Any TA horror stories? Any things you like? (no names please.)

[runningnurse]

I book my cruises through my bank/insurance agency...I've been with them since I was 18 and they are -lovely-. In any situation, they will bend over backwards to make sure all goes well, and the same goes for their affiliated travel folks. They do give you the extension of your personal TA, but if he/she is not available I can talk to anyone and they are equally helpful. There was some mixup with our cabin this time around...the lady had to re-do the booking completely to add in a discount she forgot the first time around, and somehow we ended up right next to the elevators, which I didn't realize until reviewing the confirmation email the next day. I called, spoke with someone else and explained that I didn't necessarily want the -exact- cabin I thought we had, I just wanted one not next to the elevators...five minutes and he had me back in the exact same cabin with $25 OBC for the mixup!!!

 

I've also worked with a brick-and-mortar TA when I added into my friends' spring break cruise in college, and he was incredibly helpful. They (not knowing any better!) had booked air through Carnival, so when I went to add in three months later, it was a bit of a trick. He got me on the same flight down, but when I had to spend the night in Miami after returning...they comped the room! It was a -very- nice hotel, too.

[Krazy Kruizers]

about 25 years ago, we booked a cruise that included Iceland, etc. Booked about a year in advance. The cruise was for July. Sometime in February, this TA whom we have not dealt with since, got a notice from the cruise line that the cruise itinerary had been completely changed. This TA never bothered to read the fax - just threw it in the folder. The middle of June we got a call from this TA telling us that our documents were in. When we picked them up and looked them over we told her that the documents were not for the cruise that we had booked. This TA never even bothered to look over the documents before calling us. After we pointed this out to the TA, the TA called the cruise line. The cruise line informed the TA that a fax had been sent indicating the new itinerary. The cruise line assumed that since they had not heard from the TA that we had approved the new itinerary. This itinerary was identical to the one we had just done the year before thus we wanted to do something completely different. It tunred out to be a long evening. Normally that tavel agency closes at 5 - you can be certain that we never left until after 8 and the owner of the agency had to come in and straightened out things. The worst part was that we could not have taken the substitued cruise because we needed to have VISAS!!!

 

To make a long story short. The agency had to give us our money back out of their oen pocket. We never went back there. A couple of years ago the agency went bankrupt.

[tip]

"The One Wo Must Be Obeyed" and I live in a moderately sized New Hampshire community. We have always tried to shop locally and when we began traveling every year about ten years ago or so, we utilized a local agent. Let's call him "Mr. Bumble". If appearances mean anything, we should have looked elsewhere right away, but I wanted to give the guy a chance. The office looked as though it had been a FEMA site with stacks of papers and brochures everywhere in a very unorganized fashion. He had to always spend time looking for something.

 

Our first vacation booked with him was to take the family to see the rodent in Orlando. He had my wife's name wrong on documents. I let it go, but in today's world of travel, it would spell disaster. Our second trip was a cruise out of Port Canaveral. I had to ask him why he had us flying into Miami rather than into Orlando. The next cruise saw us with no documents a week before our departure. He had moved his office from a commercial strip mall to his home and UPS does not forward documents. They shipped them back to the cruise line. He told us not to worry and just show up at the dock.

 

Needless to say we cut the cord although I am still not sure why it took us so long. We now book through an agent from Georgia who has treated us like family. Goodbye to Mr. Bumble!