20 Minutes
asked its readers to tell about their adventures in a vacation club.
The third part of our series is devoted to the most disappointing club stays.
From the location of the hotel to the food or the dirt, here is an anthology of the most bitter disappointments.
Cockroaches in the bedroom, activities in a retirement home, entertainers without any charisma, super-handsome vacationers, terrible food… These are some of the unpleasant surprises that one can have when one goes to a club vacation.
Although fortunately this is quite rare, as explained
Christophe Fuss, Deputy General Manager Tui France, which owns the Marmara and Lookéa clubs: “The supply of clubs has been greatly rationalized in recent years, and disappointments are rare.
Because in the age of social networks, the demand from holidaymakers has never been so high and clubs have no right to make mistakes ”.
However, for some vacationers, who dreamed of palm trees and escape, discovering the club was a real cold shower.
First disappointment for some: the location, as evidenced by Babeth.
When she arrived in Tunisia a few years ago, she was unable to put her suitcases in the planned hotel-club, which was under construction, and was taken to a so-called equivalent residence… “The club was in front of the airport exit.
Disappointment !
Hello noise!
And some rooms had seen on the airport parking lot ”.
Marjorie, she expected to see one of the seven wonders of the world in Rhodes, but the ecstasy was not really there!
“The club was located below an air corridor,” she recalls, laughing yellow.
"We had the right to bed bugs"
For those who, like Baudelaire, thought that everything would be "luxury, calm and pleasure", the invitation to travel was rather reduced to "dirt, noise and obsolescence"
.
Sylvia will never forget her room in Malaga in a 4 star hotel: "Impossible to sleep with the disco under my window". Nadia, who had bought a stay in Lanzarote (Spain), also fell from above: “It was a disaster. Everything was old, the deckchairs were broken and there were flies everywhere ”. Ditto for Michèle, in a club in Cuba: "We were treated to bed bugs, to dilapidated, even dangerous access to the beach".
Charlotte also had an unfortunate experience in Morocco: “It rained ten days, the sewers went up, we lived with a smell of latrines all the time. My children were crying because it stank. And the day of our departure, obviously, great sun ”. Babeth, she made new friends… on six legs: “By taking a good look around the corners, we discovered cockroaches. And in the bathroom, they weren't even hiding! "Jo, who booked a holiday club in Gréoux-les-Bains (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), was also disillusioned:" We were made to wait 3 hours to get our accommodation. We ended up having the bungalow around 9 pm, after a more than cursory cleaning: abandoned dirty towels, broken chairs… In short, a very bad start! Fortunately, the hotel compensated us for all this ”.
Nuggets and spaghetti at the buffet
Stories that do not surprise Didier Arino, the director of the consulting firm Protourisme: “Concerning the clubs, the most frequent criticisms are the dilapidation of certain establishments, the lack of comfort of the bedding, the absence of separation between the children's room and those of parents and value for money ”.
“Safety and cleanliness are the first quality criteria sought by customers.
If they are lacking, the reactions are strong, ”adds Christophe Fuss.
The quality of the meals and drinks served also leaves something to be desired.
And Babeth remained hungry: “The buffet meals were always the same, in the same place, but absolutely nothing local: nuggets, spaghetti, rice, pasta, chicken, omelet….
We went to eat outside very very often suddenly ”.
Michèle, she did not taste at all the absence of "Mojito for aperitif and wine with meals".
Holidays in the water and basta!
"We found ourselves stuck in the middle of a herd of beaufs"
While some had chosen club vacations to benefit from a friendly atmosphere, meet new people and participate in fun or sporting activities, boredom awaited them. “Apart from pétanque and volleyball, there was nothing. And no one was swimming in the outdoor pool because the water was very cold. As for the minigolf, it was in a deplorable state, ”says Babeth. Gonelle, who had offered himself a club in Trégunc (Finistère) then in Hauteville-sur-Mer (Manche) to vary the pleasures, largely regretted having broken his piggy bank: “We were considered as residents of Ephad : no entertainment, just a minigolf having lived well, no swimming pool, a tennis court overgrown with weeds… ”, he lists.
As for the animators, if they are generally very professional, we can have some nasty surprises.
This was the case for Delilah, who knows what shame means: “The manager of a club in Greece grabbed me at the entrance to the restaurant and wrapped me in a white sheet to play the Greek statue, surrounded by bunches of grapes while the others gobbled up.
Yet I had paid for my stay!
She laughs today.
"I was ashamed to be assimilated to this category of tourists"
As for those who left to make new friends, they sometimes came back hating a part of humanity. Like Alexandre after his stay in a club in Turkey: “We found ourselves stuck in the middle of a herd of beaufs, whose only activity was to eat and drink as much as possible. We saw children filling gigantic plates to feed the stray cats that had taken up residence in the gardens of the resort, under the blissful gaze of parents. The same parents in "conquered country" mode who were familiar with the staff (Hep, are there any fries there, man?), With incredible contempt. We ended up renting a car and left the hotel for 3 days to tour the country. I was really ashamed to be assimilated by the locals to this category of tourists ”.
A testimony that resonates with a trend that Didier Arino observed: “Promiscuity is sometimes hard to bear.
Because social diversity in intermediate category clubs does not always work well ”.
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