A couple who claimed they were given "a dogbox" of a hotel room on their sun holiday were transferred to another with human excrement and blood on the mattress, a court heard yesterday.
Mr Niall Connolly and his girlfriend, Ms Paula McGreal, from Portmarnock, were awarded £600 after their two-week break in Santa Ponsa on the Costa De Sol turned sour. They won their case against the tour operators, Panorama of College Green, Dublin.
They told the Small Claims Court that when they arrived the holiday representative did not know where they would be staying. They were eventually allocated a room in the Hotel Miranda but it had no lights because the electric cables had rotted. They had asked for a twin room but there was only a single bed which they had to share.
After six nights they were given another room with a double bed but the mattress had "bloodstains and human excrement on it". After complaining to the local tourist office, a visit by a pest control inspector resulted in the mattresses in their room and a number of others being changed.
The court heard however that the inspector found there was "no animal, pest or hygiene problems" in the rooms. A barrister for Panorama argued the couple had paid £435 each for two weeks in high season and while this did not excuse problems with hygiene they got "what they bargained for when they paid that amount of money". Judge Thomas Fitzpatrick said the conditions endured by the couple were appalling and squalid.
"You would not put a dog in those bedrooms," he said. Travel agents had a duty to provide people with what they see in glossy brochures. "It is beyond comprehension that a travel agent could fool the public like that." He awarded the couple the maximum amount of the Small Claims Court, £600.