Weddingbee boards

FI and I thought at first that we weren't going to be able to afford a honeymoon.  However, a couple months ago, my parents told us they were going to pay for our honeymoon as their wedding gift to us.  That was awesome and spectacular and made us really happy.  There was only one catch: we had to use the travel agent my parents recommended.

FI and I wanted to go on a real adventure, somewhere exotic and with plenty to do.  We wanted to avoid Caribbean/Mexican/Central American beach vacations.  Well, I contacted the travel agent, and I found out that she specializes in Caribbean/Mexican/Central American beach vacations.  I mentioned it to my parents, but they said again we had to use her.

I described what we were looking for, and she sent me a few options.  She had one trip to London/Paris, one to Peru, and several to a few Central American countries (though they spent more time in the interior, not the beach).  We got really excited about the prospect of going to Peru.  The itinerary looked fantastic, and FI has always dreamed of going to Machu Picchu.  We asked her to book it.

Then we started doing our own research.  The travel agent neglected to tell us that January is the peak of the rainy season in Peru, and there's a good chance that we wouldn't be able to do half the stuff in our itinerary because of all the flooding and landslides that happen around that time.  I emailed her and asked, and she said it was true.  So there went that idea.

So we picked Costa Rica, which was our second choice (and not even close to being as exciting for me as Peru was).  She told me she would check with the tour company and get back to me within 48 hours, or last Friday.

So I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  On Tuesday, she emailed me to say she didn't know why they weren't getting back to her, but they weren't.  I realize that this isn't her fault, but it still stressed me out.  Yesterday morning, I started looking for Plan C, since Plan A hadn't worked, and Plan B apparently wasn't going to, either.  They must have gotten back to her, though, because she emailed me yesterday afternoon before I could decide on a Plan C.  The good news was that she had the plans for our trip.  The bad news was that by then, the flight prices had gone up.

We decided to just eat the cost of the tickets.  I started looking at reviews online of the hotels they wanted to put us in.  The first two looked great (more on that in a second), but the third one had some pretty horrific reviews on TripAdvisor.com.  I emailed her to ask if we could change to a different hotel.

Also in the email, I asked if it would be possible to upgrade our room at one of the nice hotels to a junior suite.  I was looking at the website online, and I discovered that the junior suites all have jacuzzis in them.  FI has a thing for jacuzzis, if you know what I mean, so I thought we had to do it.

Anyway, she emailed me back this morning.  She said our options in the one city with the awful hotel were that one or one other.  I looked at the reviews for the new hotel, though, and they were about ten times worse.

I was so sick of dealing with this crap that I told her to just book the stupid thing at the original bad hotel, and said I would wait to hear back about upgrading the room at the other one to a suite.

Well, I just got her response.  Apparently, the contracts with the tour company say that we can't get anything more than a basic room at any of the hotels.  Seriously?  We're willing to pay good money to get the stupid upgrade.  It shouldn't be that difficult.

I'm just so upset now.  If we didn't have to use this stupid travel agent, things would be so much easier.  If we used a travel agent at all - and I'm not sure that we would, since I've planned several international trips on my own before with no problems - we would have used one that offered a wide variety of trips like what we wanted.  As it is, I don't feel particularly excited about where we're going, and I'm not even excited about the hotels themselves anymore.  I feel like I'm being forced to go on the trip my parents want.  FI is still pretty excited because he's never been to Costa Rica before, and it will all be new for him, but he's still upset about the hotels.

I know that I'll enjoy myself - after all, I'm going to be on my honeymoon and celebrating with my new husband that we're finally married, and so even a honeymoon to the crappy motel down the street would be great - but I still feel so upset because it's not the honeymoon I wanted.  It's not even my second or third choice.

Thank you for letting me rant.

Ugh.  Just got another email from her.  I last said to just book the vacation as is, but that I was disappointed we couldn't upgrade.  She says now, "I want you to be happy, I do not want you to settle."  However, in the same email, she says I can try doing X, Y, and Z to get a suite, but she doubts it will happen.

Sorry, lady, but I'm already settling on this whole vacation.

I don't want to sound like a spoiled b****, but I just really wish my parents had given us the amount they did and then let me handle it from there.  I don't want to use their stupid travel agent.

@Mrs.KMM: and @snapnatural:  I honestly don't know why they're so set on us using her.  It kind of baffles me.  I've tried telling my mom that I don't like working with this lady and that she doesn't offer the kind of vacation we want, but I feel like she's not listening.  I've been telling my mom from the beginning, since long before we even knew if we would be able to afford a honeymoon, that this wasn't the kind of vacation we wanted.  She keeps recommending beach vacations, though.  "Well, you could go on an excursion or two inland," she says.  She doesn't seem to understand that not everyone wants to do a beach vacation for their honeymoon, and just going on an excursion or two doesn't make it not that kind.

