A hotel has fiercely defended itself after a family said they experienced the ‘holiday from hell’ after finding their sea view room covered in mould, dry sick and toenail clippings.
Andy Pugsley, 40, booked a three-bed triple room at the Blackpool Promenade Hotel for himself, his wife Becky, 42, and daughter Erin, 14, over the Easter weekend.
The family said they could immediately smell damp when walking into their room, which cost £156.06, and also discovered mould on the ceiling, toenails on the floor and a dirty toilet brush.
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In addition, they said the window in the room didn't have any blinds and the only bin in the room had dried sick on the lid.
"There was no curtain and I had lights from the backstreet beaming into the hotel room from the window so the room was lit up all the time,” Andy said.
"My daughter's window didn't have a handle on it so we couldn't open or shut it and you could hear pigeons outside. She had no TV remote and our remote didn't have any batteries in.
"We stayed in the hotel as little as possible, we didn't have breakfast there or anything.
"It was a case of getting up in the morning, going out and then coming back at 11pm at night and that's it really."
The family were told that the hotel had recently suffered some flood damage and, as a result, were only offering rooms to people with under-18s.
Despite wanting to leave the hotel, Andy said they decided to stay because they knew they wouldn't be able to find another hotel, nor would they be able to afford one.
Andy, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, added: "It's Bank Holiday weekend and the opening weekend for the season.
"We didn't budget for another £300 for a hotel and it was 8pm on a Friday night, where am I going to be able to find a hotel?
"But if this hotel had a leak, then they shouldn't have been open in the first place.
"They also should have contacted the guests that were staying this weekend and said that because of unforeseen circumstances, we aren't able to give you your booking so here's your money back.
"If we had the money, we would have left and then tried to fight for our money back but at the time, we only budgeted for what we had for the weekend."
Andy is now struggling to get any compensation on his stay as the hotel have said because he booked it through Booking.com, he needs to get one from them.
But Booking.com has told him that he needs to go through the hotel instead.
The primary school teacher said: "Between them and Booking.com, I just want my money.
"I wouldn't say that I'll be happy if I can get my money back, but I can put a close to it and instead of fighting between them for someone to decide to give me a refund based on the state of the room.
"Nobody has emailed or communicated with me from the hotel to apologise for the state of the hotel."
Blackpool Promenade Hotel said the family’s photographs of their room are ‘not a true representation’ of the venue and they adhere to a ‘high standard of cleanliness’.
The budget hotel added that it had recently been taken over by new ownership and they were undertaking a ‘lot of work’ to get the rooms to the high standard expected.
A spokesperson for Blackpool Promenade Hotel said: “We operate a budget hotel and our hotels’ facilities do reflect its prices.
"However the pictures shared online are not a true representation of our hotel.
"The pictures shared are from rooms which are out of order and they were only left open as the builders were in and out working between the rooms.
"These rooms we do not let out as they are under renovation due to a major leak which happened recently.
"This has been repaired and doesn’t affect any other rooms then the one pictured, which is not open to anyone except builders.
"We have only just started the business and understand there is a lot of work needed to get the hotel to the high standard we would like.
"However at the moment the rooms are done to a budget standard, this doesn’t mean we let rooms out like the images shown above.
"Even though we are a budget hotel, we still keep all our rooms to a high standard of cleanliness and still provide a good quality service for our guest which provides good value for money.
"If we receive complaints we follow them up appropriately and always aim to promote a good standard throughout the hotel.
"We are sorry in this circumstance that this had to escalate to such an extent however we completely disagree that these images and the review are a true reflection of our hotel.”
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