Mum-of-five’s £4k ‘dream trip’ to Turkey with disabled daughter turns into holiday from hell as hotel is building site
Michelle Peel booked a week at the four-star hotel in Antalya as a treat for her disabled eight-year-old daughter Evie-Anne before she undergoes life-changing spinal surgery
A MUM-of-five's dream £4,000 trip to Turkey turned into a nightmare when she arrived to find the hotel is a building site.
Michelle Peel, 43, booked a week at the luxury four-star hotel in Antalya as a treat for her disabled daughter Evie-Anne, eight, before she undergoes life-changing spinal surgery.
The family of nine were excited at the prospect of enjoying the on-site water park, 10 bars and a kids club.
But they were left devastated when they arrived at the Swandor Topkapi Palace to discover the Thomas Cook hotel was half finished.
Michelle, of Meriden, near Solihull, West Mids, said all the hotel toilets were out of order for the first 12 hours.
She told the : "The Topkapi hotel was literally a building site.
"As we walked around the complex the devastation hit us.
"The water park was closed and building work was being done all around it anyway, the amphitheatre was not finished and a building site.
"We were told there were shops and games rooms and bowling, and we couldn't find anything of the sort.
"It was very noisy - there were tractors, drilling, the floors were covered in broken concrete, cement, sand, and burst pipes were flooding everywhere."
Michelle said there was no electric or working toilets in their room and the specially-adapted room she had booked for her wheelchair-bound daughter hadn't been built yet.
She added that the family were kept awake by loud drilling and they had to wade through two inches of water.
Distraught Michelle broke down in tears when she realised they couldn't be relocated.
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She said she was reassured by Thomas Cook before the trip that there would be no building work during their stay.
A Thomas Cook spokeswoman said: " We are sorry that we didn’t make Ms Peel aware that an area of the Swandor Topkapi Palace Hotel would be closed while the refurbishment of the property was completed.
"We always want our customers to have the best possible time on holiday and are disappointed that her trip was not as expected."
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