After seeing the 5 star review by Marco...just days after I left my 1 star review (he says he has…read morebeen using this agency for 17 years....but only now decided it was worthy enough to review it...ok...sounds fishy) I decided that you shouldn't just take my word on it. So I have included photos of the outrageous price discrepancy:
Our invoice in which we were charged $1,669 for a $799 inside cabin cabin:
http://www.yelp.com/user_local_photos?select=4wmPwVbVdf5NJTnCXkVoNg&userid=FcdKOJBmez810jR6aaOIbQ
The Brochure price (not the online price. This is the price they put in print, in a catalog...so it is the highest price):
http://www.yelp.com/user_local_photos?select=MQjUf1xOJEwucYmVso2NtQ&userid=FcdKOJBmez810jR6aaOIbQ
And, since the owner/manager STILL has not tried to contact us to offer some kind of explanation, or adjustment, my review stands:
Absolutely HORRIBLE experience with this agency. When they hire brand new agents (with no experience), they clearly give zero training, support or guidance in how to properly serve their clients, or even the most basic of customer service.
Having never planned a trip for our family before, my husband hired them to purchase a cruise (I normally do the vacation planning, but I was too busy to do it this time, and my husband was sweet enough to try and do it on his own as a surprise), with two cabins. He specifically asked for either 2 balcony rooms or 1 balcony and 1 ocean view. My husband was giving this trip to me as a surprise gift. The travel agent emailed him and confirmed IN WRITING that she was booking a balcony and ocean view for us, along with payment requirements. Since the email contained confirmation from her of the type of rooms she booked for us, and a payment request was in the body of the email as well, my husband did not think it necessary to go over the invoice with a fine tooth comb. He just made the payment.
Well, when we arrived on our cruise, and went to our rooms, we discovered that although we were charged for a balcony and an ocean view, we in fact were given an inside cabin and a balcony!
To sum up the rest of this experience, what transpired from that point is this:
1) I called/texted/emailed and FaceBooked the travel agent to find out what the heck was going on, with no response from her, until days after the trip started.
2) Another agent (manager?) emailed me and told me essentially that I should not be complaining, since I at least got the one balcony room (even though we did not get the ocean view room we paid for)
3) Once on the ship, and realizing we were pretty much screwed, I went to the cruise workers themselves, to try and figure out what happened. They basically said "We have no idea why you were given the inside cabin, since it looks like you were grossly over charged for the entire trip... you actually paid more for the inside cabin then for the room with the balcony...and in fact, it looks like you could have almost gotten a suite for the price you paid here".
4) After coming home we thought for sure the agent or agency would contact us to offer some sort of apology or explanation....NOPE
5) After pointing out that we did not get what we asked for, and we were charge about 40% higher than the actual brochure price, I was told that the president/owner? basically refused to discuss this with me, and said it was OUR FAULT that the agent booked the wrong room and that we should have double checked her work (even though she EMAILED US confirming she bought us what we asked for)...it's OUR fault.
Aside from the outrageous lack of customer service/ethics/scruples this agency seems to embrace, they do not even attempt to teach the poor agents that they hire on how to properly book a trip, or treat clients. Very sad.
Funny thing...a sincere apology owning the mistake, WITHOUT trying to blame everyone else, with perhaps some attempt to explain what happened, and assistance with trying to have the cruise line adjust the error would have gone pretty far.
