This letter serves as a follow-up to the multiple telephone conversations I have shared over the last 2 weeks with some or all of the people listed below:
Frank Barnes - VanGuard Tours
Louise Sparks - VanGuard Tours
Gay Frieary - VanGuard Tours
Paul Allen - Holland America
Ryan Oars - Holland America
Helene Hill - Holland America
Never have I been so angry, disgusted and disappointed with a trip or service. Each year for the last eight years my husband and I have enjoyed a tour experience. One year to Europe the next to Greece then to Egypt and lastly to Australia. We visit often in the US and Caribbean. I travel at least 3 times a month for business. I know what to expect when you vacation on a tour. This was not it.
In my first conversations with Louise Sparks I made it clear I wanted a special vacation. I wanted first class accommodation, a smaller more intimate ship and a tour that provided a representative to share information about the sites we were scheduled to visit. With the exception of the ship and cabin, NONE of my expectations were met on any level. We were never treated with respect or with any concern for our comfort or needs.
Since returning from this trip I have encountered several people who share my negative opinion of Holland America and VanGuard. There were people on this trip who had traveled with you before, one person, XXXX XXXX for 300 days. How have you slipped to such low customer service levels? Where is the pride in yourselves and your companies?
Each person I have spoken with at Holland America and VanGuard has asked me to do their job and document what went wrong on this trip. I have done that in the following pages. I expect compensation for the horrible experience of this vacation. I paid $10,222 and I believe I did not receive even half of the service you advertised for this trip. Please contact me as soon as possible to discuss our next step.
05/26 We arrive in Vancouver at 3:30pm and find the Holland America representatives are already gone for the day. There are long lines at the Fairmont check-in desk for cruise guests and I find out Vanguard will not have a representative with us. There is not a board in the lobby informing us of the next day's events and schedule.
05/27 All of the 200 passengers in the Vanguard booking were instructed to be in the lobby at the same time. No other information was provided. There was not adequate seating in the small lobby of the Fairmont so we were told to go downstairs to the airport terminal. After questioning the Holland America representatives about how they were going to load up the buses they admitted they were going to load the buses alphabetically.
This logic split MANY of the families/groups attempting to travel together. Based on my conversation with the representative, Holland America knew the buses were only allowed to arrive and load one at a time so the boarding process took more than 2 hours while everyone stood waiting. To simply stagger the boarding times and assign groups to the buses ahead of time would have prevented the chaos of so many people in one place with no seating and no information.
I called the Holland America office during this wasted time and Helene Hill came to the hotel and apologized for the confusion. She could clearly see the disorganization and problems your clients were having. We discussed solutions to better cope with the large number of passengers in the group. Helene actually placed my family and me on the last bus in the front seat with an apology. I believed she understood what needed to be done and would take action to fix the obvious problems.
After touring the Butchart gardens we were dropped off in Victoria late in the afternoon about 3 blocks away from anything of interest with very little information and told to be at the museum for pick up 2 hours later. No other information was provided. This was a drop off was a waste of time. Many of the elderly were tired and did not want to walk in this shopping area and there was not an area for anyone to rest or get out of the rain.
05/28 Once again - 200 passengers were instructed to be in the lobby at the same time. No other information concerning the trip was provided. Upon arriving in the lobby, we were given color-coded scraps of paper indicating which bus we would be riding. The bus assignment was still based on the alphabet, so if you were the last bus on the first day you would be last to leave/arrive once again. This alphabetical logic also again split MANY of the families/groups attempting to travel together. Holland America by now knew the buses were only allowed to arrive and load one at a time so the boarding process took more than 2 hours AGAIN while everyone stood and waited.
The driver wasted time driving around WAITING for his assigned arrival time at the docks. Very little information was passed on about what we were seeing. Had I known the purpose of this part of the tour was to WASTE my time so the bus could arrive at a certain time I would have slept in and taken a cab to the dock.
05/29 Great day NO BUSES
05/30 Chaos again led the day when we left the ship. 200 people milled about at the bus loading area. No representative in sight. Once a couple of the buses were loaded we waited and waited and waited while the driver searched for a single passenger to fill the LAST seat on our bus. This is horrible. ONE SEAT not filled kept us waiting.
