Hi,

We have just returned from a week holiday to Crete to one of their 5* resorts - Sensatori crete.

I was wondering if anyone could give any advice/things I should expect from their complaints department.

I booked a package with Thomson in January for a week for two of us (myself and my wife) on a full board plus (basically full board with drinks at meal time) and a twin/double room. There are many other types of rooms but since all we needed was a nice clean room and there are plenty of pools we didnt feel the need to get a swim up room etc.

We arrived on the Thursday night at the resort at 9pm and were taken directly to the main restaurant before it closed for dinner. As soon as we finished we were taken to our room which was situated right at the back of the resort next to the road well away from the centre of the resort. After about 2 minutes of being in the room there was a strong smell of sewage. We immediately went back to the reception and spoke to the rep that showed us to the room and told her the problem with the smell. She said that nothing would be able to be done at the moment as alot of people were being checked in so she said to leave it with her.

We went back to our room and went to sleep.
My wife woke up several times over the night due to the smell, and I awoke due to noise of motobikes.
First thing in the morning we went to see the rep. We were told that apparently the smell was due to the air conditioning and they would send out an engineer. I also let her know about the road noise. We left the office and went by the pool for the day.

In the evening we went back to our room, the smell was still present so we got changed and went to see the rep again. I asked what was happening with the room and she said in a very laid back manner, "Nothing". She said the engineer should have been out, so we let her know the smell was still present and that didnt help the road noise. She said the manager wasnt there and would have to speak to him first thing in the morning, so we had another bad night.

After another bad night with my wife being woken up repeatedly starting at 2am and myself at 4.30am I went to see the rep and my wife went out to the sun loungers to get some sleep! I spoke to a different rep and she told me that is was very unlikely that we would be moved rooms as they wernt valid reasons to be moved and if we were going to be moved it would have to wait another day as the hotel was full and there was no free rooms. I said we were not sleeping in the room for another night but since there was no rooms could we move to another hotel. Her response was we would have to pay for the new hotel since it would be our choice! This did not seem reasonable since there was no other option than to sleep in a sewage smelling room. She said she would speak to the manager as soon as he got in and would put a note under our door, definatly.

Later on we went back to the room, no note and still a smell. We both had to take some sleeping tablets but ended waking up at 5am again.
So again in the morning went to see the rep, a different one this time, and he said there was a note in the book to say we would be moved. To cut a long story short we ended up moving that day to another room.
We could then relax for the rest of the holiday. Not once did we have an appology.
On the last day i decided to go swimming in the pool. I got in and swam the length of the pool underwater and opened up my eyes a couple of times, swam back and my eyes started burning. It seemed they had put too much chlorine in the pool. I washed it out immediatly and told reception to which there reply was they would send someone to look at it. They didnt. So for the rest of the day my eyes were bloodshot and hurt.

This isnt something I expect from a 5* hotel. It seemed like no one cared we had a problem. After looking on online it seems there are other people that have also had the problem of the sewage smells/road noise yet the hotel dont seem to be doing anything about it. I am 28 and my wife is 25 so I can only expect they thought it didnt matter to a 'young couple'. We booked the resort since we wanted a nice relaxing holiday, not a drink as much as you can and party all night holiday. Do these issues seem reasonable for complaint? The holiday cost about 1,600 (not including any extras like excursions). As I put previously we went for a 'standard' room because we didnt need any extra things like plunge pool or swim up room, but I wouldnt expect to have it smelling of sewage!

Any comments?

Thanks.