Elena, a part-time nurse, had travelled to Cape Verde on 1 August with her husband, Patrick, their son Sean and his fiance, before she began feeling unwell on 8 August.
After her condition worsened overnight, she was assessed by a nurse and transferred to hospital, but she continued to deteriorate and died on 10 August.
Patrick Walsh, 60, who also fell ill, said his wife’s condition gradually “got worse and worse” and he wanted to make people aware of what had happened.
“You don’t expect to go on holiday and you all don’t come back,” he added tearfully.
“Just constantly, constantly being sick… the Thursday night I got it out of my system, but Elena didn’t.”
Walsh described how as there was so much food at the resort, people were “picking and mixing”.
“I did say to Elena… This is not a real hotel and it wasn’t a real hotel, the standards were way lower,” he said.
“She was very inquisitive,” he said of his wife. “Anyone she met, she got on with them, and had such a zest for life.”
Elena’s son, Sean, 29, who was celebrating his engagement at the time, felt hygiene and cleanliness at the hotel were “very deceptive”.
“We were hearing so many stories of other people there who just had passing stomach bugs,” he said.
“And then sort of little things where restaurants that have a little bit of an outdoor area, you’d notice a lot of flies and things like that around the food and drinks dispensers and things.”