hi,
you say it was a holiday from hell, but without some other details we are not really in a position to offer any concrete advice.
what actually went wrong?
did you complain in resort?
did you fill in complaint form in resort?
did the local rep try and resolve your problems?
as virgin have offered you money this quickly, after only 3 months, i would assume you have a reasonable case for compensation, but without further details we cannot offer much in the way of advice.

Hi,

Well were do I start it went wrong from the start, I booked the holiday as group of 16, 4 famillies, we are claiming separately as we had different problems arising in different apartments. The flight out we had limited inflight entertainment, 8 hrs 2 children. On arriving at the resort my room it seemed ok. Then it stated Kids club not open so we complained then they opened it. In the room no hot water, coffeemaker broke, patio window when closed opened the other end these issues never resolved. Two of the other famillies rooms flooded one was from the toilet- sewerage with 6 month baby. Virgin offered one of the famillies another resort, but said if we all wanted to move the 3 other famillies would have to pay £1000.00 upgrade each as there were no other resorts of the same star rating available, we went as group and wanted to stay as a group, and we cannot afford £1000.

We had gone on holiday for my fathers retirement as he said he would not be able to afford a nice holiday on his pension so one last holiday for the family to be together. And do you know the ironic thing is the week we got back my mum was diagonased with cancer - LIFE.

Anyway my daughter stepped on a sea urchin, asked for a first aid kit to remove was told none on resort. So had a local removing the urchin on the beach. Games room all wires hanging down, graffetti written in excrement.

Was all inclusive the food was cold, no kids options available. Ok the resort did try to accommadate us but we complained all day, every day. Then it rained non stop for 2 days, they can't control the weather I know. Brochure stated 3 bars, ok, one bar with shelter only open at meal times, one bar never open, one bar outside with no shelter open all day. Try and sit there with two children in a tropical rainstorm under a parasol. So we were stuck in our room - no coffemaker or drink making facillities. Asked for alternative bar with shelter to be opened during none meal times told "no". At this point tried to contact Virgin Rep who/or someone was contactable 24hrs a day. Called 3.30pm left voicemail, no contact so emailed Virgin UK 7.00pm Antigua Time so still only 3.00pm over here, no contact.

No contact made by virgin. Next morning 9.00am called virgin rep told her wanted to see her or someone as the problems were arising all time. She told me that it was her day off and was no way coming to the resort, I told her to send someone else, she put the phone down on me.

By this time I was livid, I contacted Virgin management office they told me they were looking for alternative accomadation for our group, again they came up with there was only a higher grade accommadation available so would have to pay £1000 per family. I asked if there were any available flights home. The rep came the next day, she sat us down and was just as rude and up herself. She had a bee in her bonnet now and told us they were not moving us without payment. What could I do I was stuck. My husband told me to wait to we got home. I just could not enjoy the holiday.

Problems just kept arising, I had no energy to complain as it fell on deaf ears. Public restrooms flooded or not cleaned. Pathways all uneven. Bar staff became unfriendly, sucking their teeth at us, saying they had run out of drinks, when quite obviously they were serving other guests the same drink. It just seems by the end of it we were a burden to the hotel and Virgin. On the flight home as you can imagine I could not wait to get on. I ordered childrens meals at home, online and with the virgin rep. No childrens meals for my kids. I asked the attendant she told me she was too busy serving drinks to Premium Economy to deal with us at that moment and then I just sat there and cried my eyes out. I had enough. 5 years savings, years leave taken from work, booked a year in advance to end up like that. We choose virgin because we thought if any of these problems arised they were sorted out straight away without fuss how wrong was I. It ends there for me, but the other famillies encountered more flooded rooms, ant nests - they had to spray theirselves, abusive staff. I dont know whether I would be entitled to my full refund but Virgin have just sent a reply to me saying "as you would have had some benefit of the facilities and services on offer" HA HA HA. I hope she never has to go on a virgin holiday.

Sorry we did fill in on resort complaint forms, as I say the Rep was not helpful at all. The virgin manager called us from UK, just kept saying the resort will resolve your problems, what do you want us to do. I told him I wanted to be moved he told me we had to pay £1000.00, I told him we would not. DEADLOCK

It does sound dreadful, I am so sorry and also about the sad news re your mother.

If they have already offered £300 in cash then I say hold out for more. This is an admission of liability at least in part - think of it like in bargaining for a purchase - that's their starting point.

If you read some of the other threads you will frequently find a telephone number to contact a lady named Ros Fernihough who is a travel lawyer and she offers advice for free. I am sure that is your best course of action at the moment.

Don't try and do this alone, as stated if an offer has been made there must be a problem.
Have a look here http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=57959 and ring Ros for free impartial advice.

