We spend all year looking forward to our holiday building it up and then it is a let down. The brochure may have had a picture that bears no resemblance to your resort. Your luggage was lost on route to your holiday destination leaving you with little if any clothing. Your flight was delayed due to bad weather or ground strikes. Making you miss the first few days you arrive tired and exhausted.

You got to your hotel and found it had no record of you booking and this would be the busiest week in the year where no accommodation was available elsewhere and your holiday rep is promising she /he will sort it out tomorrow.

The weather decides to give you tornado fire floods the neighbours in the next room must be deaf as they have the music turned up loud twenty four seven. You have caught a bug whilst eating the food in the hotel buffet .the toilet is over flowing with waste mater and the room service is nonexistent.

You eventually fly home more exhaust and in need of a holiday than when you left.

Does any of this seem familiar?

It is worth taking photographs and keeping a journal of events that you can show on your return. If possible get witness accounts from other guests with their names and addresses.

Anyone in the business of providing food and drink must abide by strict hygiene standards. Regrettably this is not always the case and there have been numerous well reported cases of serious food poisoning outbreaks in holiday resorts, hotels, cruise liners and restaurants. It can be difficult to pin-point the actual cause of a food poisoning outbreak but it is quite obvious that a problem exists if several people eating in the same establishment suffer similar symptoms.

You have lost all your baggage on the trip out to your holiday destination These types of problems come under the general heading of "force majeure" which simply means that the travel companies need not accept any sort of responsibility.

Misrepresentation is an all too common complaint if the brochure is misleading this is misrepresentation and you have a claim. It is interesting to compare actual photographs with those in the brochure and actual descriptions with those of witnesses. So it is worth taking photographs to prove that you did not get what you expected from the holiday brochure.