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….