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15 Unbelievable Complaints Travelers *Actually* Filed Against Their Tour Operator

Insider Guides Humor
by Alex Scola May 30, 2015

Yes, these are actual complaints to travel agents and tour operators, culled by Thomas Cook and ATBA travel. I feel my faith in humanity slipping. [source: HuffPo]

1. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”

Seriously?!

2. “On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”

You were expecting, maybe, sushi?

3. “The beach was too sandy.”

Surprise!

4. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”

I, too, would be shocked to find that the cabbies in Spain were Spanish.

5. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price.”

Personally, I don’t know if I would trust swimsuits that were “included in the price.”

6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”

“And the water, it was blue. BLUE! What kind of scam are you running here?!”

7. “No one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”

As if that was *really* a deal-breaker.

8. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers.”

After all, all any of us want to do is eat sliced eggs on our vacation.

9. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun.”

Because as a tour operator, it’s obviously their responsibility to make sure all roads are paved smoothly.

10. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”

This person has a strong grasp of geography.

11. “There were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”

“Someone should have warned me that everything in Spain would be so Spanish.”(via)

12. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller.”

Let me guess, was it about one-third the size?

13. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort’. We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”

Yep, they were obviously out to get you.

14. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”

Shame on them for not air-conditioning the outside.

15. “My fiance and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

When in doubt: blame the bed and the hotel. They’re the ones that got you pregnant, after all.  

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