Couple 'locked in hotel for winter'

The couple were given alternative accommodation after the mix-up

A British couple who woke up in a Spanish hotel to find it locked and closed down for the winter have told Newsbeat it was a "scary" experience.

Ed Potterton and Helen Day walked downstairs from their room for a late Sunday morning breakfast to find the Galfi Hotel in Ibiza deserted.

As the couple left their room they also set off an alarm and were only let out after a security company called to ask who they were and why they were still inside.

The hotel's assistant manager was phoned and the couple were eventually freed.

Helen Day, 42, told Newsbeat it was weird being on their own: "I was frightened at first. When I thought it was the burglar alarm I was frightened. My knees were jelly.

"Being locked inside the hotel after it had closed down for the season was absolutely knicker-gripping."

The couple, from Birchington in Kent, were supposed to have been transferred to another hotel but weren't told.

Helen said: "When a man eventually came to get us out he said to us when he came in the front door, 'Oh no. What time's your flight?'. We said, 'Not till Tuesday'.

The Galfi Hotel is in a secluded part of San Antonio in Ibiza

"He got on the phone and apparently we were supposed to have been transferred to another hotel on the Sunday morning but nobody told us.

"He took us in his car to the other hotel that we were supposed to be at."

The couple spent the last two days of their holiday, to celebrate Helen's 42nd birthday, at another hotel in the same chain.

Helen says the mishap didn't ruin their holiday and isn't ruling out a return visit to the same place next year, despite a fear of flying.

"It was a nice, quiet hotel. We probably would go back there," she said.

"Obviously, we'll make sure we talk to the staff every day and make sure we know their plans before the next day."