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Tina R. Sent on 09/28/2019

5 out of 5 rating

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Our Re-Tie was amazing!!!

Maria at Everlasting Memories Vacations encouraged us to enjoy a Re-Tie ceremony in St. Lucia to celebrate 30+ years of marriage. My husband was hesitant but it ended being the best thing we ever did on a vacation! The staff was awesome and we felt SO special! Maria rocks!!!

Brandee Sent on 04/04/2017

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we had an excellent experience!

Montez Sent on 01/06/2017

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Our agent Maria was absolutely wonderful. I don't think I have enough space on this forum to explain how great and helpful she was. She made my wife and my wedding trip to Jamaica so effortless on our part. Maria was there to help us every single step of the way. She answered all of our questions in a timely manner, and she was always looking out for our best interest.

My wife and I planned to have both of our family join us on our vacation, we planned to have about 30 people at our wedding. But they all dropped out on us at the last minute. We were a little bummed about going alone, but we were willing to do this on our own. And on the day of the wedding our travel agent Maria and her husband surprised us and joined us for our very special day. She went over and beyond and I will NEVER EVER forget what she did for us.

Kayla Sent on 01/16/2017

5 out of 5 rating

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Karen at Vacation Van was so easy to work with! From the get go, she gave us plenty of reading material and helped us narrow down what places would be the best fit for what WE would enjoy to do on our honeymoon. We ended up utilizing our travel insurance and changed our initially booked trip. She made this process easy as possible and took us back to step one with options of hotels that would fit us best. We ended up in Hawaii and throughly enjoyed our stay! I would highly suggest Karen and the Vacation Van to those looking for assistance in booking their next vacation or honeymoon!

Cody Sent on 01/18/2017

4.6 out of 5 rating

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We recommend the vacaction van to anyone always helpful.

Traci G. Sent on 07/28/2020

2.6 out of 5 rating

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Absent Agent

I´m becoming increasingly concerned as our November 7, 2020 date approaches. It has literally been months since we have heard from Maria and 3 of our guests will not be attending due to their inability to get in contact with her. I certainly understand that we are experiencing a pandemic but the communication was poor before that and I would expect that with the pandemic going on the communication would ramp up to let us know about the numerous changes or advice on whether to travel or not. We literally are concerned that perhaps she no longer works there and no one has informed us.

Gem City Travel's reply:

Hi Traci. Thanks for posting. You and your guests have been sent numerous emails since March, as I have been updating ALL 2020 travelers with the current status of the islands, resorts, passport application situations, and lately, with the new and continuously changing travel and entry protocols. Please reach out via text as you have before so we can arrange a time to talk by phone if that is your preference at this time. Your guests can also reach out in the same way. We have only heard from 2 since the beginning of the pandemic: one who still owes payment that our agency fronted last September and one who was interested in booking but could not pay the deposit. We have not heard from any others via email or voice mail. If you are not receiving the information, we perhaps need to update your preferred contact method. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kristen L. Sent on 03/22/2020

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Do not use them!

I can’t tell you how bad our experience with Maria at Everlasting Memories was. Once we booked our stay we couldn’t get Maria to respond to anything. We would spend 1-2 months trying to get her to answer our emails. It took us 3 months to get airline tickets, and when she booked them she never even told us what airline it was. I had to call and book our excursions myself as she never answered our emails on what we wanted to book. Please find another company to use, she will seem great up until you book and you will never get answers or hear back from her again!

Gem City Travel's reply:

Kristen,
Thanks for your review. I wish that you would have conveyed these thoughts to me during the actual planning process so we could have remedied them in a timely manner. We did have some communication issues, but remedied those along the way, as you had access to reach me via phone, text, email, or in-person meetings. We utilized each one at different points in the planning process.
After reviewing our nearly 150 email, phone, and text exchanges throughout our planning process, I noted a few times that our communication was affected by a computer issue (it died which left me with no access for a few days) and an email issue (in which my emails were deleting as they hit my inbox). We kept in communication throughout both and I was able to provide you answers during both times.
Your flights were booked in a timely manner, from the time it was determined that the available schedule and price were acceptable. Yes, that could have been a 3 month - even a 6- month process from the time your resort stay was booked. We are at the mercy of flight availability, and we always work hard to find a good price. You always have the options to book flights on your own, if waiting for us to find a good itinerary/price is not working within your time frame. The airline name and schedule was detailed in the confirmation/receipt you received after purchasing the flights, in subsequent confirmations you were sent following, in your pre-travel instructions, as well as in your electronic and printed travel documents.
We did discuss the excursions you were interested in, but you were waiting for a sale to apply. After waiting through 3 sale periods, you reached out to the excursion company directly to make your reservations, before I had the opportunity to reserve them myself. Luckily you spoke with my direct contact, and she reached out to me to advise of your reservations, and recalled that we had spoken of them several times checking prices/availability during the sale periods. I did connect all of your excursions to your resort package, and reconfirmed them all prior to your arrival.
Again, I am sorry we did not meet your expectations in terms of timely communication. As we always remedied any communication issues we had during the process, you did not indicate that this was not acceptable, rather that you appreciated the opportunities to communicate via different manners. Although we are in the throes of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and its affects on our travelers, we did send you a "welcome home" email to also inquire about your honeymoon. We hope that you can find the time to provide feedback on the process and on your resort stay, in that manner so that we can make specific improvements to our process, as well as provide any feedback to the resort and excursion operators. Thanks!

