Kevin Palmer: My family holiday to Rhodes, Greece, turned into a nightmare

Luton Airport was the departure airport for TUI flight TOM5642 to Rhodes, with the delay not of the conventional variety.

When we got on board around 4pm, the pilot made an announcement to explain why our flight was delayed as he said: "Sorry for the delay... we just needed to make sure we could get everyone on and off the island of Rhodes safely."

Naturally, this announcement caused a stir on the plane and we all started looking at our phones, which confirmed the wildfire situation in Rhodes had taken a dramatic turn for the worse while we were travelling to the airport.

A glance at Twitter confirmed tourists were fleeing the very hotels this planeload of people were hoping to stay in, as the wildfires sweeping through the heart of the island had taken a disastrous turn for the worse.

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It should be pointed our here that the travel representatives at the airport had made no reference to the gravity of the nightmare we were being flown into and by the time you are taxing down the runway, you wonder what awaits you at the other side. They should have let us know what we were flying into but in reality, it was even worse than you could have imagined.

Rhodes airport was a chaotic scene, with plane loads of new tourists arriving and being informed their hotel was now in a no go zone and they didn't know where to put us.

We had been planted into an island that has become the top story on international news, with evacuations and hotel closures meaning our flight should NEVER have taken off. And once it did, it should never have landed in Rhodes.

If we had been told about the situation in Rhodes in the queue at Luton Airport, we would never have boarded the plane. If we had been offered a holiday on an alternative Greek island, we would have taken it.

Those options were not available to us.

We eventually got on a bus and the driver was told to get out of the area quickly as the fire was 10k away and we had to move.

My already crying 10-year-old daughter now started to panic that the fire was coming for us before we were taken on a crazy bus ride that involved one minor crash with a car before they tried to drop us at a football stadium being used to hold evacuees and people who had no hotel.

Why were we put into this position? It is a question all of us on TUI Bus 280 were asking.

After seeing images of the football stadium refuge that had been set up for displaced tourists, we refused to get off the bus and demanded something better.

What we got was a conference centre at the Akti Imperial hotel in the north of the island, where the manager was not expecting us and looked confused by our arrival.

Kindly, he said our bus load could stay on the floor of his conference room for the night. We had a fridge of water, but no food. We made up makeshift beds by putting conference room seats together, but it was a farcical scene that should never have happened.

Babies were getting sick, none of us could sleep and we were all looking for escape routes, but no flights out of Rhodes were available.

Why were we put in this perilous position after paying £4,700 for a luxury holiday?

TUI knew our hotel was inaccessible before we left the UK, but still decided to fly us here with no plan of where we would go when we arrived. That is negligent at best, but potentially worse.

We heard nothing from TUI the next day as the rep failed to turn up and we were stuck in a conference room with no information about what comes next. We have still had no TUI rep visit our 'camp' at the hotel.

Once again again we ask – why were we put into this position?

TUI cancelled flights to Rhodes the next day (only after Jet2 went first with that decision) and we still haven't heard anything from TUI's reps on the ground here.

After annoying the hotel's reception staff, they have given us a room to use, but this is obviously not the holiday we booked and the football stadium/conference room plan parts of this story are evidence that we should not be here.

We all appreciate the scene was chaotic on Saturday, but it looks like TUI made a decision to fly us into a horror story to make sure they got our money and didn't need to offer refunds. If that is the case, it is a disgraceful decision that will have huge reputational damage for one of the biggest travel companies in Europe.

Bizarrely given the news you are seeing before you on RTÉ and other Irish TV networks, the scene here now is eerily calm.

Yet when you glance at sundayworld.com and all the major news websites in Ireland and the UK, the crisis in Rhodes is the top story, but the scene at the classy Akti Imperial does not reflect the scene on the other end of the island.

We are the lucky ones who got away with spending time in a football stadium safe zone or a disused school that is being used to house tourists.

Despite that, we should not be here and the TUI chiefs who made the scandalous decision to continue to send more tourists into a disaster zone and exasperate an already desperate situation need to explain how and why that decision was made.

Rhodes will always be a special place and my heart bleeds for those suffering right on this beautiful island.

I will be back and all of us on the Bus 280 WhatsApp chat share that sentiment.

Yet the reality remains - my family and I should not be here and we need explanations from those who chose to send us into danger as they added to a crisis that was already out of control.