ROYAL PLAYA DEL CARMEN BRIDES: were kids allowed for the day? ...and other questions

[Natalie79]

I also used Sand n Sun!  I will also be posting a thorough review...the past month was horrible!  She was acting like we were burdening her.  This is an email from her a few weeks ago.  Do not use them!  We did drop the number of rooms from 20 to 12...but I followed ALL the contract deadlines!  This is what happened...

 

ALL I DID was ask "Can we put names in the room and change at a later date?".  She replied "Your rooming list is due August 16th."  Then I replied "I would just like to know if I can change the names, i understand if there is a fee.  It doesn't make sense to not be able to change a name".

 

After the 2nd name change question.  This is what she replied.....

You signed a contract and agreed to certain terms and conditions of this
group booking. When you contacted me you could not wait for the original agent you contacted to get back because you so wanted this group contract. Since then you have
not abided by terms and conditions of that booking. We have reduced the
contract down by 8 rooms and I waived all of our Sand and Sun fees for you
in doing that caused me to do more work with no compensation. I have done
my best to accommodate all the changes you wanted and keep the fees on you
to a minimum. I even noticed that the Jr. Suite Ocean Fronts were running
on low inventory. I knew you were really wanting to get upgraded to that
category but the upgrades do not get determined until all guests pay in
full. So to make sure you got the room you wanted I had them add that room
category to the contract in place of your Jr. Suite Ocean View and had the
significant price differnce taken from my commission.

As I stated the final rooming list is due to them on August 16th as is
clearly stated in the contract you signed. So you need to either cancel
the unbooked room at a 2 night penalty or book someone into it so that I
can submit their name(s) in the rooming list. IF booking the room, $35.00
per change fee applies to any changes made and if you book people into the
room and there are any cancellations (either of a guest or of the entire
room) within 40 days prior to arrival they are in full cancellation
penalty. If a guest or a room cancellation occurs before the 40 day prior
mark there is a 2 night cancellation penalty.

Please let me know if you would like the room cancelled or give me the
name(s) of guests to place in that room.

 

Originally Posted by jesmcan 

Hi Reid,

 

       I did the same we had 12 more guests who ended up coming and I had them booked on their own. I am sorry that you faced the same experience I completely know how you feel.

 

Well now we have our big days to look forward to and hopefully after our reviews no one will ever use Sand N Sun Vacations again and go through what we went through.

 

 

[Bride2B22]

WOW what a b*tch! that is so unprofessional!

[Lady_Di]

I am so sorry that you guys are having so much trouble with Sand N Sun vacations...I did not have any negative experience with them when Jennifer was handling my wedding.

[jesmcan]

OMG Natalie the same thing happened to me!!! this is what she wrote me you can see in red after I sent her an e-mail that you can see below. I asked to be moved to another agent and told her I was going to contact Jennifer her boss. Her mistakes ended up costing us so much money. I thought it was so rude and unprofessional of her to even write back and especially say what she did below.

 

I find it funny that in her e-mail she specifically stated that she was not having any problems with any other groups except for mine.

 

 

WOW!  I completely understand your stress Jess, but please remember that
you are NOT my only client.  I have clients that are traveling this week
and before your group that deserve attention too.  Your guests are not the
only ones booked with Mexicana.

You sent me an email saying this is Eileens flight, I misinterpreted it, I
apologize, but when you email me 50 times a day it gets to be very
confusing.  I did not put it on my spreadsheet until you sent me that
email.

In addition, I can only give you the information that I receive from the
tour operator, I've received different answers each time I've called,
that's not my fault, and honestly, it's not their's either, we have all
been blindsided by this entire fiasco and are working as quickly as we can
to get everyone re-accomodated.  The fact that you think you and your
guests are the only ones affected blows my mind.

I have spent countless hours working with your group this week, having to
delay responding to my other clients because I knew how stressed you were
about the whole thing.

I actually have several large groups I'm working with and have had no
trouble working with any of them, so I don't think it's my lack of
knowledge or my ability to handle the workload.

This is not a typical situation and  2 major parts of the problem were the
price matches that your group had to have and the fact that you wanted
everyone re-booked on spirit airlines and not a major airline.

