Holidaymakers staying in Costa del Sol hotel served with closure notice due to registration error: 'It is a nightmare'

"They have given us a piece of paper in which they told us that it is all due to an administrative error, that the closure notice is for the previous hotel, but I look at the signs and it says that the Vivemar hotel is being closed, there is no mention of any other hotel. They are making fun of us - they are laughing in our faces," said Javier, one of the affected guests. Javier is travelling with his wife and 25 other people who are part of an organised group that is making a tour of different destinations and who arrived on the Costa del Sol a few days ago from Barcelona.

"Nobody believes this story, and the guide and the travel agency with which we booked the trip are ignoring the matter. On Tuesday morning, we went on an excursion to the Caminito del Rey and when we returned at 3pm everything was already sealed off and they told us to go in and out through the car park," the tourist said, indignantly. "That's when we called our travel agency because we believe that if we are staying here, we are in an illegal situation: a hotel that is sealed off and closed to the public shouldn’t be accommodating guests, but they tell us that as long as we can stay here, we should and if necessary we should go in and out the window. We booked a four-star hotel; it would be normal that we can enter and exit through the main entrance doors," Javier said.

His wife Cristina added: "It's a nightmare. This sounds like a joke, like we are being taken for a ride and everyone here washes their hands of the problem." Both feel helpless: "Where can we go now? What can we do? If they give us a return ticket, we'll go back home, otherwise we'll have to wait until Friday and report what has happened in the hotel reviews. We have no choice," they say.

For his part, Antonio, another of the affected hotel guests points out that "the garage door had a seal on it and they have removed it, so I wonder what happens if there is an incident inside the hotel now. This is a disaster". Both he and his wife, Joana, also complained about the accommodation's poor services. "They sold us a four-star hotel and this is not even a guesthouse, there are hardly any staff and they are not in uniform."

Among the more than 200 clients who were staying at the hotel at the time of the closure and sealing off of the establishment last Tuesday, which was communicated by the town hall to the operating company three months ago, there have been reactions of all kinds: from indignation to resignation or even indifference.

A German tourist staying at the hotel explained that he has been booking his holidays at this hotel for 20 years. According to him, the sealing of the property "is not a problem". "We have been told that it was simply a change of name, a dispute between the owner and the first company that ran the hotel, probably over money. I'm fine in my room, I don't have any meals here and I don't care about the swimming pool, I prefer the beach. I don't have any problems," he explained.

"We have been told that it will only be closed for two or three days", said another customer outside the hotel garage, explaining that she is determined to wait and see what happens and that she is confident that the situation will end soon.

"Do you know what has happened? Why is the main entrance closed?" asked two other tourists who have just arrived at the sealed off hotel, completely confused by the situation.