Family plagued by parasitic worms at five-star Caribbean hotel where ‘birds landed on buffet & insects crawled on food’

A FAMILY say they contracted parasitic worms after staying at a five-star resort in the Caribbean.

Their £3,700 luxurious trip soon turned into a holiday from hell as birds "landed on the buffet" and "insects crawled over the food".

Sarah Sigston, 57, her husband Jeremy, 53, and their 25-year-old daughter Isabelle had looked forward to spending quality time in the Dominican Republic.

But their holiday was ruined by "undercooked meat", "insects in the salads” and “birds on the buffet trays”.

The family, from Rayleigh, Essex, jetted off on May 4 for a two-week stay at the all-inclusive Viva Dominicus Palace by Wyndham - which they booked as a package through TUI.

On arrival, the group said they found the hotel to be “very, very tired” with their room “looking nothing like the pictures online”.

They selected this resort in particular as it claimed online that those with coeliac disease, which Isabelle has, would be “safe” at their site.

But she then became unwell after being served a burger which contained gluten despite being assured by three different staff members it did not.

By the eighth day on their trip, the family started to notice “worms” in their stools – which later required a three-day course of medication once they returned home to the UK.

Despite the problems the family stayed until the end of their trip and tried to seek compensation through TUI.

But they said their claim has been refused by the travel company due to a lack of evidence linking their illnesses to the hotel – despite saying they have shared pictures of the parasites.

Jeremy, a double-glazing installer said: “My wife and I have travelled around south-east Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and we’ve never had any issues, come back with anything, or even been ill.”

“We’ve eaten some pretty questionable food but never have we come back with any lodgers inside us.

“We were totally underwhelmed with the holiday, disappointed and wholly mis-sold, especially with it being marketed as a ‘coeliac friendly hotel’ – it was misleading.”

Sarah, an artist, explained how the family have visited the Dominican Republic three times and had “amazing” trips, but said their latest holiday “wasn’t worth” the £3,783.16 they paid.

“On the first night, we all went ‘oh my god’ because it wasn’t anything like we were expecting,” she said.

“The first day we got there, the food was cold, there were very limited food options, when you went round the buffet there were loads of empty trays.

“There was undercooked meat all the time, there were insects in the salads, flies all over the salads, birds sitting on the buffet trays.

“The hotel was very, very tired, it wasn’t worth the money we paid, it looked nothing like the pictures online.”

The family also said they were subjected to “deafening” drum and bass music which played around the pool “constantly” and contained “awful” swear words.

“There was loud music around the swimming pool, which might sound like a silly thing to complain about, but the type of music, it was really loud rapping, like drum and bass with the F-word and the C-word,” Sarah said.

“It was constant and the swearing in it was unreal, it was awful.

“If I had a young child there, I would be absolutely appalled, it was literally deafening.”

Jeremy added that the locks on their hotel room door were “wholly inadequate”.

He said: “The door lock to our room looked like someone had broken into it and smashed the Chubb lock and it had been replaced, but it was really badly done.

“It was wholly inadequate, you could have lent on it and opened the door.”

I think it was (Jeremy) who had the first worm and I remembered saying, ‘there’s a long white thing, you’ve got a parasitic worm’

Sarah Sigston

Sarah said around the third day of their trip, she and her family started to feel unwell with diarrhoea, nausea and stomach cramps.

By the eighth day, Sarah revealed that her family started to notice long white worms in their stool.

“I think it was (Jeremy) who had the first worm and I remembered saying, ‘there’s a long white thing, you’ve got a parasitic worm’,” Sarah said.

“We were sort of joking at first but then we all started getting them.

“For a couple of days, I had to stay in the room for the day because I couldn’t go out as I kept having to go to the toilet.”

The family returned home to the UK on May 19 and went to a doctor the following day, where they showed images of their stool, with Sarah saying the doctor “immediately” told them “they are definitely worms”.

They were all prescribed a three-day course of Mebendazole, a medication which is used to treat a number of parasitic worm infestations.

The family had further issues with the food on their holiday after their daughter Isabelle, who has coeliac disease, ate a burger which they were assured by staff was gluten-free.

“The reason we chose this hotel is because they had a box on their website saying something like ‘coeliac disease, no problem, you’re safe with us’,” Sarah said.

“It can cause some food anxiety, especially in a foreign country.”

Sarah said many of the food items available at the hotel’s restaurants which are naturally gluten-free, such as potatoes, white rice and vegetables, were accompanied with labels saying they contained gluten.

“No-one seemed to know what coeliac disease was but apparently, the hotel catered for it,” she added.

“We asked (about the burger) and they said ‘yes, they’re gluten-free’, we double-checked again and we were told ‘yes’… Isabelle was still a bit hesitant but she started eating it,” Sarah said.

“In the end, the head chef came down and he was really, really apologetic and said they weren’t gluten-free but (Isabelle) had already eaten half of it and then obviously, you’ve got no choice.”

A few hours after eating the burger, Isabelle became ill with diarrhoea, sickness and “crippling pain”, saying she was “wiped out” for the remainder of the holiday.

Sarah said her daughter managed to get by with eating white rice, salad and grilled meat, and towards the end of the trip, Isabelle ate her own Itsu gluten-free rice pots as she felt there was nothing she could “safely eat”.

To try to remedy the situation, Sarah said the chefs at the hotel asked the family to go to one of the 10 restaurants on site each night and find one of the chefs, where they would be able to cook something specially for her, such as gluten-free pasta.

“It was very nice but they weren’t always there,” Sarah said.

The family have asked for compensation for their holiday through TUI, but said they have had their claim refused by the company because they were unable to provide enough evidence.

They said this was because they could not show through a test, such as a stool sample, that the worms came directly from the hotel or that Isabelle’s illness was caused from eating food which contained gluten.

The family said they did not feel a stool sample would be necessary on their return home as they were all prescribed medication the day after they landed, and a test was not needed for a doctor to see they had worms.

TUI has declined to comment.

Viva Dominicus Palace by Wyndham hotel has been approached for comment, but it had not responded at the time of publication.