Ramada Plaza Resorts ripoff overbooked hotel Fort Lauderdale Florida

My Husband and I were married October 2001, and my mother-in-law had gotten us this trip as a honeymoon. Being that we live in Chicago, we decided to go on the trip in February and enjoy some warm weather.

Our trip was 3 days in Fort Lauderdale, the short cruise on Imperial Majesty, and then 2 days in Orlando. Since my husband's mother had booked the trip for us, she was able to some how avoid us having to go to the time share presentation.

As a matter of fact, we did not know that this was a time share scam until after we talked to a couple who was on the same shuttle bus with us to Alamo rental car. After we got our rental car, which was a huge hassle because the car was not there for us, we made out way over to the "Florida Welcome Center" in Ft. Lauderdale for our cruise tickets and maps.

When we got there, we were greeted by a very pushy and nasty lady. Since we had managed to book the trip with out the time share presentation, she tried convincing us for over 45 minutes to go to this thing.

When she finally realized that there was NO WAY we were going to go to this if we did not have to, she threw our cruise tickets at us, literlly threw them, and said, "Fine, then we're done here!".

After that we arrived at our hotel. We were booked at the Ocean Beach Resort. When we arrived, we were told that the Ramada People had overbooked the hotel, and there was not room for us.

We were sent to a Holiday Inn instead that was disgusting. It was dirty and smelled awful. The next day, we were able to back to the Ocean Beach, and it was fine. That hotel is much nicer.

We were also diappointed by the cruise. The food was terrible, and the bed they called "double" was actually a super single. My husband is 6'3" and is a solid 310 lbs. We did not fit well in this bed. Talk about back ache.

The excursions in the Bahamas were way over booked. Our snorkeling excursion had about 200 people snkoreling over a reef about the size of a classroom. Think about it, 200 people all swimming around in such a small area? Not fun.

I will say that the crew on the ship though, was excellent! Our stay in Orlando was nice. We stayed at the Amerihost, and did like it. The pools were very nice. We went to Universal Studios and Kennedy Space Center on our own.

In general the most fun we had was when we planned things ourselves on this trip. It wasn't the worst trip, and we were not ripped of monetarily like so many others on this site. However, I'm sure there are better deals than this on the web. Try Expedia or Orbits for your next trip. They have unbelievably low prices on a lot of Florida and cruise packages. My husband and I are taking a real cruise this February on Princess. Bon Voyage!

Laura
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.