06/01 Arrived Sitka, once on land we walked to the staging area for the buses to take us on a tour. Again a disaster. There were no representatives to line anyone up for the boarding of the buses and so once again it was total disorganization. None of the elderly or disabled passengers received any kind of boarding assistance unless it was from their fellow passengers. No rotation of seats. No logic in how or who went together.
06/02 No buses no problems.
06/03 No buses no problems.
06/04 One of the worst days on the tour. We were again herded into an area for the 200 bus passengers to fight it out for a seat on one of 4 or 5 double buses. The pattern, as it had been for days was that we either claw/fight our way to the front of the line and knock down the elderly in order to be on the first bus and to occupy the front row seats or again be on the last bus and/or the last seat.
Always being last means I spent my vacation time waiting for Holland America to organize and always being shortchanged on time spent at the sites we came to Alaska to see, as well as the last ones to arrive at any hotel destination. The loading time was 45 minutes per bus. I asked the driver to rotate the seating on the bus or at least the loading and unloading so everyone had a chance to view the scenery.
She refused saying she was not told to do that. I understood the earlier buses were able to see the wildlife park and to take a tram for park viewing. The bus I was on (the last one) simply went to the Portage Glacier and to a sandwich place where we waited in line for an hour to buy cold sandwiches to go and got back on the bus. We arrived at the staging area in Anchorage and waited 45 minutes to unload the bus since our driver refused to open the back door to hasten the de-boarding effort.
We were told to wait with the other 200 people at the Egan Center for the shuttle to take us to the Hilton. I spoke to a Holland America representative and asked how long we would have to wait and she was not sure. After questioning a local person I found the Hilton was 2 blocks away and decided to walk. Why not tell us we could walk if we wished to??? Our bus arrived at 3:30 two hours after the other groups arrived and we had seen almost nothing but the back of a bus. Disgust is mild for how I felt.
We walked to the Hilton and after tracking down the Holland America desk I asked one of the reps if they would assign people to buses for the next day to avoid so many mass gatherings. She asked me if I was one of the coach people? I was so enraged that I she had reduced my status of client or passenger or at least human being to one of coach person that I could barely contain myself. You certainly are nice to me when you ask for my money. There is absolutely no respect for any of your passengers from these so-called Holland America representatives. I asked for a supervisor and was introduced to Dustin Mason. I asked him to please assign groups to buses and rotate the seating to help ease some of the tension we were feeling. He said he really couldn't do anything about the bus situation. What is he there for?
I entered my room at the Hilton only to find 1 bed for 3 people and someone else's luggage. That took over an hour to resolve and our bags arrived later on that evening. Tick Tick Tick my time is being wasted again. We were unable to see any of Fairbanks because of this lack of respect for my time and Holland America's poor organization.
06/05 EVERYONE was again told to be in the lobby at 7:15am to load the buses for the to the train station. There were not enough seats in the hotel lobby for the older or disabled people to rest in. No one announced when or where the buses would stage and we were not told that instead of wasting our time waiting for the bus we could have walked the short distance to the train station and enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine instead of smoldering in another chaotic mess with no seating. Upon arrival in Denali many of our group were herded to the front office because they had no room keys.
06/06 Time to depart for the return trip to the train station. The bus dropped us off at the wrong platform. There were a number of people needing assistance in getting to the other platform so we had to help them since the Holland America representatives were not helping. The correct platform was crowded, hot, without shade, no facilities and offered very limited seating.
Upon arriving in Fairbanks, we were met at the station by the buses. Half of our group was missing their room keys and so we spent 40 minutes trying to get everyone on the buses (even now no assignments) and calmed down. After 12 days of missteps, not having a room key was the last straw for some of us.
06/07 For some unexplained reason after a day of touring, all of our buses were called back to the hotel instead of continuing on to the scheduled salmon bake and show. We had been told we were first to go to dinner followed by the show. As we waited on the bus in front of the hotel an loud/obnoxious/rude Holland American person entered our bus and told us the show will be first so if there is anyone with diabetes they will have to go to bus A in order to eat first. He said, That's just the way it is! If you want to eat first you must switch buses.
We attended the show and after leaving the building found there was a long walk to the buffet dinner. There were no officials to point the way and again no assistance to any of the elderly needing help.
Our driver was 45 minutes late picking us up for our return to the hotel. Luckily for us it was only raining a little bit and the mosquitoes bit other people since we had on repellent. I arranged my own transport to the airport so I could avoid the bus again.
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