Anyone ever used Vacations To Go?
 

Has anyone ever used the website Vacations to Go for cruise specials?

I get emails from them on a periodic basis but today I stumbled on an article on a website which led me back to Vacations to Go. The site was very interesting and I actually got a really good quote for a cruise, really good. However I am a little sceptical about making a final reservation with them. So before I make my next move I thought I would get some feedback from this forum. Don't want to waste my hard earned cash.

So as I opened, has anyone ever used this site and what was your experience and would you recommend it.

Thanks for your responses in advance.

We use them quite a bit. In fact, we're departing on 9/9 for a Princess cruise booked through them. They've never disappointed us. We booked the upcoming cruise more than a year out. The fare has gone down, up, down, etc. Every time it's gone down, I've contacted our VTG agent, and he's gotten us onboard credit since we were paid in full. This last time he got us $1400 credit back on our visa card. I couldn't have done that on my own, but he managed it. We've also gotten an unexpected cabin upgrade. Not sure if he did that or Princess. Anyway, we do recommend them.

I second that. Vacations to go have been great. They have good deals guided land tours as well. Highly recommend them.

I third that. Agents are always helpful & timely w/their e-mails.

We've used them several times. Very good service, attentive agents. We're booking a TA with them and their price is around $400.00 pp less than the cruise line and other companies. I can recommend them. Reliable company.

We recently used their River Cruise Division to book our Gate 1 Danube River Cruise last May. Have nothing but good things to say about our agent and the service we received. We also received an add'l discount on the cruise price from them.

FYI, they are based in Houston where I live.

Used them three times and will do so again. Very good service

Booked an Alaskan Cruise 1 month before we sailed this summer. Great experience with Vacations to Go. Awesome price too!

I have used Vacations to Go several times. I prefer it over booking with the Cruise Lines. We have found many deals, including a 12 day trip to Hawaii for $399.00. I think it is a great site and plan to use it exclusively in the future.

I've booked four cruises through them and never had a problem. I think they have the best search engine in the business.

Agree with most posts. I have used Vacations To Go twice and will again. Their agents are wonderful at "reading" their clients, and recommend ships, resorts etc. that are best suited to them. Good prices, good ticketing services, good everything.

We have used them several times, and they were great.

just had a problem with them.. a manager called me this week to inform me that his former employee had given me the wrong price (actually an added deposit) and that I would have to pay $500. more for my 7 day cruise to Bermuda. The reservation had been made 1 month earlier.

we considered it a bit of 'bait and switch'... I cancelled and booked with the cruise directly for the same price.

I've used them but it was one of their escorted, single cruises. I enjoyed it and think that they did an awesome job. I would definitely use them again.

Used them for a very heavily-discounted cruise out of Fort Lauderdale tomorrow and also booked a trans-Atlantic through them for October 2014. Have had excellent service thus far, they have my frequent cruiser info on file, etc. Great reservationists. Prices on the cruise line sites for identical journeys were much higher.

I'm just starting to research cruises for 2015 and stumbled upon Vacations To Go. The reviews above do not match the ones here> http://www.consumeraffairs.com/trave...ons_to_go.html
Ann Marie

Wow!
Amwosu, some of those are pretty bad complaints and most seem legitimate. Seems as if when everything goes well, you are OK, but major problems were not resolved. I had a minor problem with a cruise not being booked asap, but they corrected it right away. More recently, an e-mail has had no follow up, but it was not about any problems, so they must have thought no response was necessary. Actually, it was not, though I would have liked one. I am going to look for other reviews of VTG.

The complaints that worry me are a) booking then being asked for more money due to a "mistake" and b) dragging their heels then not refunding money when lower fares are discovered. If I could take last minute cruises from near home I'd take the risk and use this company. I'm not prepared to deal with potential issues on a pricey cruise that starts far from home.
Ann Marie

This thread has been going on for a long time.

VTG is a volume dealer. Amy time you deal with a volume dealer, you are going to run into service issues when things are out of the ordinary. It's simple, they have high staff turnover and generally poorly trained staff that can make simple cookie cutter bookings and upsell you stuff to make more commission for themselves.

For me, I can do the simple stuff and book my own. For travels that is important, or far way, or out of the ordinary, and have a chance of go south for whatever reason, I trust my experienced local TA, which is something a volume dealer generally doesn't have.

