Many holiday makers at Club La Costa's newest resort at Apollonium have been falling ill with sickness and diarrhoea, according to posts published on Trip Adviser and other reports sent to me.
Club La Costa management, representatives and medic have been telling sick guests it is due an air-borne sickness caused by the pollen coming down from the mountains affecting the whole region. Apollonium is situated close to the village of Bozbuk approx 9-10 Km from Akbuk by road, less as the crow fly's, yet no one here seems to be having such problems, apart from overdoing it on the Efes. Food poisoning and poor hygiene are the reasons being blamed for this epidemic according to posters on Trip Advisor.
The problems appear to have started in July and to date have only got worse. Temperatures in August have been hitting the 40's C.
If you are planning visiting this resort in the near future you may like to read the growing number of reports for yourself, here is the link Reviews Apollonium_Club_La_Costa.
I am also inviting your comments on this blog.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
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Dear Akbuk Rob,
ReplyDeleteWe got back at the weekend and are still really poorly. I saw on turkishliving.com you were asking about the stories at Apollonium for a contact you have. Here's a brief summary from me:
I'm still awaiting hospital results and will let you know if the specific bug is identified. What I do know (from nhsdirect who were looking at their pharmacy website) is that the medic was only handing out half of the recommended antibiotic drug - Diafuryl- 400mg per day as oposed to 800mg. However, nhs practice would be to take no medication for diarrohea up to 7 days and just focus on rehydration/minerals/diet so not having the drug is only a marginal problem.
Upon reflection (and I've had fairly responsible roles in both the food industry and hospitals so whilst no microbiologist or expert I'm not completely cranky) I think there may be problems in the restaurant regarding poor hygiene practices. However, the key problem is that now too many people are ill and are all using the swimming pools. Therefore the problem is perpetuated via the swimming pools rather than the restaurant.
As for the sea, I don't know if the sea current removes the bugs or if the bugs will stay where all the beach swimmers congregate as it is a fairly compact area.
There are other silly inadequacies due to poor design / cost-cutting but actually it would be a lovely resort if the sickness hadn't made us all ill. After 48hrs two of us had sickness and diarrhoea and the other two just diarrhoea. The only time since August 2nd I've been well is when I had a quiet day before we went to Ephesus and then had the day trip. This reinforces that time off site is the only recovery but I then had our second meal in the restaurant and been hit for 6 since then. I'm holding fire from contacting Club la Costa as I hope there must be an official investigation on-going and they will contact us in due course.
Sadly, all this meant I wasn't able to test your restaurant advice although the map was helpful when I took the bus into Akbuk just to go somewhere. The resort doesn't give any decent local information so I was lucky to have been in contact with you.
One question - the resort said that the local hospital in Didim had been overrun with local people suffering the same problem - several thousand had been affected and the local government had identified the pollen as the problem. Is there any truth in that?
Hope this helps and thanks again for yor time.
One question - the resort said that the local hospital in Didim had been overrun with local people suffering the same problem - several thousand had been affected and the local government had identified the pollen as the problem. Is there any truth in that?
ReplyDeleteI think if that were the case Harold we would certainly know about it here. As far as I know Didim hospital has been operating as normal. There is no mention of this on the Akbuk councils website, no reports in local newspapers, nothing on the TV and no announcements from any quarter.
I suspect someone has told you a porky pie.
I understand that the Apollonium Owners Association has taken this matter up with Club La Costa and it is being closely investigated at this time.
ReplyDeleteWe have received a letter from CLC but although it confirms further tests are being carried out, there are no hard facts as to what exactly they are doing about it. Could it be that CLC are concerned over possible litigation against them for pain and suffering, hence the lack of information on causes? The "airborne pollen " theory was dispelled by everyone pretty much as a fabrication.
It appears these problems only occurred after the end of July, and as owners we are doing all we can at the present time to work with CLC to get to the cause of the problem, which at the moment is marring what should be a first class resort.
Its now the 1st September. We are due to fly out on the 13th. My husband is diabetic - drug controlled and I am slightly worried. CLC told me that the last notified case was about the 14th august. Does anyone know whether or not this is getting better. If not what is being done at the site to make it better.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much.
We are flying out on Saturday. CLC told us the same, but looking on Tripadvisor suggests that cases are still being experienced, although perhaps not as many.
ReplyDeleteWe will be taking our own disinfectant and antibacterial wipes, not using the pools and eating off-site. One of the recent Tripadvisor reviews avoided the worst of the problem through these measures.
Unfortunately it's hard to have a lot of faith in what CLC are saying when they are sticking with the ludicrous and discredited airborne pollen theory.
Family with young daughter went to Apollonium mid July ate at Byblos and swam in pools with no problem. I went out for a week with a lady in her 80's, returning 6th september, we ate at Byblos every night, I swam in the pools and sea. We had a wonderful time, no sickness and heard of none. I'm looking forward to returning with Paul mid October.
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