The hotel Pinamar located in Megrot De Mar about 50 to 60 K/Ms north of Barcelona on the Costa Del Sol is one of the saddest places I have ever visited. In fact it was so bad we re-named it Scut De Mar.

On arrival we joined a queue stretching out of the reception area and beyond the perimeter of the entrance to the Hotel. After waiting in the queue for between 1 & 2 hours we were given a key to our room. The room was the tiniest I have ever seen for 3 people to share. It measured about 10ft x 12ft having the benefit of a 6ft x 2ft balcony just enough room to place 2 chairs but no table. The balcony enjoyed the benefit of views overlooking what appeared to be a scrap yard with the strong odour of rubbish wafting through the air.

This being the first holiday we were having with our 10 year old grandson we knew action would need to be taken to get out of this holiday from hell.

We visited the reception area asking to be moved to another more suitable room and were asked to come back in about 1 hour. As we were hungry we decided to try out the restaurant. The wine served was a disgrace and tasted more like cooking wine. The food was greasy and half cooked using reconstituted meat in some of the burgers and the experience left us with a new objective and that was to leave the Hotel as quickly as possible.

Upon returning to the reception area we were told an hour had not expired yet and to come back in half an hour. Clearly we were being fobbed off and so we decided to wait at the reception area for the long queue of other customers presenting their complaints to diminish.

Eventually we saw the manager and explained politely but firmly our desire to upgrade to another Hotel in the group. The manager was sympathetic and contacted another hotel located about 5km away called the Pinada Palace. The manager ordered a taxi and suggested we go and have a look.

Upon seeing the Pinada Palace we did not hesitate to switch even though it cost us around 100 Euros to upgrade from the disgraceful 3 plus star to the lovely by comparison 4 star.

We had lost almost the best part of 1 day in the whole switching process and feel we should receive compensation for the stress and loss of the day plus the financial reimbursements.