Sometimes a writer needs a holiday.
I tried posting this summary at Trip Advisor but they only gave me room for 200 words (laugh out loud!) I did send a copy to my travel agent–not her fault but she needs to know…
Cancun, Mexico (for those of you who followed my sad story on Facebook about being ripped off by a company called Southeast travel, I tried to turn that lemon into lemonade.) Good news there, Visa returned our money and they have gone after the scammers — I think the credit card companies are the new homeland security-they get the job done!–Omg, I’m cheering for a credit card company–what has the world come to? 🙁
We arrived at the airport a 6 in the evening and the West Jet flights were great! It then goes downhill from there:
• Waited 3 hours at airport for luggage along with 1000 other customers who were are all funneled through a single customs officer—with not one single airport to explain what was going on or what the problem was…
• At midnight we were swarmed by taxi drivers and shuttle service—it was so bad I felt I had to move back into the airport for my safety –(eventually did connect with a tour bus driver with our name on his list) but I ordered a shuttle so we wouldn’t have to go from hotel to hotel
• We were the last to be dropped off after stopping at 3 other all inclusives
• Arriving after midnight and couldn’t be accommodated–front desk was rude!
• After having requested 2 beds previous to the trip we were given one king size bed and none of the ‘goodies’ on the list were in the room: no slippers, no robes, no swim towels, the room was over the building entrance so we heard every single conversation by the concierge.
• Fought the next day for room items and presented out list (thank goodness I had it)
• We were told that we weren’t entitled to those things on the list because we hadn’t booked directly with them, (we were told this at least 3 times—not entitled because we booked through a third party??) but they would accommodate us if we did their time share tour
You’re not entitled Alice. Doesn’t matter if you’ve paid for extras. You’re here aren’t you?
But this isn’t the room I booked!
• 2 days into the trip we got the items- two pairs of slippers, two bath robes, bottle of tequila, two swim towels (but they would not exchange our wet bath towels or explain to us how to get fresh ones)
• They did explain that the reason they couldn’t help us was because we hadn’t booked directly with them, but had gone through an agency (sunquest) and would have to deal with them (sunquest doesn’t have an agent at the xacaret you have to call him, his name is Eduardo).
• Every day of our trip we were badgered and harassed to do their time share tour—it became obvious that the Xcaret isn’t for vacationing it’s designed to lure in people who will possibly buy into an elaborate time share scheme
But where are my massages?
• We decided to go to the time share tour to get them off of our backs and get some peace—they also promised us we would receive a bottle of Kahlua, and two free massages – we received the bottle but they reneged on the massages and charge us twice for the massages—the night before leaving we spoke with manager and he returned our second massage payments.
Everyone has disappeared!
• We arranged for our shuttle pick up the night before our departure, spoke with Eduardo the sunquest agent and we were assured he’d be there at 9:45, he wasn’t.
• On departure day in the lobby an hour early, our name was never called for a shuttle, no one knew anything, we contacted sunquest, Eduardo could not be found—they told us to call a cab and they would meet us at the airport and pay for the cab (yeah, right sure).
• We climbed into the cab just as Eduardo’s shuttle arrived—they explained that they hadn’t done a head count and had forgotten us and were half way to the airport when they had to turn around and come back to get us!!!
Of course we forgot you but we got you didn’t we?
• I’ve never experienced anything like this! (they tag everyone with a wrist band and found out that’s kind of how they rate the customer, apparently we weren’t ‘high class’– paid 5000 for 2 airline tickets and hotel trip for 5 days of this place) If this is what all inclusive in Mexico is, I won’t do it again (I wouldn’t go again because of that airport) I was quite happy to get home, in fact, If I could have found an exit back to Vancouver(up the rabbit hole) the first night in the airport, I would have walked directly on to it.
Trip booked through Marlin Travel.
Please don’t send people to this place—at least warn them about the airport, the time share harassing, and the poor treatment—that being said when we were in the restaurants we had a good time.
