In February, we responded to a promotion by travel firm Holiday Gems for an all-inclusive package to the Bluesea Callao Garden hotel in Tenerife. We paid £850 for a week’s stay in June. On arrival at 9pm, we found the hotel closed. I rang Holiday Gems on its emergency number and was advised to find another hotel that could take us and wait for them to get in touch the following day.
We are both in our 70s and my wife has recently recovered from major surgery. We had to haul our luggage to the nearest hotel which was full, but the receptionist phoned around and found us a room in town at €104 a night. The next morning there was no word from Holiday Gems. The emergency number was closed so I emailed to say that unless we heard by midday, when we had to check out of our room, we would book it for the remaining six nights. It wasn’t until 12.30pm, when we’d paid another €537 for the week, that Holiday Gems told us we were expected at a hotel in Santiago, 16 miles away.
