? I'd always be reluctant to hand over money then try and claim later it can be a nightmare. From experinence a member of our family was hospitalised in Europe some years ago, costs were getting big Ambulance,scans private ward, transport to airport wheel chair etc. I just stuck to my guns, they took your passport of you when you entered the hospital (I thought this isn't good) when we left we just had to pay the policy excess to the hospital and sign a form (who knows what procedures we were signing for there was no translation) and they got payed direct. So all that only cost £50.00 excess, they then gave your passport back. All ended well though.

Karen,I went to Juan Dolio a few years ago and my friend got sick and on returning home she got the total cost of her holiday and her husbands from Thomson even though he wasnt sick.PM me if you want to know more details and how she got her money back.Jay

Karen,

Sorry to hear of your illness, was it related to the outbreaks reported recently?

Who did you fly with. was it TUI/Britannia? If so, what was the premium section like (vested interest)?

Are you over your ordeal? Can you still look back on some of the good parts of the break, or was it completely ruined?

Hope it wasn't.

Andy

HI bw66460,

Yes the illness was related to the outbreaks reported. It seems to be something that they just cannot shift. When we arrived in he first couple of days they still had precautions in place for the spread of infection, however these were taken away. It took about a week for the illness to start sweeping through the resorts again and it wasn't nice. My main illnes though was bronchitis which I caught from the plane going over, if you walked round the resort and started coughing people asked if you were on the Britannia flight from Gatwick...there were so many people affected. Then on top of this I got the sickness thing that my little boy also got. We are still feeling the effects of it. Yes it does leave a bit of a bad memory of the holiday, but we did have some good times before we got ill.

We flew with TUI/Britannia on one of their 767-300 planes, 2-4-2 configuration of seats. We walked through the premium section to get to our seats, and I cant honestly say I noticed a great difference. During flight the section had the curtains closed so dont know...lol

We didnt find the leg room too bad in the normal section but we didnt have the best of flights...no entertainment on the way out, and turblulence was bad on the way back so we lost additional drinks service...

When/where do you go?

Hope you have a good time

Karen x

Karen,

I go to the RUI Merengue in May / June. Not too far away now. I did write to the Merengue about several things, one of them being the health and safety of their guests. A manager wrote back detailing the steps her hotel had taken, and it sounded pretty good.

Hope your recovery continues,

Andy

Hi Andy,

The hotels did put measures into place for the prevention of the spread of infection - the main things that they did was:
- replaced the washable plastic cups at the bars with total disposable ones
- replaced glasses in the rooms with disposable cups
- stopped people from cutting their own bread in the dining rooms (all bread was pre cut)
- in the snack bars they put cutlery on the tables rather than allowing you to help yourself (which was the norm)
- supplied hand sanitiser in the toilets
- placed a member of staff outside the toilets to put hand sanitiser on everyone who left the toilet
- they closed the beach toilets

it would seem that they should have left these precautions in place which would more than likely have avoided the illness that reared its head. The management at the Bachata were quite good, we had to get extra sheets on several occasions and someone bought them out in the early hours of the morning and were all prepared to remake our beds. The only person I feel who did not deal with it very well was in fact the tour rep, who wasn't very interested.

I hope you will have a good time, despite the illness we did manage to have some good days before we became ill. IT goes on even now which is not nice and we are awaiting test results etc. But we also know this could happen anywhere...just as much chance of being ill at home as away. But it does upset me when we tried so hard for so long to be able to change our trip t avoid the illness situation and to reduce that risk.

Hope you enjoy your holiday...facilities at the hotel are great and the staff are great too!

Karen x