Vacations by Crown

ing. A week or so before the wedding Nanette mailed us our booklet. Inside of the booklet was a hand-written note from Nanette. She wrote to be at the airport “no later than 6:50 AM.” So we did just that. We arrived to the check-in desk at the New Orleans airport around 6:30 AM to find out that our flight actually left at 6:00 AM and we actually would have needed to be at the airport for 4:00 AM. We were devastated. This was definitely not the way we planned to start our honeymoon. We sat around the airport until Ms. Hoyt got into her office and we could contact her. She stated to my husband that she usually doesn’t write a time on the note. Well, she did, and we’re sorry she did. Since there was no way we were going to make it to Miami in time to fly out to St. Lucia that day she asked if we would like to have the trip extended by one day. We said yes, because we definitely didn’t want the trip to be cut by a day. Well, the flights home were booked up so we weren’t able to do that. She rearranged our flights for the next day and charged us the $400 in airline fees. Then she asked if we wanted her to find us a room in the quarter for the night. At this point we were already upset about how much money we’ve potentially wasted so we just decided to get a cheaper room near the airport. She also stated that she would file an insurance claim for us. Once we came back from the honeymoon I tried to contact Ms. Hoyt a few times to find out the status of this claim. Eventually, I received an email from another person in the Baton Rouge office telling me how I could file the claim myself (email attached). I thought this was very unprofessional of her and much unlike the character of the woman that was so willing to help us when booking the trip. I could go ahead and try to file the claim but I just don’t feel that missing your flight due an incorrect note from your travel agent will be covered. Yes, the booklet we received did include a flight itinerary, but when there’s a bright yellow note from your travel agent with a time you are inclined to believe that is the correct time. It’s clear that Nanette also must have misunderstood the flight times because she wrote 6:50 which is actually 2 hours before our landing time in Miami. We were so frustrated with ourselves for not checking the flight times, but with all the stresses of the wedding this was just not something we did and the reason we went through a travel agent in the first place. After not being able to get any answers from the travel agent, I went to the President/CEO of Vacations by Crown. He proved to be equally as unsympathetic. After sending him all the details of the mishap, he got back to me a month later and basically said it was our fault. I guess we’ll ignore the fact that your travel agent wrote on a big yellow note to be there for the wrong time. What’s the point of hiring a travel agent if she’s not able to AT LEAST get you to where you need to be on time. This company is supposed to assist couples in having the perfect honeymoon and they did just the opposite. I’ll be sure to let everyone I come into contact with know what they cost us, and more importantly that they didn’t care to make it right.