Watchdog has received complaints from holidaymakers who have got sick after staying at the Holiday Village in Sarigerme, Turkey this summer.
The hotel on the south-west coast of Turkey, is exclusive to First Choice for UK customers. With 17 pools and a dozen restaurants it's sold as an ideal, all-inclusive resort for families.
But what First Choice won't tell you when you book - is that hundreds of people who have stayed at the hotel have become seriously ill.
37 trips to the toilet
Victoria Shaw who is 11 caught salmonella. Her dad, Mark, caught campylobacter - an intestinal illness often caused by undercooked meat or cross-contamination of food. Mark said he was so ill he couldn't climb the stairs and on one day he went to the toilet 37 times.
First Choice is trying to get to the bottom of the problem and has sent independent experts to check the resort three times this year. But whatever they've done - it hasn't worked. Watchdog kept on hearing from more cases of people saying that a few days into their trip they have started vomiting or developed diarrhoea.
To find out what's going on, Watchdog sent undercover researchers to the hotel. On the surface, everything looked fine. There were cleaners everywhere, and the restaurant looked spotless but it wasn't long before the team started to meet people who had become seriously ill.
Carole Monteverd was part of a group of 21 that the team met at the hotel. Thirteen people had become sick while at the hotel and four more developed symptoms after they returned home.
Rep blamed the 'oily food'
One rep at the hotel acknowledged that people were falling ill but suggested it was simply an unfamiliar diet. "You find here the food is very oily, in comparison to the UK where it's very salty," they said. "But there's no sort of, disease or bug or anything."
Well maybe, but these holidaymakers definitely caught an illness somewhere. Once back in the UK, two of Carole Monteverd's party took stool samples to their doctor. One of the samples tested positive for cryptosporidium - a waterborne parasite that infects the stomach and intestine.
Watchdog enlisted food hygiene expert Dr Lisa Ackerley to help find out what was going on. She says salmonella, cryptosporidium and campylobacter are serious pathogenic micro-organism bugs that cannot be caused by something simple such as a change in diet or oily food.
Lisa met some of the families affected. She listened to their cases and assessed them. She's sure that whatever the cause, something's definitely going wrong at the resort.
Not the first year there's been sickness
And this isn't the first year that people have got sick at the hotel. Solicitors Irwin Mitchell and Pannone are representing more than 1,600 people who claim they became ill at the resort.
The first cases were five years ago, when the resort was actually two hotels - The Pegasus Palace and the Pegasus Tropical. So the lawyers are astonished to have had so many new ones this year.
The lawyers say First Choice has admitted liability for claims against the hotel in 2005, 2006 and 2007, for families whose holidays were ruined by illness, so they can't understand why that's not happened with newer cases when they say there are confirmed cases of salmonella.
It's not clear what is causing the problems at the hotel but Dr Lisa Ackerley is keen to find out. First Choice has now agreed to let her go out there to see if she can help solve the mystery.
First Choice's statement about Holiday Village Turkey
"At First Choice, the health and well being of our customers is our primary focus and we would like to apologise to anyone who has experienced sickness whilst staying at the Holiday Village Turkey.
"The Holiday Village Turkey is one of the biggest and most popular resorts in our programme, with nearly 48,000 customers visiting each year. Whilst we accept that any level of sickness is unacceptable, the numbers of holidaymakers falling sick remains very low when the larger population is taken into consideration.
"We closely monitor all the hotels in which we operate with a view to ensuring that the strictest health and hygiene standards are maintained. In light of the reported issues at this resort, we can confirm that we have significantly increased our checks. We have commissioned independent consultants who have undertaken three additional rigorous audits during the summer. On each occasion their reports have rated quality standards at the property to be high, and well above those inspectors' requirements. These studies are in addition to our own audits, as well as those conducted by other hygiene specialists instructed by the hotel management.
"We also employ our own health and hygiene specialist who is based at the property. Water samples from each swimming pool are tested at least four times a day.
"We have also instructed an independent, detailed epidemiology study to look right across the food supply chain going into the resort. This will further investigate all possible sources of the illnesses and transmission routes, as well as environmental factors such as local water supply, waste management, transport and sea water quality.
"The Holiday Village in Turkey is and continues to be very popular, with the substantial majority of customers rating the property highly in customer satisfaction surveys. In fact, over 80% of our guests would recommend the resort to a friend. However, we will continue to do everything we can to ensure that all of our customers have a safe and enjoyable holiday."
We asked an expert how to avoid food poisoning on holiday. Let us know what you think. Do you expect to fall ill when you go on holiday? This blog will close at midday on Friday 25 September but you can continue to send us any new stories you want us to investigate.