Here is an analogy: back to the days when there were small computer shops, you go there to buy a computer, you come across knowledgeable staff who know their stuff. You walk in a big box store now and you probably know more than the staff if you had done some research before you go. That's the nature of the beast. Same goes for travel agencies.

It may cost you a few bucks extra, but you have to support your small local business! You keep going to the big box store, Walmart or volume dealer like VTG, you may pay less now, but in the end, you got what you pay for. And worst yet, your small local business is going to die off and you are left with no choices but them. :(

I would never use then again, and would not recommend them, had nothing but problems with them. The travel agent Rene wasn't any help when I had a problem, neither was Megan Morris, my cruise is next week, and I am very worried. We planned this trip because my husband has been ill and we wanted to just relax, dealing with vacations to go has been anything but relaxing, good luck everyone, my tip to you, book it on your own, with the cruise line, you don't need vacations to go

We recently used them to book a trip to Costa Rica, at an all inclusive resort. We had to leave early, and (asked our customer service person to help us get a refund for 4 nights, from the hotel. We paid our money to Vacataions to go, not the resort. Our customer service person was no help at all, told us to call ourselves....The insurance that they suggest purchasing through Berkely, has a lot of fine print, so nothing was paid for from them either. I am not impressed with their service, they seem very helpful taking your money, but absolutely no help after. BEWARE

I have used them twice and had a great experience both times. My travel agent was fantastic

I fully agree with Eschew.

For bookings I do not do on my own I used my LOCAL Travel Agent.

If/ when something goes wrong, I can go right to her/his office in person and have the matter settled.

Food for Thought

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/trave...ons_to_go.html

Yes! Use them often - very good to deal with, great quotes, attentive.

Danger, danger! We have booked multiple cruises with VTG and this was our last experience:

Here is a copy of our email to the President of Vacations to Go. We received a canned email response that basically said, "So sorry about our cruise. We'd love to book your next cruise on a different line." Our answer - NEVER!

Dear Mr. Fox,
You have solicited feedback in the verbiage throughout the Vactions to Go website, so we feel compelled to provide ours in detail. We just returned on 6/5 from a Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Victory. We have booked a few of our 14+ cruises with VTG, including a 10 day Mediterranean cruise on HAL, and Caribbean cruises on RCCL and Celebrity. When speaking with Chase Choy our VTG Cruise Consultant, we never felt "fully briefed" on what to expect on our most recent Carnival cruise. We had some hesitations about the reputation of the line, so we will take responsibility for not asking enough questions about Carnival and the specific Victory ship.

With that said, let us share the 5 night adventure we encountered on what we not so fondly term the "Animal House Party Barge" cruise. The ship itself is dirty and in grave disrepair (it goes in to dry dock next year - long overdue.) Our beds (see attached photos) were so broken down we could barely walk after sleeping in them. Note how you can see the severe sag in the mattress even when the bed is fully made with a down comforter. The formal dining linens were raggedy, and the bedding and bath linens were no better.

We were shocked to find our cruise mates in the adjoining cabins frequently smoking marijuana, as well as a number of guests on the exterior walkways/decks of the ship. A significant number of other guests were unruly and clearly inebriated in the public areas of the ship. The crew dealt with a few of them, but this was clearly the "culture" of the ship.

The food was far and above the worst we have ever had on any of the cruises we have ever taken, even in the formal dining room. Regarding the formal dining room, we certainly did not appreciate the "strobe light show" preceding the crew show/act, nor the loud music throughout the dinner hour. Might we mention the multitude of crew members that performed pseudo "strip shows" for the howling passengers during the dinner act - if we could have flown home, we would have.

We are mid 40's/50's and did not expect a HAL experience by any means. We just never expected all that we experienced on this cruise, and will be quick to warn people about our experience. There are so many other details that we will not belabor you with. We truly tried to find some redeeming factor on this cruise - Adrian in the martini bar was a smart, conversant and friendly staff member that we enjoyed talking with. He was our "bright star" on a dark 5 night cruise.

In the end we truly feel "ripped off", and that our $2,000+ was poorly spent.

Lynn,
Wow! I seriously considered a Carnival cruise, but in the end choose NCL for a cruise with our little GD and am glad I did. I just about researched myself senseless, I was so worried about my choice. I would make a decision, then read something else and change my mind. Finally choose NCL Epic which turned out to be perfect for our needs, but it was agonizing to make a final selection. People here were super helpful.

