A horrified mum has told how her 12-year-old son ended up in hospital with a nasty E. Coli infection after visitors at a popular TUI hotel reported seeing ‘a poo’ bobbing in the swimming pool.
Lucy Price, a 46-year-old office manager from Torquay, Cornwall, and her lad Oliver were buzzing with excitement about their all-inclusive stay at the 4-star Julian Club Hotel in Marmaris, Turkey. But the holiday joy turned to disgust as she revealed, speaking to the Mirror, that their dream getaway was more like “a hot Pontins” after they coughed up her “entire bonus” on what she thought was a top-notch TUI holiday package.
Then, adding insult to injury, their pals at the same resort mentioned they’d spotted “a turd floating in one of the pools”. Soon enough, poor Oliver fell violently sick and after a dash to the local A&E, it was confirmed by medics he’d caught E.Coli and had a swollen liver due to the bug.
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Devastated Lucy stated: “E.Coli can kill, thankfully it wasn’t that bad but it was serious enough for them to do blood tests, ultrasounds and give him IV antibiotics. I have never been so happy to get home after a holiday. I was crying, my son was crying – it really was horrific.”
(Image: Lucy Price)
“When we got there it just looked like a hot Pontins. There were drunken people, smoking, draped all over the place. The hotel had crammed as many people in as possible and they were asking people to move to their sister hotel because it was so overcrowded. When we arrived we met up with some other guests that my friend had put me in touch with.
“They told me just after we had arrived that they had seen a turd floating around for quite a while before it was fished out by staff. It didn’t fill me confidence,” reports the Mirror.
The duo jetted off from Birmingham Airport on Wednesday August 7th, aiming to return the next Wednesday. However, when Oliver started feeling sick early Saturday morning, Lucy thought he had sunstroke.
(Image: Lucy Price)
But his vomiting persisted hourly throughout the night and he became seriously dehydrated.
Come 3am, she ran to fetch the hotel medic, who quickly checked him over and demanded immediate hospitalisation. Following a two-day spell in a Turkish infirmary, the mum reluctantly went back to the resort where she implored TUI reps to arrange an earlier journey home for them.
Lucy, a holidaymaker who shelled out nearly £1,500 for her getaway, was left fuming after TUI allegedly tried to hush her complaints with a late check-out and a measly £50 back in her pocket. Her son Oliver ended up with a nasty blood blister on his eye, which Turkish docs blamed on a bad reaction to meds they’d given him.
(Image: Lucy Price)
Lucy shared: “The room in the hospital was nicer than the room we had in the hotel and the staff were great, but we were having to speak to the nurses through Google Translate. All the medication instructions were in Turkish so it wasn’t clear what anything was. We reluctantly returned to the hotel and spoke to the Guest Relations Manager as The Hotel Manager was apparently unavailable.”
“She was very defensive and gave me the standard line about always carrying out water checks, food temperature checks and so my son was ‘definitely not ill because of the hotel’. When she realised I was not accepting this because we hadn’t left the hotel since we had arrived, her tack changed and she asked me ‘what can we do for you, do you want a late checkout? have a think about what you want’.”
“To me, this was a total acceptance of guilt. She just wanted the problem to go away. Then I spoke to the TUI Rep on resort who said all she could offer was £50.”
(Image: Lucy Price)
After touching down in the UK, Lucy filed a formal grievance with TUI and was informed she might have to wait for up to 28 days for a reply. She added: “Since dealing with TUI aftercare, I have had no apology, no checking how my son is doing and little to no communication.”
The Daily Star has reached out to TUI for comment.
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