Do not use their service or hotel
Greetings. I am writing, safe back on American soil. My daughters and I traveled to Sandos Caracol Eco Resort. We enjoyed the resort and were sad to see the trip end, until it turned out that we wished nothing more than to have the trip end. For reasons we were never told (and an issue beyond your control, I understand), our flight was delayed an hour, and then another hour, and then another hour, and then cancelled. Almost all of the time it took for that to happen, we spent with the Sunwing representative at the resort. At the first delay, he was kind enough to contact the driver of our pre-purchased private return and move the departure time. By the second delay, getting in contact with wherever the drivers are dispatched from was too long a process and we couldn’t delay. So during the third delay, the driver arrived. At that point, one of us was on the phone with Spirit trying to rebook the trip and I was on with Vacation Express directly, trying to find lodging for the night. (Wait, did I mention that although the Sunwing rep was very helpful and polite, it did turn out that every action took a minimum of 10 minutes, as in “they say they’ll call back in five minutes” but it was usually closer to 20 or 30. Not his fault, but it did take from roughly 9am-1pm to move past this stage to the actual hell part of the journey.) And the driver ultimately left with an empty car.
Phase II, lodging for the night of 3/19/18. The cost to stay at the resort for an additional night was quoted to me as more than the cost of all four days, so we declined. The Vacation Express rep quoted a lower price, but I am not sure whether she actually checked availability. The Sunwing rep said there was no availability. And so we selected a more reasonably priced resort, Oasis Tulum Lite—or as we like to call it, hell on Earth--where we could still take advantage of the airport ride we had paid for. We provided a credit card BY WRITING THE NUMBER ON A PIECE OF PAPER ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!, waited another 10 minutes, then 10 more, some more, and ta-da! We were handed the paper back. I received an email confirmation with updated travel documents at 2pm on 3/19. I think you get the gist of things here, so I’ll move to bullet points:
1. We paid $60 for a cab to the Oasis.
2. We arrived and were told we needed a printout of the reservation. The PDF we showed from the phone did not suffice. Nor the credit card receipt. Needless to say, we had no printer, but good news! The driver had brought us to the wrong entrance anyway, they’d deal with it across the way at the poorer cousin's.
3. Guess what? The poorer cousin was too good for the likes of us, up the street to the junkyard dog. (“But you can use all the resort facilities!” As if.)
4. We get to Oasis Lite*. Searching….searching….They do not have our reservation so they have no room for us. But we can leave our stuff in the lobby and use the resort. At this point, we’ve been at the resort for an hour.
5. Now over to Angel, the Sunwing rep, to rebook the ride to the airport. Aptly named, that dude. He went above and beyond, and I mean that with all seriousness. We did end up waiting 35 minutes just to talk to him, and then there was the whole “they’ll call back in 5 minutes" thing…we all gave up after about an hour, he had to go home, the sun was setting (so much for an additional beach day—maybe a nice jacuzzi?*), you get it. He did, in fact, secure and confirm a ride back to the airport for us the next day, and emailed us the information later that evening. Seriously, are you paying him enough? Can you send him to a better property?
5. We return two hours later to the junkyard dog front desk, as instructed. Still no reservation, but ALL RIGHT FINE TAKE A ROOM. And btw, carry your own damn bags.*
6. We do our thing, enjoy the evening, laughing at the dump we have landed in. A $300 dump, but a dump none the less. As we walk past the desk a grumpy clerk tells us to slow up, still no reservation. Another 45 minutes, checking the confirmation we provide, the credit card receipt. She makes a phone call and comes up with a confirmation number that she can use. We photograph it. Our happiest moment at Oasis Lite.
7. Next morning, we head to checkout. Guess what? They won’t let us checkout. We argue, the clerk calls management, then tell us we owe $529. We argue. She tells us to go talk to the manager in the nicer parts. We have to leave the youngest of us to await the airport ride. The bellhop or whatever he is, fearing we will run, drives us back to the Elite end of things.
8. More arguing with the Supervisor and Director who speak in Spanish to each other, shaking their heads. They just continue to tell us that regardless of whether we think we paid, they do not have a reservation so we have to pay again. She brings the cost down to $349. As if. I ask her to call Vacation Express to confirm the reservation. She won’t call outside of the country. Says she can’t. As if. (Side note here. I hope that when I blast this hotel to smithereens on every social media outlet I can find, she loses her job. She was one of the worst people I ever met personally.)
9. One daughter now runs off to find Angel. I argue until she returns. The Head Honcho arrives! But more importantly, Angel arrives.
10. We are told that the problem is that Monday was a holiday in Mexico, so they never sent the reservation to the US, which is where these things are handled. Party time for Mexico, bummer for us. We are still not clear as to why we are even involved in this story. Seems to us like the issue is between you guys and them guys—we paid Vacation Express for a room. The three well-paid people just sit and shake their hands. Angel gets on the phone and gets a variety of people to confirm our story. Head shakers don’t seem to care.
11. The Head Honcho says that while he believes us, they don’t have a reservation so what are you going to do? Sorry, can’t let you go. Honestly, promise you won’t do any more business with them? We threaten the embassy. But we don’t have time, really. We just want to make our plane.
12. The newly assigned driver that Angel arranged, and who has my youngest daughter, threatens to leave in 10 minutes with our without us. He will, of course, leave us the daughter. No more pesos would keep him there (as it was pesos that kept him there in the first place).
13. Finally, after much “We are going to miss our plane!!!”, Head Honcho takes my cell phone number (right, I’d answer if he called “I won’t receive calls from out of country.” How’s that feel?) and lets us go.
14. We make our plane and vow a) never to return to Mexico, b) never to fly Spirit, c) to flame everyone involved in this debacle on social media (yes, it is what I do for a living).
I’m sure I’ve left some things out. I’m sure you are glad.
I’d like to give you an opportunity to make this right for us, and just as willing as I am to write an excoriating review, I am equally willing to make Vacation Express the good guys in this story, second only to Angel in terms of customer service and satisfaction. We are out-of-pocket a lot of money here, and that would certainly be a start in making us happier and replacing our current victim memories with the fabulous memories we should be recalling as the mom and her girls who snuck away for the weekend.
Thanks for your kind attention and patience, and please be sure to read the footnote below.
jen
* Some points about the Oasis Lite, that you probably want to know since you book people in there.
* The room was disgusting. You know that sulfur smell you get in bathrooms when water is stagnant in your drains a long time? Yeah, the bathroom choked you. They gave us one towel for three people. The faucet was actually not aligned over the sink, but no worries, you could just knock it back into place.
* The infinity pool? It either doesn’t exist or not a single employee knows that term.
* And might want to tell them hot tub/jacuzzi generally does not mean “small round enclosure with water heated by the sun.”
* You CANNOT use all the facilities. You have most food choices unavailable to you. And infinity pool.
* What is with the men on the beach raking seaweed and stuffing it in plastic bags? By all accounts, it happens every day. That’s your beach front, 15 men working in the hot sun while you lounge in a chair, your view obstructed by plastic bags.
Punchline? They gave us a $50 travel credit. Like I would use them again...