Talking to the hotel upon arrival was something the travel agent suggested, but she also said she doubted that it would be possible.  :-\

@HeatherShane:  Like I said, she wasn't my choice, and my parents won't listen to me about not using her.  I realize that it's not the travel agent's fault that she has a different specialization that what I want, which is why I'm not blaming her.  I'm just upset by the situation, and I don't appreciate you telling me that it's my fault.

@HeatherShane:  In essence, then, tell her that I don't appreciate her gift and I won't accept it unless she makes it better?  Thanks, but I'd like to be more gracious than that.

@Genuine513:  They refuse to pay unless they're paying her.

@HeatherShane:  And I've said that my parents won't listen.  They demand that I use her, end of story. 

Quite honestly, I would tell your parents you appreciate the thought, but as you cannot book the honeymoon you and your FI want through this travel agent, you will have to decline their gift and go on a honeymoon once you and your FI have saved up enough to fund it yourselves.

Best case scenario: they realize how miserable this whole thing is making you and relent on their choice of travel agent.

Worst case scenario: you and your FI have the honeymoon you want, albeit postponed a little, on your terms but also on your dime, but you'll still be married and enjoying newlywed life in the meantime.

IMO a vacation is not a vacation if it causes more stress than it relieves.

@linguo42:  My mom actually said we could just wait to use their gift, which would make things better because then we could still go to Peru.  We really want to just take a week right after the wedding, though.  FI and I do really enjoy travelling, though, so paying for more big trips in the future is definitely a priority for us.  The way that I look at it is that this way, we'll get one not-as-awesome vacation for our honeymoon, but then we'll still take an awesome one later.  I'd rather have 1.5 awesome vacations than just one.  :-P

@mckernae:  Oh, I know the wedding stress hasn't been helping.  I've felt on edge for weeks now.  Thank you for understanding, though, and for giving the bad hotel a positive spin!

@julies1949:  I'll give it a try.  Thank you!

@mckernae:  Both FI and I started our jobs quite recently, so we aren't going to have enough vacation time saved up to be able to go on another vacation for another six months at least.

@mckernae:  It's okay.  We'll get to go to all the exciting places eventually, and FI is still pretty excited about this one.  I've been to Costa Rica before, but he hasn't.  He really hasn't ever been anywhere even like it before.  He's thrilled.

That's part of the reason why I'm ranting to you ladies.  I don't want to ruin the vacation for FI, too.

@ticatica:  I did that originally, and then I found out that since her company doesn't have contracts with those places, she's going to have to charge an extra agent fee on top of the original cost.  Forget that.

@pinkandsparkly:  Mid-January.

@MyFavouriteChords:  You're probably right.  My parents FREAKED OUT when I planned a trip to India on my own a couple years ago.

We had a somewhat similar situation... my parents helped out with our honeymoon costs, but in order to get their help, we had to go through American Express (they had been racking up rewards points for YEARS and had never redeemed them).  We ended up really loving the woman we were working with, but some of her options were limited by the packages she has access to.  The biggest issue was on Crete where she only had 3 hotels she could put us in, and they were all resort type places that weren't really what we would have chosen on our own. 

Although we ended up with a slightly different trip than what we would have picked a la carte, I am 110% glad we ended up going the travel agent route.  Sure, we were pretty much the youngest people at our resort in Crete and felt like it was a little bit more formal and remote than we would have chosen, but having all the travel, lodging, and especially transfers planned out for us was such a stress saver.  I don't know when we would have found time to research and book everything ourselves.

I think underneath the stress, you totally have the right mindset... that you are getting 1.5 amazing vacations.  Having gone through the travel agent experience, I think you should try to embrace letting go of the planning details.  You may not get exactly what you would have planned on your own, but this also isn't a time when you can spend as much time and get as excited about planning the details of a perfect vacation.  And you're saving money so you can go on your dream vacation later.

Just an update.  At 2:30 on Friday (3:30 her time, or only one and a half hours before she finished working for the weekend), the travel agent emailed me again.  She asked if I wanted her to book the flights that day.  Seriously?  I had only told her to book the stupid flights three times in the past 36 hours.  And, of course, since I didn't get back to her in the one and a half hours she gave me, it didn't happen on Friday.  As far as I know, it hasn't happened at all.  I'm going to be furious if the prices have gone up again.

She also wanted to know if I was going to pay the deposit, or if she should talk to my parents (since she had spoken with them, and it sounded like they were paying).  I texted my mom, but my mom didn't respond until this weekend.  She was confused because, she said, she had already told the travel agent a few times that they were taking care of the cost, so she didn't know why the lady felt like she had to ask me.

I expressed my frustration with this travel agent to my mom, and then she started going off on how she and my dad were really excited because they thought they had given us such a fantastic wedding present, and apparently I don't appreciate it at all, and so now they feel bad.  She made me start crying, and then she yelled at me for not choosing to be happy.  I finally got off the phone, but she called me again this morning and started lecturing me again.  I almost started crying again even though I was at work.

I've officially gone from frustrated to kind of miserable about the situation.  I don't want to deal with any of them anymore.

So sorry to hear that.