Lie back and think of holidays. The urine-stained sheets. The construction site outside your window. The nightclub beneath your floor. The luggage stolen at the airport. It's not that bad for everybody, of course, but these are some of the complaints dealt with by the European Consumer Centre in Dublin last year.
They are the rare and not-so-rare gripes among the 1,147 queries made by Irish holiday makers last year. We're going on holiday more often every year, and that means more things to be disgruntled about. Some of the more unusual complaints included a tour representative being late for important pilgrimage events, and the man who was delayed boarding in Dublin airport because his passport was so battered the airline would not accept it. One couple booked to fly from Cork but found their flight switched to fly out of Dublin.
More common complaints include hotels not quite matching the promises of the brochure, such as when the swimming pool is drained, there is no children's club or, as happened to one luckless family, there is a chicken farm too close to the resort.
There can be problems with sewage systems, or with specific dietary requirements not being met despite advance notice. Increasingly, people are turning on their televisions to find that the dream resort they have booked is the subject of a "Holiday from Hell" programme. They tend to reach for the phone long before the credits roll.
Delayed flights, however, are among the biggest problems. For independent travellers even more so, as while you may be free of some of the constraints of the package holiday, you will also lack some of the protections they afford.
For those who book flight only there is little comeback. "If you've been delayed by 2 hours or 10 hours, it doesn't matter a damn. You have little chance of compensation," says Mary Denise Fitzgerald of the ECC. "The regulations should have been updated on this, but they haven't been." Low-cost airlines have been steadily climbing the list of most complained about airlines.
When it comes to hotels, independent travellers can find themselves without support. If you have trouble with a hotel room in Portugal, there will be no rep to turn to and no tour operator to hold responsible.
Of course, package holidaymakers are not immune from trouble, but are just more likely to be compensated.
Tour operators are bound by legislation to provide what it says on the brochure, and while Fitzgerald says that most tour operators are as keen to give you a good holiday as you are to enjoy one ("Remember, they want you to come back again") some problems remain.
There are still cases in which an operator will attempt to raise the price after you have booked it.
"Sometimes they will claim that they gave winter prices for a summer holiday or that it was a clerical error. But there are very strict regulations on this, and they cannot arbitrarily raise the price."
She warns people that the operators are not bound to give you a refund if you have to cancel at the last minute, but in extreme circumstances they will help you re-coup the loss through insurance.
Tour operators, she says, are getting smarter and will warn you if there is a construction site or chicken farm beneath your balcony.
However, if your dream holiday does sour in any way, she says that it's important to make a complaint on the spot and to follow it up with a detailed complaint in writing.
Take photos too, if evidence is needed. It will at least make for more interesting holiday snaps. Here's the beach. Here's Miguel our waiter. Here's the rubble of our hotel after it collapsed . . .
Shane Hegarty
