This was a trip planned for a group of about 30 people to Mexico (Isla Mujeres in Quintanna Roo) for our wedding.
We got in contact with Sharon at TravelFrom about 7 to 8 months prior to the designated wedding date to start planning for our group to fly out so everything would be taken care of by the agency, no stress for us!
This is a list of as much as we can remember that went wrong:
Most of the people in our group found the best rates for the flights themselves (including us!), then went back to the agency so they could book it... First sign to show us we should have dealt with everything on our own!
We were handed over to Mark after thinking that sharon was going to take care of everything and trusting her to be on top of it.in fact Mark was very nice but completely incompetent!
EVERYBODY complained to us about not being called back or emailed back, it took the agents a long time to get back to people when called, if at all.
One of the couple who was supposed to come had to cancel due to serious illness and were told they would have the hotel reimbursed. They were never called back (it's been over a month).
There were transfers arranged from the airport to the ferry taking everyone to the island the event was taking place at. Most people were put together in groups to take the same transfers. A lot of them had to wait for the others up to 3 and a half hours even though everybody paid for their individual transfers.
Upon arrival on the island everyone had luggage and sometimes kids, but had to deal with getting taxis themselves to get to the hotels, there was no transfers arranged for that part (not everyone spoke spanish...).
Nobody from the agency was there to greet us or make sure everything went well by communicating with the managers of the hotels at all times.
EVERYONE had problems with their hotel rooms. NOBODY had the room they had reserved with the agency nor had what they asked for. And example is the bride's sister who could not get sheets for her baby until 10 pm at night on the first night. Other examples range from no sheet changing during the whole stay to not even getting the right bed assignement (getting 2 beds instead of 1 for a couple)...
We (the wedding couple on our wedding week AND honeymoon) were put up in the worse room in our hotel, on the entrance door in a marble hallway, where everyone in the hotel would come in and out at all hours of the night, making it so that we did not sleep for 3 days in a row.
We contacted Sharon and Mark at the agency to take care of the matter, but after a couple days were told that there was no room for us even though while the agents were supposedly making lots of phone calls and taking care of it all, we had been talking with the hotel and were able to be changed rooms.
We had to deal with all the problems by ourselves, with no support from the agency, only excuses and nothing more.
On the contrary, when told their service was unacceptable, they would not admit to anything, claiming they had done everything right the whole time.
A couple of older folks who came all the way from Argentina had to switch hotels for the last night because of some supposed misunderstanding between the hotel and the agency. The agency claims the couple did not make it clear to them how long they were staying. Our parents had to pay for that last hotel room as the first hotel did in fact have the reservation, but not the room and took the money anyway.
Another couple from Argentina read their wrongly printed itinerary to leave at a certain time to catch their flight back to Argentina, and in the end had to stay one more night to catch the next flight the next day because of a mistake on their printout. Our parents once again paid for their extra night at a hotel since the agency did not admit responsability.
In the end we learned that the agency wanted to send somebody to our ceremony to see how weddings are done on the island.
This showed the whole party that there had been somebody there all along from the agency who could have taken care of the problems instead of having the wedding couple work... We had hired an agency to do this exact job!
There was a lot of little details and problems with this agency, and not everything is remembered, but the list is still very long to show that this service was completely unacceptable!
We hired a travel agency to save money compared to plans we could have made ourselves. This to us is one of the reasons why one hires a travel agency, is to plan a trip you cannot plan on your own for the money they offer.
Well in the end, since we found our own rates for the flights and were not given any discounts on hotels, plus had to pay for our transfers even though most people were piled up together and had to wait for each other, we could have done it all on our own and taken our problems for our own responsabilities!
Our parents ended up paying for everybody's taxis from the ferry to their hotel, for the extra nights that people had to pay for etc...
Our group was very positive and wanted to enjoy themselves for our wedding, so we had a good time, but not as good as it could have been given all the issues with the hotel service that should have been in check by the agency who sold us the hotel most people stayed at as the best on the island!
Our families were coming for our wedding but also for their vacation, most of them had to endure too much stress with the service provided and could not fully enjoy their vacation. This is not the point of going on vacation if you have to deal with such things!!!
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