I did the best I could to help you, good luck.

Jill


> Your spread sheet that you sent to me said RE-BOOKED right next to Eileen
> Walden's name. So I expected that she had been re-booked with us.
>
>
> I did not mention anything about anyone re-booking till after that spread
> sheet
> was sent. So this was clearly another error on your part. I will call
> Craig now
> and let him know this one has to be disputed as well and we will take care
> of
> it.
>
>
> Your errors have cost my guests even more money and have put me through a
> completely unnecessary amount of stress.
>
> I am really disappointed Jill. It is clear that you are unable to handle a
> group
> of this size. This was clearly shown during these extenuating
> circumstances. The
> whole reason I opted to go with you was that you promised by going with
> you that
> if anything should happen we would be in  good hands. The amount of
> misinformation and errors that have happened are just unacceptable.
> Especially
> when we are so close to our wedding.
>
>
> At this time I am going to contact your boss when she returns and ask to
> be
> transferred to another travel agent for the remainder of the time.
>
>
> I wish you all the best and I hope this was a learning experience for you
> so it
> won't happen again to anyone else.
>
> Jess McCann

[Natalie79]

Jess....WHOA!  That is really rude!!  I can't believe how unprofessional that is.  I am lucky at least that everything is finally done.  We even booked our honeymoon through her, which I now regret.  What I wrote below was my response to Maureen (my TA).

 

This is what I wrote her back. I was SO upset.

All I wanted to know was if I could change the names on the room if we booked it.  I knew the rooming list was due on the 16th.  I am not dumb.

I'm sorry if your commissions have decreased, but I don't know how that works in the travel industry.  You are OBVIOUSLY very upset about dealing with my group, and If I knew booking these rooms was going to be such a pain for you & me I would have never done a group block in the first place. 

I appreciated all the work you have done, and am very upset by your email.  Apparently you are very resentful towards me, when all i wanted to know is if we could change the name on the room!  You don't think I have been stressed on my end dealing with all this as well??  It's supposed to be the best day of my life and 90% of my stress is dealing with people not booking rooms and having this money looming over my head.  My fiance and I have gotten into several fights just because of having this room block.

 

Also, we booked our honeymoon through you because I was very happy with the job you were doing and I wanted to help your business.  If we had booked it on our own we would have gotten a cheaper rate.

I will let you know about the room today.  I'm sorry you still have to deal with me.

 

She basically replied to this "Let's cut the drama & work together".  THAT really infuriated me because she was the one that instigated this.  After that, I have only communicated with her as little & basic as possible.

[oceanbreeze]

Hi!

 

I'm new to the thread.  Just reserved a day for an April wedding at the Royal but now it seems everyone (including our TA!) is complaining about the price.  I was just wondering, if it's not a secret, what price for rooms were you able to negotiate with the Royal (and for how many days?).  I'm trying to figure out how much of a discount they can give and if it's worth it to keep using the TA.  She says she can get the price down by $30 max. 

 

Also, if guests book at the sister resort (which I guess is cheaper), are they considered "outside" guests and we'd have to pay the "outside" guest fee for food?

 

Much thanks!!! I'm super stressed about this and would appreciate any info!

[JYD1]

 

 

Originally Posted by oceanbreeze 

 

Hi!

 

I'm new to the thread.  Just reserved a day for an April wedding at the Royal but now it seems everyone (including our TA!) is complaining about the price.  I was just wondering, if it's not a secret, what price for rooms were you able to negotiate with the Royal (and for how many days?).  I'm trying to figure out how much of a discount they can give and if it's worth it to keep using the TA.  She says she can get the price down by $30 max. 

 

Also, if guests book at the sister resort (which I guess is cheaper), are they considered "outside" guests and we'd have to pay the "outside" guest fee for food?

 

Much thanks!!! I'm super stressed about this and would appreciate any info!

 

 

Hi! I am using www.destinationweddings.com - in the beginning it was a little rough (we changed locations a few times) but after we settled on Mexico it has been much smoother and drama free. Be aware that each TA is different. So depending on who gets assigned to you is the level of service you will receive. When we booked our group room rates - we were under the early booking - i believe it's 30% off regular price plus an extra $50 off. They should still have the early booking available. Ask your TA about it.

