The Sun - Holidays for £9.50? What a pile of w*nk!!
This year’s instalment of shite holidays from The Sun arrived in the post this morning. What joy! If anyone reading this thinks it will actually happen forget it, it won’t.
I got stitched up last year by one of the parks and I’m still seething about it. I saw the deal in the paper, saved the tokens up and arranged for eight of my mates to go down to one of the parks near Bournemouth for 2 nights in a mobile home.
All of us are 30 or thereabouts and are married or with a partner. We duly paid the £9.50 each and booked the holiday through The Sun, total £76. We were all really looking forward to the holiday and eagerly awaited the reply from the holiday park. After a month or so we got a letter from the park asking us for more money to secure the booking. They wanted a £25 booking fee, a £50 security deposit….and the best one - £50 noise deposit which was payable on arrival in cash, yet not returned until two weeks after we’d left the park. What a fu**ing con!
The holiday park is obviously tying to re-coup costs from being involved with this Sun promotion. I was so angry! I decided to phone the park and ask them why they needed this noise deposit and why we couldn’t have the money back on the day we left the park? I was told that youngsters like us cause trouble and £50 deposit was to make up for lost bookings that would inevitably be caused by our arrival.
To be honest I couldn’t believe I was hearing it. We are a group of people in our thirties!! We’re not 16 year olds away for the first time without mummy and daddy for god’s sake. The next question was obviously: What’s the criteria? Who decides if we lose our deposit? She said that it one takes one complaint from one person for you to lose your deposit!! Unbelievable.
What a complete load of crap! So we’re supposed to pay:
-
£76 original cost
£50 security
£50 noise deposit
£25 Booking fee
TOTAL = £201
Guess how much it is to hire a mobile home in that park, on that day without the Sun deal??? Oh come on I bet you know….wait for it…….yup, it’s £200. So what do you think my chances were of getting my “security” and “noise” deposits back? Small to none I reckon.
I passed the news onto my friends who understandably all said, “no way, I’m not paying for that, I won’t see the money again.” We were left with no option but to cancel the holiday and ask for our money back.
No chance!! Apparently we broke our contract with them and therefore are not entitled to any money back. So now I owe 6 people £9.50 which pisses me off! What a complete con!
I know I could spend even more time writing letters and phoning etc etc and I’d probably get my money back if I did but I can’t be bloody bothered anymore. I’d rather spend my time writing this, so other people don’t get conned by the same thing.
So, in conclusion - don’t touch the Holidays for £9.50 promotion, it’s a complete con!
I think they should change the slogan to:
“Fuck all for £76″
or
“£76 for nothing……and your friends will think you conned em”
or
“Loads of agro for £76 when all you wanted was a weekend away from the monotony of bastards like us”
I contemplate getting one of these holidays every year but something inside my head screams at me not to. I will never have these thoughts again. Thanks!
The list of holiay parks they provide tells you which have extra charges, it’s all about checking the small print.
Me and 3 mates had a holiday in a nice park in Dorset for £38, so I’d recommend them personally.
That may be the case now but it certainly wasn’t when I booked mate. I’m glad you had a great time and I’m sure that loads of the deals are fine. That said, my personal experience of it was shite and I definitely wouldn’t do it again. Too much agro.
I have booked and taken my family on these deals each time the sun hane done them, as they are advertised as a FAMILY holiday and not a group holiday they are perfect, mainly as groups of lads and women get roudy. start swearing and it is suposed to be a pleasent atmosphere fpr children as well as adults!!! so in conclusion, i agree with the extra supliments regardless of the ages of the people in the party. moral of the story is BE GOOD LET EVERY ONE ENJOY THEIR HOLIDAY AND YOU WILL GET YOU MONEY BACK. holidays abroad have the same exclusions but most wont take same sex parties of any age.
so if you dont like the way the do the holidays then as you said FUCK em and shut up moaning only imature kids would go to that extreem (proves the park is right to charge you dont it really)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for your comments Dee, I can understand your position. You’ve been on one of these holidays and you’re happy with it, fine. Since writing this article, lots of people I know have gone on these hols and had a great time. They obviously didn’t bump into you love…
We were also looking for a family environment and a nice quiet weekend away. We’re all over 30 and didn’t plan to “raise the roof till the early hours” like you’d expect from a bunch of 16 year olds.
