Holiday sickness reported at Sun Tropical in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote

There are reports of outbreaks of holiday sickness at the Sun Tropical hotel in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote.

A holidaymaker who stayed at the resort posted on 12 January that her husband was ill with food poisoning – and that the hotel was overrun with ants, and cats were also allowed to roam around the grounds.

Rooms at the Sun Tropical are equipped for self-catering but the same holidaymakers reported that her room was “very basic and dirty”.

Another holidaymaker said that food at the Sun Tropical was served lukewarm, including pizza – and also mentioned that there were cats everywhere and some of them seemed “very poorly”.

And holidaymakers who spent New Year at the Sun Tropical also reported dirty public areas at the hotel and poor food – with the result that 15 of their group fell ill with holiday food poisoning.

“Bars were very busy and only one or two staff, tavern bar was filthy had to go behind the bar to the phone at one point and I was horrified,” one Tripadvisor reviewer posted.

“Food was very limited, plenty of it but of poor quality… Worst thing was the food poisoning that 15 of us got on the final day, vomiting all the way home, there was no sanitiser other than outside the main restaurants, horrendous this is no more than a 2/3 star, hotel and I’ve given it a one-star rating if it wasn’t.

“For the staff working in poor conditions agree with previous comments about the cats and birds in the restaurant disgusting.”

Allowing animals birds and insects to access areas where food is stored, prepared or served can easily result in bacterial infections like salmonella spreading rapidly through groups of holidaymakers – especially if food is served lukewarm and standards of hygiene and cleanliness are allowed to lapse.

The hotel management has not yet commented on the reviews posted on Tripadvisor.