Sunshine Holidays - www.sunshineholidaysltd.co.uk

Booked a week away to Kos for myself, hubby and 7 year old daughter with Sunshine Holidays.I had found the same holiday with easyjet for just £8 dearer including luggage and transfers and asked sunshine holidays if they could match it. The chap who took my booking was called Charlie who assured me he could not only match it but beat it by £60 so obviously I booked it there and then. Charlie seemed a really nice guy,promising us sea view, VIP guests, double beds, the best room possible etc etc only to have bad experience after bad experience after they take your card details.

The total price assured to me was INCLUDING luggage according to this Charlie, everything was in bottom line and the total price was the TOTAL for transfers and luggage. We booked and paid only to never received an email with the invoice showing us at least some form of paperwork that our holiday was booked. On calling up after the money had been taken from my account, I spoke to a VERY rude man who barely spoke English and refused to send me any paperwork as apparently we are in 2014 and you do not need proof of confirmation!!

The rude man goes by the name of 'Kumar' - He was very argumentative over the phone after myself insisting for some kind of invoice to which he replied 'I dont want to talk to you anymore, phone back after 4pm and speak to a different agent when I have gone home!' and he PUT THE PHONE DOWN ON ME!!! What kind of customer service is that? All I required was an email of confirmation as I had not received a thing.

I called back seconds later only for him to answer again, I asked to speak to his manager to which he again responded 'I just told you, I don't want to talk to you' and again slammed the phone down.

I was in total shock! Worried after booking a holiday and spending our money to be told we would not get confirmation that the holiday was booked.

My Husband called back to try speak to someone else and managed to get to speak to Charlie. Charlie promised to send us an email confirmation within the next hour, funnily enough this never arrived. After numerous phone calls the day after, we finally received an email of the hotel voucher and then the flight itinerary.

To my disbelief, the flights DID NOT include baggage and no transfers were booked. I called sunshine again to be told luggage is never included and it has to be paid for as an extra! Charlie denied all knowledge of our conversation about him matching and beating the easyjet holiday and told me out of his good nature he would throw in ONE suitcase for the inconvenience! To add 3 suitcases I would have to pay £37pp each way!! I was totally annoyed as originally the easyjet booking I had found, I added my baggage and transfers and sunshine holidays assured me they could do the same with baggage and transfers for £60 cheaper. LIE!

Charlie added a suitcase for the apparent inconvenience but what he failed to tell me was that it was just for one way and I had to pay for the return. All in all I basically had to pay £185 on top of the balance for the suitcases. The transfers also cost an extra £16pp so I was very upset at the total price. I should have gone with my gut feeling and booked with easyjet but Charlie at Sunshine assured me he would include these and that we would be treated as VIP guests saying he would make sure the hotel knew we were on honeymoon and to take care of us etc etc..

A LOAD OF BULL!!

The hotel in Kos we booked was dire, the room was old and dingey with a view of a building site. So much for Charlie promising us a nice room and treated like royalty! There was 2 single beds in the room for 2 adults and a child, when we complained and pointed out that we were a family of 3 and there was only 2 beds, the hotel shown us their hotel voucher which stated 2 adults only. They tried their best to accommodate, giving us a blow up bed for my daughter as they were fully booked in all the other rooms. This was unacceptable! By this time my Husband was pulling his hair out and agreed for the week stay we would put up with it and make the most of the holiday and complain on return.

Luckily we had a wonderful holiday besides all this, the weather was scorching, Kos was beautiful and had much needed relaxing family time.

Sunshine Holidays are a joke. I have traveled all over the world and stayed in some terrible places and met some rude people in my time but Sunshine holidays are a step above the rest. I have since written a letter to sunshine holidays with my complaint but never received anything back which I shouldn't hold my breath for with their track record.

Bottom line - AVOID AVOID AVOID

Do some research beforehand when booking a holiday, big tour operators do the same deals if you spend some time searching and don't be fooled by travel agents promising you the world to save a bit of quid, its not worth it.

I have just returned from a holiday booked via sunshine holidays.

Ryanair canceled our flight on 15th/05 at the last minute and we were offered a new flight on the 18/05, a refund or to fly to a different airport in Spain. Due to our holiday return date being 19/05 we took the flight to an alternative airport in Spain-Reus. I tried to go online and contact the transfer company sunshine provided us with which was not possible, transfers need to be made 24 hours before a trip and the contact number to ask for help was only available to call from a Spanish land line or mobile. I contacted sunshine holidays next and to ask for help with our transfer; Reus being a 4 hour journey from lloret de mar. I was told get a train. My partner then called sunshine from home to see if he could convince them help us and he was told there was nothing they could do, sunshine refused to contact the transfer company or contact the hotel to say we would be late, my partner was told Ryanair should do this as sunshine had nothing more to do with it.

It would have been reassuring to us to know when we eventually found our way to the resort that they would have received a call to say we were still arriving. It would have been nice to have some advice, on how in a country unknown to us, which trains and times, to get to the resort. Fortunately we had mobiles and i had my partner able to research trains and buses. The taxi drivers at Reus tried to rip us of saying no buses run and we want 300 euros to take you there.

The transfer company Resorthoppa used by sunshine are rubbish. The information given to us by sunshine said you must check your pick up time online no later then 24 hours before pick up. We did this it still said N/A. We called the emergency number which was an answer machine. It was not till 18 hours before pick up that it was announced online. My partner again called sunshine and at least this type they were helpful and told us to be outside the hotel at 3.50 am. We did this, the coach does not pick up outside the hotel!! Also why would they need to pick us up at 3.50 am for a 7.55 flight?!?!? I know why so they could take people going to Stanstead flying one hour before us to the same airport and do another run later and make some extra money! Sunshine are using a company which has no emergency number as their paperwork suggests and does not pick up where they state! All in all this is the worse service i have ever received from a company. Sunshine wrote on my hotel voucher 'VIP guests, friends of the director please take good care' I think this is just some joke or some rubbish they write on everyone's paperwork because they did not treat us well at all. Just a bit of help and reassurance for two girls trying to make the best of the bad situation, by traveling over 4 hours via bus, train and taxi in the middle of the night!!