You see, the trouble lies squarely with moaning twats like you who would undoubtedly complain if you hear someone laughing after 8.30pm costing them their deposit. It’s nothing to do with “being good” as you put it. It’s about you being a moaning bitch and stitching people up for enjoying themselves - totally proved by your comments above.
What the fuck do you think gives you the right to come on to my blog and preach at me you ignorant cow. I wrote this piece to give my opinion about my experience, nothing more. Feel free to say you don’t agree with me, that’s fine sure but don’t assume you know me or my friends and pigeon hole me as “trouble”. What the fuck do you know?
You are the exact reason we decided to cancel and you know what? Thank god we did. People like you make my fucking skin crawl. Now fuck off and enjoy your pikey holiday you jumped-up whining bitch…
i know what you mean i wont bother parting with our money again either, because 3 of us booked , we had to pay for four , we asked for 4 dates as the form requested , they gave us a date a week b4 on of the dates requested and as a result we couldnt go on that date , we rang the sun holiday helpline , what a joke , the bloke i spoke to said that the date couldnt be changed , i rang the bank to stop the check which cost 7 quid , but they had already taken it couldnt get a refund even though tey had give us dates we had not asked for , so i rang the park they said they would change it for an extra 30 quid and would have to pay for passes linnen and service charges , total now another 80 quid so a three day break was gonna cost 118.00 quid and you carnt check in till 4pm and have to be out by 10 am i told them no thanks and i shall not bother again with the biggest public scan ever , why do we still get ripped off we are in a recession , i now refuse to buy the sun , you carnt belive the date let alone the bull that they print ……
I have paid £98 for a family of four sun holiday to costa dorada spain = 21-25th Sept 2009 - I have been looking for flights since March and the cheapest flights i can find are £580 = What a con - cheap holiday my arse - we are not going and my kids are gutted
Yes I have booked these holidays and you do have to watch the small print. However, my mum booked a holiday and it came through from Haven, nice place and 6 of us going to celebrate my sons birthday. They sent the original booking advising us we had to pay an extra 91.00. No further request was made for the monies so we thought we would pay on arrival. I phoned the night before to check an item on the bill and was told it was cancelled and the park was full. In very small print on the back of letter it advises that the additional monies should be paid 8 weeks in advance. NO REMINDERS SENT, NO CANCELLATION LETTER SENT. It was luck we found out otherwise we would have driven for several hours to get there. I am so angry and fed up, but what can I now do??
i have been on the sun holidays many times and had no problem with them at all. infact i got back from 1 yesterday. ye they say 9.50 but they also tell u about the extra charges. If u dont read the small print then its ur own fault and no1 elses. u decided not 2 read it and got pissed of when u were asked for more money and took it out on the park. there was no reason for that. it was ur own mistake so y write about it on here as if its the park or the suns fault? Pull yaself together!
Thanks for your comments rab but you just don’t get it do you mate? I did read the small print and it doesn’t go far enough to explain the situation. It’s down to one park being a bunch of t**ts.
If you’ve enjoyed your holidays then I’m pleased for you I really am but honestly rab, I’d rather you didn’t assume that I’m incapable of reading small print as that wasn’t the case. If you’d actually read the full article, perhaps you’d understand that.
By the way, if you’re going to slag me off about my English skills then I suggest you get your own house in order first you txt talk twat.
well said rubber , i been pissing myself reading your comments and replies to others, sorry about the holiday though !
ps. i been considering one of the sun holidays myself but torn between that or a frontal lobotomy !
oh my god, me and the missus have just wet ourselves reading this!!!!! so so funny!!!!!!!
