SUBMITTED: Saturday, December 02, 2006
POSTED: Sunday, December 03, 2006
Why am I going to book with them and give them another $698? They have such a poor reputation of customer satisfaction. I would gladly engage with anyone in a class action suit against this company. There hard sell tactics persist today. They continuously tell you if you do not purchase now you will not get the same deal. Not to mention all the areas above other people have stated poor service, misrepresentation of quality of accomodations, location, and affiliations. I have asked for my money back and they have refused.
Needless to say as a military member who has little time with his family and not much money, I am embarassed that my wife and I were taken advantage of by this scam.
This is a copy of a letter that was written to a Consumer Information Specialist for the State of Massachussetts.
I have been having an incredibly tough time dealing with a travel agency I took a vacation from about 9 months ago. Basically, everything that was promised in the vacation, was not delivered, and when all was said and done, me, and 8 other friends of mine were left with a big bill, and a vacation that was more agonizing than enjoyable.
I got a letter in the mail telling me that if I called this toll free number I could receive a vacation for free. So of course I called, and spoke with a VERY pushy saleswomen, who convinced to take the vacation, which would only cost 600$+. She told me that if I didn't say yes right then, that the offer would not exist for me again, so it was either now or never. So I made the mistake of saying "now".
The itinary of our vacation was that we would arrive in Ft. Lauderdale and stay at a "Luxury" hotel for 4 days/4 nights on the beach. We would then proceed to a "Luxury" cruise line to the Bahamas for 3 days/2 nights, and finally finish our trip staying in Orlando for 2days/1 night. The only other accommodation we were supposed to receive was a free rental car for the week.
One other thing to note, was that because of the number of friends who were accompanying me on this vacation, we had to purchase THREE seperate packages, because one package only accommodated 4 people, and we had 9 people in all.
The day we arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale was a disaster. We had to take a bus to ALAMO Rent a Car, and realize that our free rent a car was actually not free. We ended up haggling with the Travel Agency for 3-4 hours to get them to give us more than ONE car because surely 9 people and their luggage could not fit in ONE car. I ordered THREE packages, and therefore should have gotten more than one car.
The travel agency was supposed to send us these "vouchers" to use at the rent-a-car, hotels, etc. for everything that we paid for, but they didn't send us the vouchers for some reason or another, so that at every stop, we had to get the travel agency on the phone and get them to fax the vouchers to the different merchants. This usually took 2-3 hours each time, and it happened at the 3 different hotels we stayed at, the Alamo Rent a Car, and the cruise boarding.
After we squeezed into our TWO rent a cars, which we ended up spending a total of 620$+ for the week, we proceeded to our beach front luxury hotel we were promised. We arrived at this poor excuse for a hotel, that was about 20-25 minutes from the beach.
I proceeded to get the travel agency on the phone to find out what the hell happened, and after about 2-3 hours, convinced them to get us a room at the Sheraton Yankee Clipper on the Ft. Lauderdale beach. That hotel was very nice. Probably because it wasn't a Ramada.
Then came time for the cruise. The Salesman for the travel agency convinced me to take their ship called the "Ocean Breeze" instead of the Carnival ship we were supposed to take because supposedly the "Ocean Breeze" was a nice ship, with more things to do. When I first saw this ship, the "Ocean Breeze" that I was supposed to be boarding I almost cried.
It was a over-sized garbarge barge. The first thing I noticed about the ship was its swimming pool, which was a 5-ft by 5-ft hole in the floor. We were promised a "stateroom" with luxury accommodations, but, you guessed it, there was no luxury about it.
In fact, the Travel Agency didn't reserve enough rooms for all of us. We only got two room, which slept three each, for the nine of us. That means 3 of us had to sleep on the floor for the cruise. THE FLOOR! Can you imagine going on a cruise and having to sleep on the floor?!?
The rooms themselves were disgusting. They looked like stow-away cabins. They were about 5' by 8' closets, with tiny skinny bunk beds that folded from the walls, and NO window, another thing we were promised. The ship apparently was built in the late 50's and boy did it feel like it was.
When we arrived in Nassau at 10am. we were told that we had to be back on the ship at 6pm for departure to Florida. What happened to the 3 days/2 nights in Nassau? We were only allowed one day, and didn't even get to experience the night life. The rest of the time we spent on the rust-ridden ship. There are more details that I could get into about how aweful this trip was, but I think I explained the major ones.
After calling up Ramada Plaza Resorts, they assured that if I wrote a letter of complaint to the "Compliance Department" I would get some sort of a refund. I did this 3 times, and had my friends do it as well. Every time I talked to a customer representative, they gave me the run around, telling me it would be handled next week, or that they had to put me on hold, and never took me off hold, or that I'd have to speak to a superviser who wasn't there, but would call me back when they were. Every time they told me just the things I wanted to hear just to get me off of their back, and it almost worked. I almost gave up after 2 months of nagging them, until I read on the internet, a similar story of someone who had almost the same experience as me, and it re-vitalized my energy to try and receive some sort of compensation for this disaster of a trip.
I ordered a product - in this case, it being a cruise, and I feel I did not receive that product. I came home after the trip feeling more stressed out then before I went on the trip, and that's NOT the purpose of a vacation. Anyway, I hope you can help me resolve my problem, or at least lead me to someone who can. Thank you for taking the time to read my complaint
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO SPEND A TOTAL OF $1600 AND PUT THEIR FAMILY THROUGHT THIS?