Robby

An important detail is not clear - were all 16 of you booked on the same invoice (and therefore you had a single contract for 16 people)? Or did each family have their own booking forms and invoices - so the people offered the free move were on a different contract to those Virgin wanted to charge more for?

By offering the free move they have basically admitted that they had failed to properly provide the contracted services, if you had a single contract they should have moved everyone. But if there were four contracts they are only admitting breaching one of them, and that makes it much harder for you.

If you had one contract and have anything in writing from Virgin which confirms the free move was offered to some, this may be sorted with a suitably worded letter from a solicitor or at least filing of court papers. But if there were 4 contracts it's going to be messy and could well involve a full court hearing, which will drag it out for over 6 months.

Whatever, do not accept anything from them until you are happy. If they send you a cheque do not cash it thinking you can count it as a down payment on a full claim.

We had holiday from hell last year with First choice and complained in resort, but we took lots of photos of all problems and demanded a meeting with a post destination manager at FC HQ. It meant travelling to Manchester but was worth it as we ened up with full refund in vouchers, so we have got a free hol to Turkey this year. We also got compo and the manager personally took our new booking and gave us any free extras that she could.

Don't give up and I'm sure you'll get what you deserve. Is there a Virgin HQ any where near you?

Jo

Also, is what you put down above the same as what you sent to Virgin?

You have some severe issues that deserve recompense, however I think that you need to seperate the major issues out, and focus on them. You have a very strong, compelling argument, but please make sure it comes across the strongest you can as it's mixed with emotions and issues out of Virgin's hands.

Start by putting all the problems in simple bullet points, analyse what you were most unhappy about and maybe try putting a figure next to each individual problem that arose. You won't get anywhere mentioning the 'weather', but 'excrement grafitti in kids club' - I hope you took photos as Virgin really need to deal with the issues here.

Hi Nagger,

Travelling Sam makes a good point. Seperate the emotion and the opinion. Write again, reiterating your points one by one in a clear and concise manner. I also agree with Steve, leave out the rain. Virgin website stated that the average rainfall in January is 12.2cms.

Perhaps a call to Ros is in order. I believe she is very good and has helped many a member.

Best of luck,
Louise

Sorry, I mean I agree with Sam about the weather. Doh, I had a blonde moment. Long day.

It's all well and good leaving out sentimental issues like the rain/bad weather, but everywhere we have been in the Caribbean caters for the rain with indoor facilities or entertainment and we have never paid more than £850 each for 2 weeks A/I.

So it may be worth citing the simple fact that the hotel did not cater for the bad weather even though it is to be expected. I don't think it is reasonable to expect guests to have to go to an outside uncovered bar for refreshments in rain, although it may help disguise watered down drinks!

We had a full day of rain on the last holiday but the hotel staff rustled up a football table and organised a family tournament, ran mexican bingo sessions, karaoke etc.

It unfortunately goes to show that there is no substitute for research before booking, but in the interests of everyone else who visits the site looking for info, please name and shame by an up-to-date quick hotel review stating the info about the facilities.

Your best bet is to go straight to Ros as mentioned above, as she will soon be able to tell you whether you have a strong enough case, what sort of compensation you can aim for and if necessary take it on for all of you.

I too have been the the Halcyon rex in Antigua and it had rained there whilst we were there. It is true that they dont cater for anyone when it rains. Just the beach bar open with no shelter. With kids to keep happy this is a difficult situation to be in. We werent too bad as the rain only lasted an hour or so but that was bad enough. I did like the rex Halcyon but still agree with the points youve made.

Thanks everyone for your advice, We were booked as one group 16 of us on one invoice. We dont have anything in writing from virgin re: moving just one family.

But I dont know how to do this, through arbitration or by solicitor. Will I get more compensation if I use a solicitor. My husband is saying just accept £300.00, but it is the principle more than the money that Virgin will not accept that they completely ruined my holiday with their rudeness and being unconsiderate. Maybe if they had been a bit more compansionate in Antigua I would not be even bothering with this.

Anyway should we be claiming as separate famillies then. My mum and dad are not looking for any money back obviously dealing with her illness is more important, and they never filled a complaints form in Antigua. But other 3 famillies filled in complaints form in Antigua and have wrote to Virgin seperately.

Thanks

Im no expert but would say 1 booking = 1 claim .Please please dont take that £300 offer . They are already admiting liabilty by offering you this and are hoping you will take it . Please phone Ros . She or her assistant will give you free advice as to where you stand and what you are likely to get back.

If you only have one invoice the lead name on it should make one claim on behalf of everyone. If anyone else does it could be rejected, or they could just consider the first they receive and reject all the others.

