A couple, who booked a budget romantic holiday in Spain for their delayed honeymoon after getting married during the pandemic, ended up buying cleaning products to scrub their “filthy bathroom” and were given a plastic cup for all their drinks including their morning cup of coffee, which they washed with shower gel. Magdalena Brylinska-Beaton, 36, and her husband Andrew Beaton, 37, were looking forward to their first couples holiday for eight years having not been able to go on their honeymoon after tying the knot in August 2021, but the romantic dream at the Sun Club El Dorado in Majorca turned into a “holiday nightmare”.
The couple, from Inverness, who booked the two star budget holiday through loveholidays, decided to change hotels five days early and compared their experience with being on TV’s I’m A Celebrity. Magdalena, a support worker and health care assistant, said she has “learned her lesson”, that booking cheap is a “disaster” and will never go below four stars again, even if it proves expensive.
“It was supposed to be our mini honeymoon because we got married in Covid times so we never went anywhere,” Magdalena said. “We were really looking forward to it but it was a holiday nightmare.
“We’ve basically flushed our money down the toilet.” Magdalena spent several days scouring the internet for an affordable beach holiday before choosing the Sun Club El Dorado in the “picturesque” Puig de Ross resort, Majorca.
“There were bad reviews but there were also good reviews saying ‘Not as bad as people say’,” she said. “All together, we paid around £860 including the transfer and extra luggage.
“It did say that the hotel was basic, but that wasn’t a problem for us provided that it’s clean, because we wanted to go out and explore anyway.” There were warning signs from the moment the couple touched down in Palma on May 15, but exhausted from the day’s travelling, they did not take heed.
Magdalena said: “We went up to the transfer desk and the driver asked where we were staying. He said ‘Oh Sun Club Eldorado’ and then started laughing.
“That was the first thing I should have picked up on.” Next, they were handed two brightly coloured plastic cups at check-in and told they were to present these at the bar whenever they wanted to order a drink.
She said: “The first night I went to the bar and asked for a sangria and the guy says, ‘Where is your cup? You must have been given cups at arrival?’
“I was like, you have got to be joking me. They expected us to use the same cups for the coffee the next morning – it was the weirdest thing.
“We were supposed to use it for our alcohol, our tea, juice, coke, sprite, whatever, everything was poured in the same cup. They weren’t even washed properly, I had to wash them myself using my own shower gel.”
But it was not until Magdalena opened the bathroom door that she realised just how dirty it was. “I opened the door and thought, oh wow,” she said.
“The bathroom was absolutely disgusting – just filthy.” She called reception to complain, but when nobody had turned up by noon the next day, Magdalena decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I went out and bought some bleach, sanitary wipes and anti-bacterial gel,” she said. “I cleaned the shower and black stains in the bathroom but left the floor, because it’s not really my job.
“When someone finally came, he pulled a handful of black hair out of the shower and threw it in my bathroom bin.” Magdalena said she tried contacting loveholidays after three days to see whether they could be moved to a new bungalow but “nothing happened”.
“I tried to get through to them, but impossible, it’s telling me, ‘Please contact our agent online’. I don’t know where they got pictures of the horses or the new bungalows because our one needed to be refurbished.”
The pair began looking at flights home but they were too expensive, so they went hunting for another hotel in Palma, the island’s capital. “When we arrived in Palma, I thought I had been let out of the I’m A Celebrity camp,” said Magdalena.
“We sat in a coffee shop holding an actual coffee cup in our hands. This was the point where I couldn’t take it anymore and I said to my husband, Andrew, I think the celebrities in the jungle have better conditions than us.”
One of the main reasons Magdalena decided to book the hotel was because there appeared to be plenty of outdoor activities. “I looked at the pictures online and saw that we could go horse riding, pictures of people playing tennis, crazy golf and the possibility of renting quad bikes,” she said.
But when they went looking for the horses, they were told the animals had been sold in October. “I know it’s only two stars but nothing that they were advertising is there anymore,” she said.
Finally the couple found an affordable alternative, hotel Tal El Arenal, and packed their bags. “We managed to get out on Saturday morning,” she said.
“The hotel cost £425 for five nights. I went to reception and asked for a refund for the five unused nights but the only thing they gave us back was 11 euros tourist tax money.”
Magdalena said the rest of their holiday was “really good” with “great food” and “normal cups”. “What I’ve learned is that times are changing, if you book cheap it’s a disaster,” she said.
“I will not book a holiday with loveholidays for the rest of my life.”
A spokesperson for the company told PA Real Life: “We’re sorry Magdalena Brylinska-Beaton’s experience did not live up to her expectations on this occasion. While we always encourage customers to raise any issues with our dedicated in-resort team at the time so we can address them, we’ve reviewed her case and issued a refund for the days she did not use the hotel.”
A spokesperson on behalf of the hotel told PA Real Life: “Since Covid, customers’ expectations are very high. It’s normal for a website to advertise the best photos of a hotel.
“They have to take into account the value for money and this hotel is one of the cheapest.”
