A RETIRED Flintshire couple who complained of a ‘ holiday from hell’ have failed in their bid to sue the travel agent who sold them the sunshine break in Benidorm.
Retired former Flintshire and Wrexham publicans Ron Hart, 80 and his wife Brenda, 79 said they were furious when they arrived in the Spanish resort and found their hotel was ‘halfway up a mountain’.
Mrs Hart, who has recovered from cancer and who finds it painful to walk after a hip replacement operation, said that to return to their hotel they had to get up what was dubbed locally ‘Cardiac Hill’.
The couple, from Clayton Road in Mold, went to the county court in a bid to get their money back from First Choice travel agents, complaining the holiday had been a nightmare.
The brochure made no mention of the fact that it was not suitable for people with mobility problems and they should have been told, Mr Hart told the court.
But district judge Viv Reeves threw out their application on the basis that when making the booking, Mr Hart had not explained they had mobility problems and the company had not been put on notice of any such problem.
After the case, Mr Hart said he was disappointed with the outcome, and felt it should have been made clear in the brochure that the hotel would not be suitable for their needs.
“People said how nice Benidorm was so we decided to go there and have a look at it,” said Mr Hart, formerly of the White Horse at Overton-on-Dee, the Tallyho, Newbridge near Wrexham, the Brighton Belle at Winsford, the Grandstand at Drury, Buckley, the New Inn, Sandycroft and the Red Lion at Buckley.
Mr Hart said the company had recommended the hotel while First Choice said the couple asked for that particular hotel, the Rock Garden.
But Mr Hart said they only went out of the hotel a couple of times because of its hilly location.
“It was halfway up a mountain,” he added.
He agreed he had not said they had mobility problems when he booked, but was adamant it had not been explained to him the hotel was unsuitable for people with mobility problems
Mark Johnson, who runs seven First Choice Travel Agent outlets, told the court that when booking, a computer procedure followed by his sales staff showed up the fact that it was on a hill. That would have been gone through with the customer, he said.
“There are no hotels up mountains in Benidorm,” he added.
But Mr Hart told the court: “I am 80 and reasonably fit. My wife is 79 and I have nursed her through cancer, she had had a hip replacement and she cannot walk any distance. Do you think I would have accepted the holiday if I had known?”
The judge said he did not accept that the company had a duty when customers booked a hotel to run through a whole list of issues to check whether they had physical or other difficulties.
Had the company been made aware at the time of booking then it would have been a totally different matter, he said.
Mr Johnson said as far as he was concerned a happy customer was a repeat customer and said that if he had been made aware of the problem at the time then he could have done something about it.
Regardless of what happened at the time of booking, there were overseas staff available and if he had been told then he could have made arrangements for them to go to a more suitably located hotel.
“I would have desperately tried to do something about it. I could have got them moved to another hotel.
“There may have been some expenses in that and as a gesture I would have tried to help them out.
“But I knew nothing about this until they returned home,” he said.