Phone your local trading standards office (in the Phone book under County/Metro/Unitary Council depending where you live) and talk to them. Make sure they get the message that there is only one invoice but Virgin offered to move part of the group. Some offices are better staffed and funded than others, if yours sounds out of their depth phone the one that covers the Virgin registered office shown on the invoice.

Hi, my sister told me about this site and has posted under the Virgin offer compensation. We travelled to Antigua with Virgin as one booking with 8 adults and 8 children and had to complain on numerous occasions. They have since offered me £300 and a free room upgrade if we was to stay at another Rex resort. My reasons were a bit different from my sisters with I have detailed below. By the way, this was the actual complaint I wrote to Virgin, so I appoligize for the length now. lol. This was what I wrote to Virgin.

* On the outbound flight the in-flight entertainment was not working properly, so now I had 3 children 8 hours flight with no entertainment. One of my children never got a children's meal, and on our return flight 3 children's meals were ordered online and at the resort but never received. When asking the cabin crew, the reply was we have run out of children's meals, it was only after speaking to another member of the crew they explained the meal had not been allocated and an apology was received.

* On arriving at the resort, went for dinner, and it was a buffet style restaurant. The food was not heated properly. And this was nearly the same every night of our stay. They meats were under cooked. There was not a lot of option with hardly a vegetarian dish. There was no options for the children - no kids menu. If you tried to make any complaint you were confronted with teeth sucking staff. The restrooms were unusable, flooded, well used toilets with excrement in every single one. Smelt like pure sewerage, as if they had not been cleaned in weeks.

* On the actual room we had no hot water, so showered daily in cold water. After showering we was left with a flooded bathroom and hall. There had been a new bath installed incorrectly at a slant so the water ran straight onto the bath and straight onto the floor, after complaining we never heard anything so two days later I spoke to the manager -- name removed --, who said he would try and find us alternative accommodation, but because of the problems in Kenya they were fully booked along with the rest of Antigua so it would be hard. Later that day he showed me and my sister in law two alternative rooms that in our view were unusable, they both had mould, mildew and rust in the bathroom and bath and there was no tap on one of the mixers and no plugs in the sink, so obviously I point blankly refused them. I then asked -- name removed -- what happened next and he replied that there was nothing more they could do because they were fully booked. I then contacted -- name removed -- our Virgin rep and expressed to her how unhappy and how unsafe the room was especially with young children- they could have easily slipped on the wet floor and have had a serious injury, she had no response. I asked her if we could be moved to alternative accommodation and she also went on about how the whole island is full because of the problems in Kenya and said she would find it difficult. She later came back with the only option of us moving to the St James Resort but at the cost of over £1000 pound per family because it was a higher standard of accommodation. I told her I that this was not expectable and it was not our fault that there was no other hotel available. She said that she might be able waiver the cost of our room but not the rest of the family in our booking so we would have to split the family up. This was totally out of the question because we went away to celebrate my fathers retirement, we booked together and wanted to stay together. I felt that if Virgin and The Rex Resort could not accommodated our booking contract sufficiently then we should have been moved to adequate accommodation and no extra charge but this was not the case. I asked to speak to a manager to try to get our problem resolved. I eventually was contacted by a man called -- name removed --, who said that he was sure that the Rex could give us alternative accommodation in there hotel and said he would speak to the manager -- name removed -- and work something out. He also said that the hotel had told him that because of the inconvenience caused the hotel would allow us to eat at the Warri Pier every night at no extra charge and we had received a free boat excursion as compensation. This information was incorrect, six out of the sixteen of family received a 15 minute speed boat ride - not an excursion as informed, and after speaking to -- name removed -- he said that only the elderly couple were allowed to eat at the Warri Pier- not the entire party as said. Somewhere lies were being told back to the Virgin staff that everything was being done to make our stay more enjoyable but clearly this was not the case. Granted -- name removed -- did come to see us that evening and assured us as soon as a room comes free he would let us have it, so we continued to keep mopping up wet floors for the first week of our holiday. I wouldn't call this a holiday we spent the whole week cleaning the bathroom floor, which completely ruined our holiday. We was offered a new room on the 22nd January - 6 days into our holiday. When we was shown our room the painters were walking out as we was walking in, the painters had used both gloss and impulsion, the room stank of fumes which was dangerous for our children to sleep in. We told -- name removed -- this and he said that he would air the room so it would be ready for us to use the next day ( Wednesday 23rd January). Eventually we moved on the 23rd which took us the whole day to repack and unpack our luggage- which wasted another day of our holiday, the bath was full of paint that had been dripped off the ceiling onto the bath which didn't come off, so we now couldn't bath the young children, how was I expected to wash my children in a bath with dangerous paint drips that could have cut my children's bare skin, the tiles on the floor were cracked and chipped with a build up of dirt, again we had to complain and a maintenance man came and washed the bath in meths which did not resolve the problem, only added more problems by making more fumes in the room. That evening we took another shower and the same thing happened except on a worse scale, this time the water was running into the front room. The water was rarely clean or fresh and came out of the taps brown, it was disgusting. By this time I had had enough, I couldn't understand how we was put into another room with the same problem - I would have thought they would have checked this before they had let us move all of our clothes, I just couldn't take any more. I went to the reception and asked to see -- name removed --, he came to our room about half an hour later. He tried to get us alternative accommodation but by this time I was not prepared to waste anymore of our holiday by moving. He said he would send the maid to clean the room and make it safe but it took 5 hours before anyone turned up, so the room was unusable, again we was left with dangerous conditions for the children to live in. Later that day -- name removed -- gave us another room key so we could at least shower and clean, the bathroom in this room was not much better, it also had a mixer tap that fell off in your hand when turning it and also had no plug, so now we was living in one room but having to walk between rooms to shower, again this was totally unacceptable and not what I would call a " great holiday ". The following day we came back from the beach to find we had other tenants in our room, " ANTS", there must have been a few hundred of them. Out in Antigua the ants bite, so again we found ourselves in dangerous conditions in case the children went near the nest, by this time not only did we have to make sure the children didn't enter the bathroom at certain times, there was now limits to where they could rest in the living area. I contacted reception who said that because the onsite shop was shut there was nothing they could do until someone went to St Johns the following day. Two days later -- name removed -- handed me a can of ant repellent and told me to spay the effected area daily and to make sure the children was not in the room for half an hour after. I can't believe I was handed this to do, surely this is the hotels responsibility, not the holiday maker! but by this time nothing surprised me from this hotel.