First Choice - Sickness at the Holiday Village Turkey
The hotel on the south-west coast of Turkey, is exclusive to First Choice for UK customers. With 17 pools and a dozen restaurants it's sold as an ideal, all-inclusive resort for families.
But what First Choice won't tell you when you book - is that hundreds of people who have stayed at the hotel have become seriously ill.
37 trips to the toilet
Victoria Shaw who is 11 caught salmonella. Her dad, Mark, caught campylobacter - an intestinal illness often caused by undercooked meat or cross-contamination of food. Mark said he was so ill he couldn't climb the stairs and on one day he went to the toilet 37 times.
First Choice is trying to get to the bottom of the problem and has sent independent experts to check the resort three times this year. But whatever they've done - it hasn't worked. Watchdog kept on hearing from more cases of people saying that a few days into their trip they have started vomiting or developed diarrhoea.
To find out what's going on, Watchdog sent undercover researchers to the hotel. On the surface, everything looked fine. There were cleaners everywhere, and the restaurant looked spotless but it wasn't long before the team started to meet people who had become seriously ill.
Carole Monteverd was part of a group of 21 that the team met at the hotel. Thirteen people had become sick while at the hotel and four more developed symptoms after they returned home.
Rep blamed the 'oily food'
One rep at the hotel acknowledged that people were falling ill but suggested it was simply an unfamiliar diet. "You find here the food is very oily, in comparison to the UK where it's very salty," they said. "But there's no sort of, disease or bug or anything."
Well maybe, but these holidaymakers definitely caught an illness somewhere. Once back in the UK, two of Carole Monteverd's party took stool samples to their doctor. One of the samples tested positive for cryptosporidium - a waterborne parasite that infects the stomach and intestine.
Watchdog enlisted food hygiene expert Dr Lisa Ackerley to help find out what was going on. She says salmonella, cryptosporidium and campylobacter are serious pathogenic micro-organism bugs that cannot be caused by something simple such as a change in diet or oily food.
Lisa met some of the families affected. She listened to their cases and assessed them. She's sure that whatever the cause, something's definitely going wrong at the resort.
Not the first year there's been sickness
And this isn't the first year that people have got sick at the hotel. Solicitors Irwin Mitchell and Pannone are representing more than 1,600 people who claim they became ill at the resort.
The first cases were five years ago, when the resort was actually two hotels - The Pegasus Palace and the Pegasus Tropical. So the lawyers are astonished to have had so many new ones this year.
The lawyers say First Choice has admitted liability for claims against the hotel in 2005, 2006 and 2007, for families whose holidays were ruined by illness, so they can't understand why that's not happened with newer cases when they say there are confirmed cases of salmonella.
It's not clear what is causing the problems at the hotel but Dr Lisa Ackerley is keen to find out. First Choice has now agreed to let her go out there to see if she can help solve the mystery.
First Choice's statement about Holiday Village Turkey
"At First Choice, the health and well being of our customers is our primary focus and we would like to apologise to anyone who has experienced sickness whilst staying at the Holiday Village Turkey.
"The Holiday Village Turkey is one of the biggest and most popular resorts in our programme, with nearly 48,000 customers visiting each year. Whilst we accept that any level of sickness is unacceptable, the numbers of holidaymakers falling sick remains very low when the larger population is taken into consideration.
"We closely monitor all the hotels in which we operate with a view to ensuring that the strictest health and hygiene standards are maintained. In light of the reported issues at this resort, we can confirm that we have significantly increased our checks. We have commissioned independent consultants who have undertaken three additional rigorous audits during the summer. On each occasion their reports have rated quality standards at the property to be high, and well above those inspectors' requirements. These studies are in addition to our own audits, as well as those conducted by other hygiene specialists instructed by the hotel management.
"We also employ our own health and hygiene specialist who is based at the property. Water samples from each swimming pool are tested at least four times a day.
"We have also instructed an independent, detailed epidemiology study to look right across the food supply chain going into the resort. This will further investigate all possible sources of the illnesses and transmission routes, as well as environmental factors such as local water supply, waste management, transport and sea water quality.
"The Holiday Village in Turkey is and continues to be very popular, with the substantial majority of customers rating the property highly in customer satisfaction surveys. In fact, over 80% of our guests would recommend the resort to a friend. However, we will continue to do everything we can to ensure that all of our customers have a safe and enjoyable holiday."
We asked an expert how to avoid food poisoning on holiday. Let us know what you think. Do you expect to fall ill when you go on holiday? This blog will close at midday on Friday 25 September but you can continue to send us any new stories you want us to investigate.
First Choice - Sickness at the Holiday Village Turkey