A WORCESTER couple have spoken of their nightmare stay at a Turkish hotel where 144 holidaymakers fell sick with a mysterious virus.

When Steve and Tina Currien of Flag Meadow Walk jetted off for a £2,600 all-inclusive 10-day getaway at the five-star Sentido Perissia Hotel on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast on Saturday, August 10, they had no idea of the ordeal that awaited them.

Mrs Currien, a catering manager at Worcester’s St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, told your Worcester News they had been at the luxury hotel for 36 hours before she began to feel ill.

“I couldn’t move, I had cramps, I felt hot and just generally felt really rough,” she said.

“It wasn’t because I had over-indulged - if I could have done it wouldn’t have been so bad because at least I paid for that.”

Her husband, a caretaker at RGS Worcester, said they had been given no warnings from travel agents Thomas Cook that other people at the hotel had been falling ill.

“I went to speak to the rep from Thomas Cook and they were a total waste of time,” he said. I might as well have spoken to the wall.”

By the fourth day Mrs Currien was so ill the couple decided to go to a nearby hospital, where she spent almost 24 hours on a drip before being released, feeling only slightly better.

Mr Currien was starting to feel ill by then as well and said: “I didn’t have stomach cramps but I did have a good tour of the toilets.”

While the couple had expected to spend their holiday relaxing on the beach and enjoying exotic cuisine, they found themselves unable to eat anything but potatoes, rice, chicken and bananas and drinking nothing but water.

Mr Currien, aged 48, said: “It’s the first time I’ve ever been to an all-inclusive hotel and come back lighter than I was when I left.”

Once the hotel management became aware of the scale of the problem they asked all the guests to undergo further tests, and the couple found themselves returning to hospital on Friday, August 16 - which happened to be Mrs Currien’s 45th birthday.

The couple - who still do not know exactly what the cause of the unidentified sickness was - returned home as scheduled on Tuesday, August 20 and have now joined forced with several other of the hotel guests to investigate the possibility of legal action.

Thomas Cook’s UK director of service and quality Alastair Brass said tests had indicated the cause of the sickness was viral and not the result of poor hygiene and holidaymakers booked to stay at the hotel up to Monday, September 2 have been offered alternative accommodation.