* A kids club was advertised, but was not opened until the 5th day into our holiday, and that was only because we had complained. This was also closed at weekends.

* Games room - was locked so unaccessible. Asked at reception they handed us a key. There a table tennis table, but no balls. A flouresent light dangling from the ceiling by a piece of wire. Graffiti written in excrement on the walls, peeling paint. Broken fuse box with bare wires accessible by the children.

* Unfortunately 2 days were very wet weather. The only accessible bar in the day was a outside bar. The rain were tropical downpours, to access the bar there were no covered walkways. If we wanted a drink we had to go to the outside bar. There was a limited covered area around the bar for about 10 people, but did not stop you from getting wet, there were patio chairs and tables in the open air. As you can imagine there was no way of sitting with the children in these downpours when wanting a drink. My husband asked for them to open a more accessible bar while there was rain as it was set for the next two days. They refused flatly, so we were confined to our apartment, getting soaked just to get a cup of tea or refreshment. There was no program on offer when the weather was raining. The response from the hotel and virgin was it doesn't rain much in Antigua, so you will find that the hotel will not provide any wet program arrangements. Well I was only there 14 days, and it rained for two of them!

* As regards to the bar, on getting drinks, you were greeted with the bar staff pointing there finger at you, teeth sucking, no verbal contact, I gathered they were wanting to know what I wanted to drink. I ordered a specific drink, then when returning to get another, I was told they did not do this type of drink, odd, I must of dreamt I drank it. The lager, spirits of sorts, ran out nearly every day. My husband drank lager, that ran out so they gave out bottles of lager until replaced. But the staff seemed to choose if they had given you two bottles they no longer provided any lager to you until the draught was replaced. The bar was short staffed, and staff moral seemed low taking it out on guests. In the brochure it offers three bars, this is not the case, one of the bars was never opened the entire stay of our holiday and when we asked why this was, the staff said they had no drink facilities in this bar (no drinks or glasses), so Virgin are offering something that is not on offer.

* Pathways in the hotel were in need of repair, cracked tiles, raised concrete, electrical wiring on show, pipes unburied, drain covers not level with the ground. My daughter constantly stubbed and cut her toes on unlevelled concrete and tiles. When I asked the staff for a plaster there were no first aid facilities - not even a first aid box.

Sorry I know its long, but this is what my family and I had to put up with. Thank you for taking the time to read my complaint. If anyone could advise me whether I should take it further, I would be grateful for the advice. I have tried to contact Ros who was advised to us through this site to give impartial , but have had no reply, does anyone know if she only works on certain days?

Thanks again.

Last post merged to existing topic so to keep the discussion in one place.

MarkJ HT Mod

First question: did you complete a complaint form in the resort?

Mark

Yes I completed the complaint form in Antigua and got it signed by the rep and the resort manager. I have since written one complaint, where they offered £300 in Virgin vouchers and the room upgrade with the Rex resorts. Since then I have told them that I am not happy with that so I am now waiting for the reply. But my sister has recently been offered £300 in cash so I am assuming that they will offer me the same.