 

Guests staying at the Gran are part of the resort group. They are not outside guests. In fact ask your TA about combining rooms from Gran and Royal for your group block. It will help filling the room deps. We have guests staying at both. That is what we're doing. We decided to do a min of 10 rooms( combined gran & royal) and then add on rooms for additional guest. That way we maintain our group block rate and any guest that is added still gets the group rate.

 

This is just based on my specific contract and experience. Let me know if you have any questions. I can give you my TAs info if you're interested.

[jesmcan]

I can only imagine and totally understand your stress. SO uncalled for. I know they deal with a lot of people but this is their job. Anyways everyhting got figured out and thank god no I did not book my honeymoon through them

 

What you wrote back was perfect and well said and good for you for writing it. We wrote to Jill's boss Jennifer and this what my fiance said.

 

Hi Jennifer,

  I wanted to forward to you the latest email we received from Jill.  Personally I think this is a very disrespectful and unprofessional response.  I understand that we are not  only people effected by this, however it is Jill's job to handle the situation professionally and most importantly accurately,  which is why we went though a travel agency to begin with.  I am in customer service myself and if I ever sent this kind of email, I would be fired on the spot.  I also understand that there has been a significant amount of communication back and forth.  The main reason for this is that we have not been provided with accurate information and many questions go unanswered or half answered.  This is a very stressful situation for all and we are just looking for the best and quickest way to resolve this.  You have to understand at this point every day that passes without receiving information is costing us and everyone else more money.  At this point we are just waiting on one piece of clarification and we will be out of everyone's hair.  Again, we are not out to cause any issues but at this point there has just been to many mistakes so now we are on top of everything.     If she has no issues with any other group then why is she having such a hard time with ours?     There will of course be no compensation for their mistakes and doing nothing. Instead everyone ended up paying close to $200 more person for flights. I am still waiting to get our original itinerarys rom Jennifer that I asked for all last week. My bank wants it for proof for disputing the mexicana charges. I sent her another e-mail this morning again nothing .   Ce la vie right the important thing is to put this behind us and focus at the task at hand, getting married. Our reviews will certainly shed light on their business practices at this travel agency. And at least we learned and can now share with everyone else so it doesn't happen again.

Originally Posted by Natalie79 

Jess....WHOA!  That is really rude!!  I can't believe how unprofessional that is.  I am lucky at least that everything is finally done.  We even booked our honeymoon through her, which I now regret.  What I wrote below was my response to Maureen (my TA).

 

This is what I wrote her back. I was SO upset.

All I wanted to know was if I could change the names on the room if we booked it.  I knew the rooming list was due on the 16th.  I am not dumb.

I'm sorry if your commissions have decreased, but I don't know how that works in the travel industry.  You are OBVIOUSLY very upset about dealing with my group, and If I knew booking these rooms was going to be such a pain for you & me I would have never done a group block in the first place. 

I appreciated all the work you have done, and am very upset by your email.  Apparently you are very resentful towards me, when all i wanted to know is if we could change the name on the room!  You don't think I have been stressed on my end dealing with all this as well??  It's supposed to be the best day of my life and 90% of my stress is dealing with people not booking rooms and having this money looming over my head.  My fiance and I have gotten into several fights just because of having this room block.

 

Also, we booked our honeymoon through you because I was very happy with the job you were doing and I wanted to help your business.  If we had booked it on our own we would have gotten a cheaper rate.

I will let you know about the room today.  I'm sorry you still have to deal with me.

 

She basically replied to this "Let's cut the drama & work together".  THAT really infuriated me because she was the one that instigated this.  After that, I have only communicated with her as little & basic as possible.

[giraffexx]

Jes - so sorry that you're dealing with all of the BS! Glad that things seem to be turning out ok for you

[SarahE786]

So sorry for everyone having all of these bad experiences! Hopefully it will all work out in the end!

 

Can anyone recommend a GOOD TA? We are not planning on doing a group room block, but just want to have an option for a few of our guests who prefer not to book things online and want to deal with a real person.