Well we thaught for a change last year we would go to Greece because we had been going to Cyprus for 10 years now , Because we had never been there before we thaught we would do a package deal and sort it out with the travel agents because there bound to know what they were saying / doing for us. So i go up the travel agents and say .. Me & my family 4 of us are wanting to go to Greece .. what can you do for us please? so they say what type of holiday are you looking for we said , somewhere close to a nice sandy beach a hotel room with seprate bedrooms and a lovely area around us so the man says try this .. Windmill Hotel Apts so we say yeah ok we will try and we would like a apartment please all goes through on the computer pays the deposit ect.. he says this is one of the best hotels on the greek island 'Zante' it has a great beach opposite where were staying and has great night life around us.
So a few months later our holiday time comes , we get to Greece and the airport and everything else was lovely we arrived at our hotel got in our room first thing , turns out to be only has one double bed which means the receptionist had to get two camp beds in for my 2 daughters to sleep on the maid couldnt do it seeing as we got there at around 10pm so we thought just to chill out everything will be ok tommorrow , the next day comes we went down to what the travel agent called the beach which it was full of rocks no sand nowhere to sit and the sea was freezing & full with rocks / litter then as we walked down the beach it tipped down with rain! (which obviously wasnt the travel agents faught but it happend!) so we decided to go back to the hotel and have a drink around the pool gets back to the hotel and the tables chairs pool & bar was apsolutley COVERED in flies!.
On the night time we went out found two nice places out of the whole strip , we thaught we would walk all the way up and see what there was because we were first timers as we walked back down towards our hotel it started to rain and wen i say rain i mean RAIN ! it tipped down for about an hour and a half and we were lituarly running to every shelter available the roads started filling up and it just wasnt nice atall.
3 days later the recption rings our room at 9:30pm saying Please report to reception tomorrow morning at 10:00am , we get there and then get told we have to move rooms to bottem floor from top which had no aircon , was a veiw of feilds & a building site and no furniture in the room exept a double bed and two camp beds and a wardrobe which was amazing!.:shock:
So that was one holiday which we just couldnt wait to get home ! I think we would rather sit in the apartment and look at a blank wall, not being funny or puting anyone off there holidays to Greece just needed to be said on here i think. Also to add to this when we went back up the travel agents a month later to book our next years holiday the man was there again and we said you booked our holiday to Greece and told him all about it he said im ever so sorry thats what my friends have told me i have never been there before .. (yet when we was booking it he said i have been there many of times before !)
Thanks All
CourtneeLouise
Am truly sorry what happened to you. This is the beauty of websites such as ours, where you can post and ask people's opinions and recommendations and of course check out the hotel reviews BEFORE you book or choose a resort.
You are very right thats why whenever we book anything now we always come to the Mighty Holiday Truths first!!
Sorry you had a bad time but don't let it put you off Greece as a whole, but I would think twice about using that TA again.
Travel agents can't know about the resorts and hotels around the world, there is too much infomation for their little brains to hold.
I hope you learned something from this experience to do your research and take what the person who trying to sell the holiday with a pinch of salt. Ask for the agents travel gazettere which rates all hotels and resorts which give a fairly accurate discription of the resorts and hotels
These sites are a wonderful place to reveal warts and all. I just researched a 4* hotel to mexico for my mate, I got put off by the reviews and felt sick reading about the bed bugs and the stench of raw sewage. 3 people for 11 days £3700 for the pleasure of sleeping with bed bugs.
maybe you didnt mean that the way it came across, maybe you meant that they cant possibly know every hotel and resort in the world, but my daughter works for Expedia and I take exception to the comment "their little" brains (bit condecending IMO)..................she is an intelligent articulate girl who genuinely tries her best to help her customers.............and she comes home at night sometimes frazzled from the abuse she has to take from customers who hold HER personally responsible for them not having a good holiday.................when she gave them the correct information and it was just not what they wanted. So while there are the ones who dont give a toss, there are also the ones who do their best but cant seem to please either!!!!
So please dont generalise on travel agents, they are like normal human beings you know.......................and unfortunately when you get a bad one like Courtneylouise did it sometimes reflects badly on them all.
To be honest I do DIY now, its much cheaper, unless I got a really cheap late deal I wouldnt go into a TA at all, just research on here and other good sites, you get better information.
Courtneylouise Im so sorry you had such a miserable time and you are rightly angry with your poor service!!!
In our agency we have a lot of travel experience between us and if there is a destination we haven't visited we will either call another branch or find out the relevant information on the destination from the internet.
Not all Agents are just interested in closing the sale!!!!.
I find the your statement 'it is too much for their tiny little brains to hold' quite amusing, are you not the one infact with the tiny little mind as you are unable to think of something as simple a username!!!!!!
I'm expect there are some employees who don't care about customer satisfaction but the majority take their jobs very seriously.
Of course I am sorry that CourtneeLouise had a bad experience, hopefully her future holidays will be troublefree.
After all although there might be a minority of travel agents who are not good at their jobs, there are MANY MORE who come on here and help us all!!!
A good travel agent would of got the gazzetere out and checked if the place was suitable. By him telling porkies he has stayed there and its one of the best hotels on the island is pushing it abit. Then he comes out with thats what my mate told me. What his mate thinks of the place has no bearing on him doing his job properly. I can't understand why CourtneeLouise went back to give them more business
I will do business with a travel agent, but I do not trust them. I know more than the average travel agent. I am a qualified business travel consultant.
Being in Business travel does not make you einstein!.
You may know more about Business Travel, but Retail Travel and Business Travel are completely different!
I too, would not have gone back to the same TA after that experience because there are many more who would have put so much more effort into getting the holiday I wanted. As I said in my post above, most TAs have enough about them to need to spend a fair few hours finding out what is required when someone sits down and doesn't know any more than they want to go to Greece.
Lets just debate the compliant.
Basically the travel agent did not do his job properly and mis-represented the product he was selling. I would of made a very large complaint to this agents bosses and be asking for some money back.
We ll I would like to see you work in my shop for a week and see if you have the same opinion!!!!!
Actually I think retail have Travel Agents have a harder job than Business Travel Agents as we have to deal with business customers aswell as package customers!
What is so hard about booking flights and accommodation for business passengers???? We book flights and accommodation everday and not just for 'your average package holiday customer'!!!
I never believe what a travel agent tells me, they have very little actual knowledge on hotels and resorts. They will tell what you want to hear to make a sale. I have had with the call centres, thomson and thomas cook, the operator on the other end will say jane beens there recently I will ask her what it was like, after a silence the operator comes back and says she said it was fantastic and is going back. The fact is jane has not been to the hotel or resort.
Travel agents can't know about the resorts and hotels around the world, there is too much infomation for their little brains to hold.
I hope you learned something from this experience to do your research and take what the person who trying to sell the holiday with a pinch of salt. Ask for the agents travel gazettere which rates all hotels and resorts which give a fairly accurate discription of the resorts and hotels
These sites are a wonderful place to reveal warts and all. I just researched a 4* hotel to mexico for my mate, I got put off by the reviews and felt sick reading about the bed bugs and the stench of raw sewage. 3 people for 11 days £3700 for the pleasure of sleeping with bed bugs.
This statement is utter nonsence.
Yes there may be bad travel agents but the majority will know their product and destinations very well.
The only one with a small brain is the poster of this rubbish..
Can we bring this topic to a close, I'm sure that most of us sympathise with CourtneeLouise and agree that she had a bad experience but some of the statements being made now are getting personal.
Topic locked.
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