OK, I'm going to get off this theme, but every day we hear another story of woe from someone who has returned from a "blown vacation". Actually this title should be "Why you Need to Listen to your Travel Professional".
My travel agency has a few favorite resort groups... one that we like for families with teens; one for families with young children; one for couples looking for a peaceful, romantic escape where other people's children are not part of your vacation. In each case, our favored group is not the only quality group in that category - they are simply the ones with which we've had the most success over the years. (And, over the years, they change as some get stale and new groups emerge.)
A client who we have sent to various RIU Resorts in Mexico over the last 4 or 5 years decided to go for a change of pace (They really, like most of us these days, were trying to cut costs a bit.) They had heard of another resort group from friends. We actually send some clients to this company - but we're careful as to who we recommend it to. It was a no-brainer to us that, given their past experiences, they would find this to be disappointing. But, they insisted.
And we were right. They found the resort facilities to be excellent... "Beautiful Grounds; Great Rooms; very clean; nice uncrowded pool areas and great beach". Service and quality of food was quite a different matter... "Far less service than RIU's; Hotel staff was not interested in helping us; consistently at buffets, once they seated us, they disappeared. We had go find our own coffee refills; Bar service very poor. Understaffed... and the staff that was there was totally inattentive; specialty restaurants were very nice but food was just ok... service was a little better than described above but not great. Food quality at the buffets was poor."
Nuff said! If you are accustomed to 5-Star quality, 3-Star won't cut it! We all need to reduce our spending a bit, but this isn't the way to do it. We typically advise clients to shorten their trip rather than to go down in quality. You are always going to remember the experience (good or bad!) but you won't remember whether you were there 7 nights or 5 to 6 nights!
Cheers,
Dick
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