My husband and I booked our honeymoon through Sell Off Vacations. Because I have not travelled much, and wanted to make sure I didn't miss any details when booking the vacation, I decided to visit one of the branch offices when booking the trip. I went to our local branch, and it took a good hour and a half to book the trip - even though I already knew the destination, flights etc. that we wanted. I paid in FULL in CASH for the trip that day, about 3 months prior to the actual date of the vacation.
As our departure date approached, I realized that I hadn't heard anything form the office at all. No confirmations, no e-tickets, nothing. Since I was working and trying to wrap everything up before going away for a week, the first day I could contact them to see what was happening was the day before we left. I tried calling the branch office, but their line was constantly busy, so I was kicked to the main sell off call centre every time. They told me that because I booked through a branch, they couldn't help me. So I drove over to the office.
When I arrived at the office, I was told that their printers were not working, and that their phone lines were also not working. I asked about my confirmation, and showed them my invoice (again, showing that I had booked three months ago, and paid in full). The agent looked in her file folder and said "well, there's nothing here. You should have gotten a phone call about picking up your documents. Are you sure we didn't call you? " Um, yes I'm sure. Why else would I be spending my last day before leaving for my honeymoon running around looking for travel documents that I should already have? So then after some more fussing, she finds a copy of our invoice, filed under the wrong letter. Great, I already had my copy of that. So she tells me that she can log in and see the reservation, but she can't print anything for me, because they have no printer. So she'll have ot call WestJet to see if they can send me the info directly. The wait time for WestJet is an hour, and the sell off branch only has one phone line working. Anyhow, I went out to run some errands. I came back and somehow, the agent had magically gotten the printer to work (but only that one time!) and printed our documents. So I take the documents, and for some reason, I felt that I should examine them to make sure everything was okay. Sure enough, my husband's name is spelled wrong. So I go back into the branch. She was all upset with me because that was the only time their printer was going to work (?!) that day, and now she would have to call West Jet again to get them to change it. So I wait AGAIN, and finally she manages to send me the documents by email. Great.
We arrive safely at our destination, and go to the Sandals Lounge to wait for our bus to the resort. All the other travellers are greeted easily, tagged bags, go to the lounge. They get to us, and can' t find our names on their list. We have ot wait for about 10-15 minutes, they finally take my invoice and printed travel info and bring us into the lounge and we take the bus to the resort. When we get to the hotel, the other couples fill out paperwork and are shown to their rooms. We fill out paperwork and wait... and wait... and wait some more. They can't find our reservation. This was not a cheap vacation, this was $6000, and our honeymoon. We waited over an hour, they finally got us into a room (it was midnight by this time). We get up the next day, and the resort manager finds us, super nice man, very professional. He tells us that we have to change rooms, because they have another guest coming that day who requires a room with no stairs to access. The resort wasn't expecting us when we arrived, so they had to put us where they had room. So, on the first day of our honeymoon, we went back to our room, packed up all of our stuff, and moved rooms.
After that, no more issues, lovely holiday. Sandals Royal Plantation in Jamaica is excellent, wonderful customer service, the resort manager is very hands on and really takes care of his guests, and the staff follow his lead. Sell off Vacations did NOTHING to help us have a relaxing honeymoon, other than take our money 3 months in advance. I could have done better on my own. I basically DID plan the trip on my own. I would never, ever go to a sell off branch again. How they conveniently forgot about confirming our reservation, I'll never know. Their head office will be receiving my complaints as well.
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