I booked in January for a 4 night stay starting 24th May, we already new you could extend your holiday to a week and upgrade to a nicer caravan, which is what we planned to do, we even rang the campsite direct to find out prices and was told they didn’t have the prices for 2010 extensions yet. The booking confirmation came in the post today asking us to pay further £87.00 which we did know about, it also had extra info regarding extensions and upgrades etc…. It said extend your holiday to a week from £20 per person. To cut a long story short, I rang today for a quote for the 6 of us, 4 adults and 2 children for 7 nights in an upgrade caravan (silver), I have been quoted £358 in total, this includes the £9.50 per person that we have already paid and extra charges for, service charges, bed linen and entertainments passes.
I went on the Park Resorts website to find out how much we had saved and couldn’t believe it, it was costing us £76 more to book with the SUN DEAL than it did to book direct with the park. WHAT A BLOODY CON, after collecting tokens and not being able to choose exact date and place, ie choice of 3 dates and 4 locations. Absolute joke, will never do it again, no wonder they don’t give the prices out for upgrades!!!
The price we could have paid if we had booked direct with Park Resorts for a week in the same Silver 3 bed caravan with everything included as above was £282, saving of £76. So after collecting the tokens and buying the Sun Newspaper for a supposedly cheaper holiday we were ripped off by £76. I am absolutely disgusted. I’ll never buy the Newspaper again! WHAT A CON!!! I have explained to the Holiday Park but they said there is nothing they can do about it, they are the upgrade prices. So I’m Sorry but the moral of the story is steer clear of the SUN DEAL, it’s a rip off!!!
Glad you like the article everyone, I’m really glad it’s been such a success. Seems that so many people feel they’ve been conned by the £9.50 deal.
I can empathise with you Claire, that’s exactly what we found. By the time you work out all the little extras, it’s usually cheaper to just book it yourself direct and get the dates and park that you want.
If anyone else wants to share their experience, good or bad..this is the place to do it! Roll on a decent summer holiday!
Hi - just read your blog having realised we’ve been conned by the £9.50 - sun holiday - oh actually £200 quid now if we do go ahead. I was seething but reading your blog and comments helped soothe the initial frustration……..especially your reply to the whinning, pikey bitch made me feel a whole lot better! I’d hire a caravan next to you and we could party all night!! We might just to anyway to annoy all those godly folk who go to bed at 8.30pm……………I say send our experiences in to the Express newspaper and cause the Sun a whole load of grief for conning so many people….
Hi- just read all the posts on here, have to agree with everything that’s been said, you have to be very very careful about the extra’s. Did one of these so called £9.50 holidays Fri - Mon at West Wales Haven camp, Had to pay bedding suppliment, entertainment suppliment and weekend admission to pool suppliment, a grand total of £107 for the 4 of us. In addition to this the attractions for the kids, trampolines, go-karts etc all had to be paid for!! at a fiver a time (I have twin boys) this particular park had a go-ape type ropeworks on site which did not open until the morning we were due to leave. After being dissappointed that it wasn’t open, they were excited when I let them go and check it out, however, they returned dissappointed and annoyed as they had been informed that it was £20 for 20 minutes!!!! Even at the age of 10 they knew it was a rip off and would cost Mum and Dad too much. Luckly we knew the area and just used the apartment as a base, I could not fault the accommodation as the apartment was very nice.
But it was and will be my last trip to any Haven sites, after 4 days we had all together parted with over £350. I have just travelled to Germany and back for £45!! x this by 4 = £180. Cheaper to go abroad than stay in the UK.
Hi jinny just got the bad news this morning.Booked a sun holiday 4 nights in Wales got a letter confirmation today you guessed it an extra £90.00 for various things including security passes and such things.You were spot on I phoned the holiday park to enquire about booking a 4 night break in mid sept. You got it right about the same price. As for these do Gooding bas***ds if you want a quiet holiday f**k off camping to the lakes. There’s only one winner and that’s the sun newspaper they must be raking in an extra couple of million. They wouldn’t get away with it the states they would get thier bo**ocks sued of em. YOU DON’T GET OWT FOR NOWT in this country to many scamming fat cats
Hey - Ive just read your article and am now pretty worried!! I’ve booked a holiday with them, sent the cheque off and everything for me and my friends to go on a grown up and quiet holiday. Just for some fresh air you know?? Now the final date for recieving your pack (or refund) in the post was the 25th of Feb. It’s now March the 2nd and I’ve still not heard anything back. AND to make matters worse, every time I try to phone the “help” line, I just keep getting the busy tone. I soooo wish I’d come across your blog sooner!! I think I may possibly have just lost £90ish =o( oh dear!
