Children left in tears when birthday treat became trip from hell

Family’s £3.5k dream Disney holiday to Florida turns into nightmare after series of errors .

 A holiday of a lifetime booked to celebrate a 60^th birthday turned into the holiday from hell for one family. The nightmare began when holiday operators, Thomas Cook, contacted them to say that instead of flying from Gatwick, they would be flying from Manchester.  That was changed back to Gatwick about a month before they were due to fly on April 20. They arrived at the airport to be told their flights were OK, but there had not been an allocation for their baggage, and they had to pay extra to put their luggage on the plane. The party spent around an hour disputing their case before they were let on board without paying extra, Wales Online reports.

After an exhausting eight-hour flight the party of 16 arrived at their Rosen Inn International hotel in Orlando to be told their rooms were not booked out to them for another two days. The hotel allowed them to stay overnight if they paid £100 each per family for a room, which they were hoping to redeem if they could sort the situation out with the holiday reps before 10am the next day. There were just two three-quarter sized beds in the shared room, meaning they had to squeeze into beds together.

The family group had originally booked self-catering facilities but the replacement hotel rooms had minimal facilities, which meant they had to eat out more often. They were also unhappy with the overall standards of the room.

But the final straw was when the families were coming to the end of their holidays and found out they should have had vouchers to cover their breakfast, but these hadn’t been provided and they had paid for their breakfasts.

Mr Williams said: “We just want some answers. It was disgusting. My wife, my children, my mother-in-law – all they did was cry. It was horrible. That night at reception, not knowing if we had a room, the kids were really scared.”

A Thomas Cook spokeswoman said: “We’re very sorry for the inconvenience caused to the family at the beginning of their trip to Florida. We acknowledge we made a mistake with the hotel booking and we’re investigating the issues raised. In resort, we did everything we could to try to put things right, including offering meal vouchers. We have contacted the family and we hope to be able to resolve this.”