Rebekah McGinley, 28, and husband Ian McGinley returned to their honeymoon hotel room in Turkey to find the windows covered by the national flag – giving it an ominous red glow
A newlywed couple say they were left baffled after they returned to their four-star hotel room to find it ‘glowing like the red light district’.
Rebekah McGinley jetted off to Antalya in Turkey with husband Ian McGinley and son Max on April 16 to celebrate their honeymoon, and their son’s fourth birthday. But while lounging by the pool five days into their week-long Jet 2 holiday, the teaching assistant noticed hotel staff hanging a giant Turkish flag near their room. When the mum-of-one came back to the room, she was stunned to discover their view completely obscured and the room bathed in red light – a situation made all the more frustrating as they’d paid a €50 upgrade for a pool view.
Their stay happened to coincide with Turkey’s National Sovereignty and Children’s Day on April 23, which sees many buildings adorned with the national flag. The 28-year-old said when they raised the issue with the front desk, staff told them that because there were only two days left of their holiday, there ‘wasn’t much they could do’.
Hotel staff did offer them a new room, but she declined since it was so close to the end of the trip, and instead opted for a free late checkout on their final day. Describing the bizarre situation on their honeymoon, Rebekah, from Sunderland, said: “Someone did compare it to the red light district, which made me laugh. It wasn’t the intention for the family holiday.
“We were down by the pool and we had a look up and we were like, ‘oh they’re putting up a big flag.’ And we were like, ‘oh I think that’s our room in the middle.’
“We were just laughing about it because we were like, ‘it could only happen to us.’ There were a few people around us and they said, ‘we feel sorry for whoever’s in that room.’ We went up and had a look and of course the room was bright red, we couldn’t see anything.
“I would have been fine with it, I just wish they would have said. And with them charging extra for the upgrade, it would have been nice if they told us they were going to do it.
She added that the flag obscuring the window made the room “really hot”, and said it was “like being in a tent”. After initially being stunned by the change in decor, Rebekah eventually saw the funny side.
Rebekah said: “We were just laughing. My little boy was just like, ‘the room’s red, what’s happened to the room?’ We couldn’t do anything about it. We didn’t want to disrespect the flag in any way, we didn’t want to pull it down or anything like that.
“We saw on the other hotels they had them but they were on the side, it was just ours that was right in the middle. There were empty rooms, it wasn’t a sold-out hotel. I just don’t know why they put us in there anyway because they knew they were going to put it up.
“So I don’t know why they didn’t just leave it empty or let us know when we were paying extra for it. We just posted the TikTok because we thought it was funny, but it was a bit annoying because we didn’t get the view.”
Rebekah’s TikTok video has now attracted more than 1.2 million views – with some users comparing the room to the red light district.
One commented: “Going to sleep in Turkey, waking up in the red light district.” A second said: “Looks like Amsterdam street inside.”
The official Specsavers account joined in on the fun, saying: “Even we can’t help with that.”
Jet 2 declined to comment.