Thank you very much for all the info this blog has given me, i sent away my tokens and £38 cheque the end of Jan and am still awaiting any confirmation. i am beginning to wonder if they have just stole my money! lol. i am going to fone them on monday and ask if they can just cancel - a waste of £38 but maybe a saving of another £100!!
I also booked a Sun holiday for me, my daughter, my mum and dad, for four nights. I chose five parks and five dates like it said, paid the money and waited. About a week later we got confirmation that we had been allocated a caravan in Brynowen holiday park near aberystwyth but we had to pay an extra 88 quid for linen, entertainment and peak charge which was expected as i HAD read the small print (see pikey bitch we do know how to read!!). But then my curiosity got the better of me (as it always does!) and i checked out the website for the park. I was so pleased it looked lovely…. that was until i read some (well a lot!!) of realy bad reviews, saying the park was dirty, things were broken, there were stains on the beds, poo in the pool.. you name it!!. Absoultely gutted!!!. Couldn’t believe that we had forked out almost fourty quid (which is a lot to someone like me!!) and they were expecting us to pay a lot more on top!!. So we decided not to go but in the meantime i had been looking at the park which had been our first choice (we had been given our fourth choice) to see if there were any available places on the dates we had chosen and there were loads, so i don’t know why the Sun hadn’t given us a place there instead (obviously they want to get rid of the shite parks first!!). When loking for prices at the Haven park we wanted to go to it was actually just as cheap to book ourselves. We had already paid fourty quid then they wanted an extra 88 quid which took the total to 128 quid which i know doesn’t sound like a lot of money but when you can get the same dates at Haven four 122 quid it feels like you have been made a mug out of. Yes i know that a lot of people have had brilliant holidays through the Sun, i even know some people who have and i’m glad that so many people have had a chance to have a great time, but theres no way i will pay 128 quid of my hard earned money to stay at a shithole!!!. I’m not saying its the Suns fault that the park it crap but you think they would at least check out these parks before they decide to promote them.
Sorry everyone for having such a long rant
And also if the spelling is poo don’t blame me, blame the driink!
Also like to say well done Rubber for telling that silly fucking cow off!!!. Its fine to voice your opinion but no way should any jumped up snotty fucking bitch judge you or anyone fucking else!!!
Im sure me, my husband and my kids make more noise on holiday than a group of single sex parties so we’d better avoid the place you went to with their noise deposit!!! Never heard of it before.
Ive been there too and got the t-shirt. Paid for the “£9.50 holiday” for a long weekend in winter. Ended up costing much more than that in the end. This year ive been looking for a week away in the last week of August. Privately you cant get anything on the south coast for less than£400. Just seen they are doing the holidays again starting tomorrow for that very week im looking at so im hoping it will be in my favour this time. They owe me!
Small prints a bitch! I empathise with you johnny but they are aimed at ‘families’ We have been on a few and have had good experiences on all of them. I can see that the price does start to mount up with all the ‘extras’ and will be looking into booking direct for our next caravan holiday to see if it works out any cheaper. A suggestion next time put down 2 kids under the age of 5 on the booking form that way they will think its not an all adult group! But ssshhhh don’t tell the campsites! lol
Sun & Haven are a joke. Here’s the great deal we were offered…
Original price - £90
Beds made up - £10
Passes - £45
Luxury upgrade - £48
Power charge !?! - £26
Promo linen - £14
Overall price £233 - Price if you book the same holiday direct through Haven £239.
So the Sun Holiday offer saves a grand total of £6!
What a complete con.