British tourists hold sit-in at Caribbean resort after locals "destroy everything"

Dozens of British holidaymakers have staged a sit-in at a luxury Caribbean hotel after "drunk and rowdy" locals turned up and urinated in the swimming pool, ate the buffet food and caused "chaos and destruction." SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

The guests, who were staying at the five-star ClubHotel Riu Merengue in the Dominican Republic, claim their holiday had been ruined by the behaviour of the locals.

One angry tourist, Tony Walton, told the Daily Mirror that his £12,000 family holiday with Thomson was ruined by the locals.

The 48-year-old sales manager from Doncaster said: "They destroyed everything, ate everything. They were washing themselves down fully in the shower by the pool. And there was no food – they took it all."

"I have nothing against Dominicans, these people were not at all representative – they were drunk and rowdy."

Mr Walton said that the pool was closed after it was used as a lavatory and that locals even urinated on sun loungers while people were laying on them.

After five days of their holiday from hell, Tony, his wife, two children and four other relatives held a sit-in with other guests at the hotel's Thomson desk.

Staff told Mr Walton it would cost £1,800 to move his family to another hotel and advised him to take excursions to get away from the hotel.

Up to 100 guests were eventually moved to another hotel and Walton said he was only offered £30 compensation.

"It has ruined our holiday and my wife's birthday," he said.

"I paid a lot of money and I have wasted it. Thomson have been absolutely useless and Riu even worse."

A Thomson spokesman told the Daily Mail: "Thomson is sorry to hear that Mr Walton was disappointed with his stay at the Riu Merengue in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

"We are aware that some customers expressed a disappointment with the levels of service during high occupancy and, as a gesture of goodwill, have moved them to a hotel nearby, including Mr Walton's party.

"Thomson takes customer satisfaction very seriously and is currently working with the hotelier to fully investigate Mr Walton's complaint."

A video of a Thomson rep apologising to holidaymakers was posted on YouTube and guests took to TripAdvisor to leave reviews about their nightmare stay.

One user wrote: "My husband and I were really looking forward to a wonderful holiday in a 4* hotel what we actually got was hell. The first week we got there we were not to worried as it seemed to be not so bad but come the week-end it seemed like the whole of Puerto Plata had descended upon the Hotel we could not use the pool as it was so full of local people who with no regard for any one else virtually took over the pool, the restaurant sun beds screaming and shouting across the pool area to each other sometimes they would be right behind your sun bed as I have said ,there was no regard for any other user, then we noticed that prostitutes were working the bars as wel.l"

Another guest said: "During our last week my husband only had soup for two nights due to the lack of available food & the length of the queues, not what your would expect from a hotel with a 4/5 star rating. The noise in the dining room was also deafening at times."

One user dubbed the hotel "A butlins weekend for locals" and wrote: "This is the worst hotel I've stayed in, locals ruin the place, it's unhygienic with local kids peeing and pooing in and around the pool, no food to eat. People developing bacterial infections from the pool and food poisoning from the food. This hotel was a Butkus week end for the local people!"

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