Erica Sent on 09/10/2019

1 out of 5 rating

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Do not book

I recently attended a wedding at XCaret Mexico over Labor Day and my vacation travel agent was Maria Snizik in Ohio.
Initially, when the trip was booked months ago, Maria was very on top of it, and got our flights and reservations scheduled for myself and 5 others in my family. We were very excited to go to XCaret for a cousin's wedding.
However, after our trip was booked in April of 2019, we had plentiful issues contacting Maria and receiving information. I was very proactive and reached out to her to get information about excursions and dining, and each time she said we can schedule in a couple weeks. So I continued to reach out when I did not hear from her. But she still said we have to wait longer. There were several months when she did not return my phone calls or emails. I eventually had to contact all of the other team members at the Ohio Office just to get her to return my message. I was very frustrated with this. I had to contact other people at the office on three different occasions because she would not return my emails/phone calls. I was able to move past this over time because I was excited for Mexico.
However, a couple of months before our stay at XCaret, Maria sent us forms to fill out for the dining and excursions, but she never got back to us to let us know if they were confirmed. I continued to contact her and did not hear back. This was very stressful and created a lot of anxiety for our family. I even contacted the resort independently and they said if I had the confirmation number I could book these things. I was more than happy to book these myself. But, when I reached out to Maria several times, she did not respond with the confirmation number at all. She seemed all talk--telling us everything she was going to do, and then nothing ever happened. It was a waste of time and energy to work with her.
Two days before the wedding, she still did not know if anything was confirmed.
When we arrived at the resort, they had no dining reservations scheduled for us and no excursions. We had paid Maria to do these things for us. We had requested 2 parks and 3 dinners. They were not able to accommodate us for any of the dining reservations because they were booked out. I do not understand why or how Maria was not able to reserve any of these things for us. We spent all of our first day at the resort being extremely stressed out trying to book things last minute with the hotel. It was not until after we were checked in at the hotel that Maria actually reserved a ruins tour for us.
We are very dissatisfied with our vacation planning through Maria. We paid a lot of money to go to Mexico, and we missed out on so many things that were included. I have planned many trips on my own and through other tour companies, and this was the worst experience I have ever had. Not only was the communication from Maria disappointing and concerning, but we missed out on more than half the things we planned to do at the resort. I would hate for anyone else to have to work with her and have the same experience, especially if it's someone's honeymoon or wedding. Those are special days that should be easy, fun, and some of the best days of your life.

Gem City Travel's reply:

Being a Destination Wedding guest is not as easy as it sounds. While it is exciting to attend a friend or family member’s wedding in a tropical destination, and having the opportunity to make a vacation out of the necessary trip, that vacation is to a location/resort that you have not chosen, and most of your “schedule” is determined by the wedding couple.
With that said, I hope that you were able to make the most of the time you did have, to enjoy the resort, the many included parks, and the many included dining venues that were available to you.
The experience you describe that occurred, is unfortunately that of a typical group guest at this resort.
As soon as your hosts began considering this location for their ceremony, I was in direct contact with the resort regarding not only the ceremony details, but also every detail regarding having a group stay at the resort and attend the ceremony. I, myself, had stayed at the resort both as an individual, and as part of a group, twice in the 6 months preceding, so I fully understood the details I would need to discuss with the resort in order to give both your host couple and all guests the experience that I knew from my stays.
I traveled to the resort in late April, in order to meet with my resort contact, and to finalize any details regarding dining reservations as well as any reservations needed for the included parks. You see, if you book your vacation outside of being in a group, I am able to make dining and park reservations (for the few options that require reservations) as soon as your reservation is under deposit. They oftentimes may not confirm the reservations until the room reservation is paid in full, but we can still make the request. When you have a reservation as part of a group, we are advised a time line in which the resort allows those reservations to be requested. They ask us to gather the information from each interested guest, and provide it to them upon their request, and again, on their timeline. They do this in order to organize the requests of all groups that are on resort at the same time, to ensure that reservations are fairly distributed.
In the case of the group in which you were a part of, the information was collected (and yes, twice, because the resort deleted the first responses) at the time they requested. Unfortunately it was quite close to departure. While they did confirm a group dinner for the entire wedding group, they were not able to accommodate every request due to availability (many restaurants are small and the resort does not allow “takeovers” of the restaurants for large groups). Even for a small “group” such as your family, they could not accommodate the dining requests separate from the group, because other large groups had left the restaurants you requested with limited availability. The tour you requested was confirmed a few days prior to your arrival, but after MANY requests, I only received confirmation during your arrival at the resort (they claim that they didn’t need to notify me, but would be providing you with a confirmation upon your arrival).
I did everything within my control to make the process and seamless as possible, with the information that I requested from the resort as well as the information that was provided to me by the resort as well as your host couple.
In regards to the service you received, I apologize for any delays in communication that you may have experienced, and were unacceptable to you. I can speak to at least two occasions when you emailed a question to me, then immediately (a few minutes later) reached out to my colleagues for a response (they forwarded me the messages or reached out as soon as they hung up their call with you), not leaving me time to even attempt a response. As I look through the numerous emails we exchanged regarding your reservations, nearly all of my responses were within minutes (especially as we needed to make timely decisions) and many times after our regular business hours, because that is very typical of the service we provide. On the rare occasion that hours or days elapsed, my responses always included an explanation as to what may have delayed my response. In most cases, as described above, it was most likely because I was waiting for a response from the resort or tour operator, and you were definitely well aware that some requests you made could only be received within a time frame that was not in my control, but the resort’s, due to the nature of your reservation within a group.
I do hope that you did find the time, outside of the host couple’s schedule for your group, to enjoy the many included amenities that the resort had to offer. If you wish to return to the resort in the future, on your own vacation, the resort would be happy to host you again so that you can enjoy it as a regular guest and we can be in control of those aspects of your vacation that are important to you. If you are interested, please reach out to us so we can extend an exclusive offer they have allowed us to provide you for future travel.

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