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A 10-year-old boy was ‘almost impaled’ on a sliding glass door on a holiday from hell after the family endured an ‘eggy stench’ from a beach piled high with rotting seaweed.
The family paid more than £18,000 for the holiday in Cancun, Mexico. Tessa Jonson said: “It was the hotel from hell. It was dreadful from day one.”
The Johnson family spent £18,108 on the trip for their seven guests, which included grandparents Robert and Teresa with their son Gavin and his wife Emma and their children Ollie, 10, Luke, eight, plus Cousin Ashton, five, reports LeedsLive.
The beach the family were faced with in Cancún (Image: Teresa Johnson)
They say the children were all charged full price with no concessions. They booked two rooms with two double beds in each.
As soon as they’d arrived, they were told that one of their rooms would have one fewer bed. So, this meant grandparents Robert and Teresa would have to sleep in the same bed as their youngest grandchild. And when they got to their rooms they discovered the foul stench caused by decaying seaweed stockpiled ‘ten feet high’ on the beach.
The family said there was an eggy smell from the beach (Image: Teresa Johnson)
Teresa said: “The eggy smell was vile, absolutely disgusting. It was off-putting. We enjoy a beach holiday and we’ve never had this in Mexico before, you couldn’t even get down on the beach. It was our five-year-old’s very first beach holiday, he’d never been on the sand before and still hasn’t now. We even brought his own bucket and spades from England.
“It looked totally different from the pictures online. We got shown a beach with a bar, swings and a blue sea. It was just churning mud over and over.”
Robert added: “It was brown murky water, like in the Humber Estuary.” The family say the seaweed was being taken from a ‘premium beach’ they were not allowed on.
Teresa said: “It absolutely disgusting, if we’d had been warned that we weren’t allowed down on the premium beach, we probably would have put up with that being dumped – but why should we? We were never told about it. We know there is a problem on the island with seaweed, every other hotel we’ve been to there had the same problem and they’d buried it.
A man in the resort’s pool (Image: Teresa Johnson)
“They stockpiled it, it was ten-foot high! It was decayed, it looked like it had been there for months. There were flies. Oh, it was awful! The seaweed was that thick and piled high, we couldn’t even see any sand. Where were the white beaches and blue seas that they showed us on the pictures?”
Cuts on Ollie’s head after he went through a sliding door (Image: Teresa Johnson)
The family say Ollie, 10, accidentally smashed his head through the balcony’s sliding glass door. They’ve claimed there were no safety signs or stickers on the glass, except for “one tiny blue square” on the fixed door which they’ve added was “hidden” behind a net curtain.
Teresa said: “We were down near the pool and we could hear Ollie’s mum screaming from a distance. They were screaming for me to come as Ollie had gone through the window. It was just mortifying.
“It was horrific, I’ve seen nothing like it in my life. I was expecting little shards of glass like off a car windscreen – but it wasn’t. It was massive big three-foot shards of glass. Luckily, he bounced off the door and fell backwards. If he’d have slipped or fallen forward, I’m kidding you not, he would have been dead. I just can’t help thinking ‘What if?’
Damage to the door (Image: Teresa Johnson)
“Ollie was walking over to get his shoes from the balcony and didn’t know the door was shut. We had no stickers on our doors either to show the door was shut.
“He walked into it headfirst. The head injuries took the brunt of the glass and that shattered it.
“Well, it wasn’t even ‘shattered’. There were big shards of glass about a metre long. He was covered in blood, all over his head, feet, stomach and hands. His mum couldn’t bear to look at him, she was just crying.
“We had to pick glass out of the cuts and we couldn’t even put pressure on the cuts because of the glass that was in them. We still believe he’s got glass in his finger.
Ollie with his injuries after the incident (Image: Teresa Johnson)
“I had to keep my emotions under control when looking at him. If he sees anyone else crying, that’s when he gets emotional. He was still upset, he was crying and he really is hard as nails that kid.”
The Johnson family reported the issues to TUI. A spokesperson for TUI said: “We are very sorry to hear about Ms Johnson’s family holiday experience in Mexico. We are working with our hotel partner to investigate some of the claims and we will be following up with the customer directly to update on the circumstances.
“At TUI we aim to give our customers an exceptional experience and we’d like to reassure customers that health and safety is our highest priority.”
Hotel owners Karisma Hotels & Resorts has been asked for a comment.
