Need to cancel

[nunsflipflop]

We booked a holiday in April, online through the Tui website. I changed the flights they offered to more appropriate times. An extra charge was added to the holiday to do this.

I stupidly didn’t check when the email came through. We paid a deposit of £360.

We booked it under the recommendation of my DD (36) who was reading reviews.
I have done a deep dive to get more reviews, it looks like this isn’t an appropriate hotel to take my grand daughters to.

Using trip adviser,I found the top 5 hotels in Lanzarote and I booked the top one, with a different tour operator who could offer the better flight times for myself, a disabled adult and the little ones in our party thinking I would only be losing £360. Tui did not offer this hotel or the flight times I believed I had paid for on our booking with them.

I called Tui to cancel and they are asking for £3623.74, which will be paid to EasyJet as the flights are non refundable. So I asked if I am paying for those seats on that flight, will they remain empty? The Tui rep said she didn’t know. I asked if easyJet then resell those seats would I get a refund? The answer was no.

Is there any way I can reduce the amount we will lose? Or do I put it down to an expensive lesson?

This is the first holiday abroad I have ever booked. We haven’t been away for 10 years, hence my mistake

Like others have said you’ll be absolutely fine at the H10 Rubicon Palace. We have stayed at different H10 hotels when we go to the canaries and they’ve all been really nice. My son is disabled and H10 have always been very accommodating. Lanzarote is beautiful, I hope you all have an amazing holiday.

@nunsflipflop Have you read any of the replies?
Everyone who knows these hotels is telling you that the Rubicon is far superior to Sandos Papagayo, you would be mad to cancel it.
Unless there is some other reason you want to cancel this holiday?

Rubicon is an amazing hotel, definitely go!
Every hotel has a few bad reviews, ignore those and focus on all the positive ones! The bad reviews might not even be real (eg done by a competitor), or might just be people being picky.
But no if you won’t get a refund if you do decide to cancel it (only if Tui do you are entitled to a refund).

I’m assuming the grandkids are the children of the daughter you mention? But it seems she was happy with the hotel, when she recommended it, so is it possible you’re seeing problems she didnt? Maybe you’re being a tad over protective OP?

I'm more shocked you're paying £2k each to go to Lanzarote! Madness.

You would seriously cancel a holiday over a few loose tiles which have almost certainly been fixed by now? Madness.

Absolutely not. I can well afford the holiday or I would never have booked it

OK. My best advice.

Keep the holiday as planned. It gets you to where you want to be when you want to be.

Your daughter read reviews and something about this hotel hit the right buttons for her. Not you as grandma.

HOWEVER

There is nothing to stop you going to Booking.com or Hotels.com and finding other accommodation very close by to book, that is suitable for your granddaughters. Just get the location/postcode of the hotel you've booked.

Your cheapest holiday change would be to keep this booking - but just pay extra when out there to stay somewhere else - and keep your rooms at the hotel you paid for, just in case you want to use those rooms during your holiday.

In short, pay extra for extra different accommodation - but keep as many advantages as you can for holiday paid for.

And take the probably "included" airport transfer coach, to arrive at the "paid for" hotel, check in and get the key to your room, explain you'll also be staying elsewhere also, and get them to book you a taxi to it.

Can you cancel the new booking without losing so much, then keep the original booking flights but ask them to change the hotel?

I feel like your intentionally ignoring the advise given to you, pretty much everyone who been has said the holiday you initially booked is good - people have personally been and loved it - keep it... admit that it was YOU not your daughter who messed up and lose £360 instead of over 3K

If you go with your holiday more fool you.... I'm not really sure the point of this post if you're going to ignore the advice given

Completely agree @itsmexxx

surely you cannot get better advice than from people who have recently stayed at your original hotel…and even better some people have advised who have stayed at both…

Was OP looking for advice or did she just want us all to know how much money she has for her holidays?…

I’m another one coming on to say the original hotel you’ve booked is far better.

Sandos Papagayo is as far out of the resort you can possibly be in one direction. The beach in front of it really isn’t that nice as it’s not been developed. Lots of rocks, dark sand.

The walk into the marina is a good 25 minutes. You would need 2 taxis back as well.

I’m not sure what you want from this thread either as you have been given good information on here from people who know the resort and the hotels.

Tui are generally accommodating I’ve found. It’s down to low deposits and the time left to cancel I would imagine that the amount is so high? Have you spoken to them and asked your options? They allowed us to amend our booking foc when my husband had a dvt then we couldn’t quite afford to finish the payments for our holiday so they let us change to 2025 for £100 admin fee. Ring them back and ask if there are more options available to you.

Change your entire holiday (move it to another time and another place - i did this for other reasons) then you won’t loose your money. You’ll just have to go on two!

take the vast majority of ta reviews with a pinch of salt. I only look at them when selecting a venue, I certainly wouldn't cancel a holiday just because a couple of people moaned about something ! Remember that people massively overuse hyperbole and have ridiculous expectations. We are currently in a hotel where lots of people have moaned, this week, about not being able to get a sunbed, god knows why as there are always loads. There will always be negative reviews, the skill is picking if there is a common theme and identifying whether that is an issue for you. Eg if American guests are moaning about service being slow that's meaningless as they have very inflated expectations and from what I've seen in various trips to Mexico expect everything they want, at double quick time for practically nothing. Apparently the breakfast buffet where we are, which has so much choice, is boring and no choice - goodness knows what they expect.

"lots of loose tiles" = "one loose tile"

Honestly OP, you have to take the reviews with a pinch of salt sometimes. I always go with the overall reviews. I’m in Spain now and was a bit sceptical of some of the reviews but it’s great here, we’ve had no bother at all. The overall reviews look good for your hotel to me. Good luck, go for it!!

I never said it was my daughter that messed up. I have said a lot that I messed up, I made a knee jerk decision.

I didn’t post to boast. The fact I have this money at all is because I lost my father and this is part of my inheritance. If you have read my previous posts, you will see that I have said that we haven’t had a holiday for 10 years and that is why it is super important for me to get this right. It’s a much needed holiday after caring for him, with supposedly “Hospice Care at Home”. That is also why I didn’t want to lose more than £3600, because I cannot easily replace it.

But you have no advice to give anyway, so why post?

OP "But you have no advice to give anyway, so why post"
Maybe because the overwhelming advice you are getting is to stick with the original booking, but you are seemingly ignoring it?

I just looked up both the hotels - partly as I’m also looking for a Canaries recommendation for my own young family tbh.

TUI does advertise Sandos Papagayo aswell, it is a 4* resort. (So you could potentially change to there with their flights..?)
By comparison, Rubicon Palace is 4*+, one of their Platinum Selection, and it does quite clearly look much fancier… obviously it is your choice but that one is clearly the nicer hotel and has a great offering for kids…?

Those that have been and can recommend it, several of the reviews I have read for Rubicon say, they have bed bugs infestation in their rooms.
Couldn’t swim in the pool because it was too salty.
Food wasn’t very hot or much choice.
I would be grateful for your input please

Sandos isn’t available at all with Tui in the holidays this year or next. I am going to insist that Tui change our flight coming home, free of charge, because that wasn’t what we chose on booking. Hopefully those that have recently returned can put my mind at rest about the issues I have mentioned.

There is a Facebook group called Rubicon Palace H10 in Playa Blanca- join it. It’s a fab hotel, not in the middle of nowhere!

The Rubicon does have salt water pools, not traditional chlorine type. Didn’t put my family off at all. Nice little small pool in the kids area, or bigger ones in the main part. We certainly didn’t have any bedbugs.

Thanks, I have just requested to join