How much did advice from the VTG Rep influence your decision? Did he try to steer you to any other ship or just take your cruise order, thinking you knew what you wanted? Was VTG totally responsible for the poor quality of the cruise? Was it just a poor match of ship with customer?
I hope you also post your review on cruise critic where more cruisers looking for info will find it.

Lynn, Given all the issues Carnival has had the last few years I would avoid them like the plague! Sounds like the issues were more with the cruise line than with your agent.

Vacationstogo were great when we booked our Windstar cruise through them last year. Prompt helpful service, and saved us a few bucks as well. Our local TA does not do Windstar, so that was not an option.

Vacations to Go has an A+ rating with the BBB. Seems like this wouldn't be possible if they were as bad as some people say they are.

As stated previously, we had great service and no complaints. I was missing a voucher for one of our airport transfers in Budapest, but when I contacted the agent, she took care of it right away.

While I also like booking online, I had questions about upgrades, etc., so I figured it was better if I spoke to an agent. There was no pressure to book quickly or to do anything I didn't want to do.

I notice now that Lynn came on, posted one complaint and has not returned to respond to any questions. SB_Travlr, I think you are right, his/her issues were, or should have been, with the ship, which is why I questioned if the agent directed her to that ship or not. The OP said they had 14 cruises under their belt, so it would be reasonable to think they would do some research on their own. I certainly did a lot before our last cruise.

This is sort of like Trip Advisor- everyone has a personal experience to tell so comments are anecdotal and should be taken as such.
We just returned from a Baltic Cruise booked thru VTG. The cruise was sold out, but several weeks prior to it being sold out we and our traveling companions were upgraded to concierge veranda staterooms, we from an outside cabin and our friends from an inside cabin.
Furthermore, while on the cruise i noticed the $300 ship credit i was suppose to receive had not shown up 4 days into the cruise. The ship sent an email to my VTG agent and within a day the credit appeared.
My thoughts are that VTG is such a large agent or processor that the cruise lines might give them favors or better deals.
I think everyone should take these reviews with a grain of salt and do what they feel most comfortable doing.

If I choose to book with Vacations To Go, which I probably will as their prices are amazing, can I still access my cruise through the company website? For example if I book on Royal Caribbean through Vacations To Go, can I access my cruise and make plans through the Royal Caribbean website?

I have booked a MSC cruise for the end of September with VTG and am now trying to book day trips and other packages with MSC. I cannot access any prices on the MSC web site and when I phone them direct they tell me to go back to the agent I booked the cruise with.

Not sure what is best for you, but it is ridiculous that the company will not sell you their tours.

Anyway, join the roll call for your cruise on cruisecritic.com and you will find many tours and excursions which you can join, that are being organized by other passengers. They are usually cheaper and better.

Also, post your exact cruise on here, with a list of the port stops and people can make recs for you. There are a few cruisers here who have been just about everywhere and even know good guides.

Oh, make your request a separate thread about the port stops so people will open and look at it. They may not look at this one about VTG.

Throughout my whole booking process with Vacations to go they were extremely curtious and helpful leading me to believe my vacation would be just as nice. Immediately upon our arrival at our hotel did we find out the truth.
We went to Cancun, Mexico and requested a hotel in the hotel strip in order so we should be able to be near the kosher restaurant that we needed. Not only were we 25 minutes away from the strip itself we were so far out that only taxis could take us to the strip for a minimum of $40!
We paid over $3400 dollars for an all inclusive trip, hotel, food and activities. Once I told V2G about my kosher status they should have informed me that I do not and should not get the all inclusive package as it does not pertain to my situation, but alas they didn't.
Besides for the kosher problem V2G told us that we were getting a $750 resort credit to use as we wish on top of the inclusive activities the hotel provides. Upon arrival we found out that the $750 resort credit was actually our whole amount to spend on any of the activities and one activity alone was the full amount of the credit.
I called V2G from the hotel and complained. This was our honeymoon, we had saved up money to book and simply couldn't afford to keep spending. They were extremely unhelpful and did not care and did nothing to help us. I paid so much money and basically all I got out of it was a hotel room.
After a disappointing phone call with V2G, we complained to the hotel guest services and after a day and a half of wasted vacation time, they put us up in their sister hotel which was on the strip and exactly where we needed to be with no thanx to V2G.
We had a great end to our vacation until the last day when our airport transportation, that V2G provided, came and went without us waiting a miserable 7 minutes (we had a problem checking out) and refused to come back. We had to pay more money again to get to airport.
Overall very disappointed and will not be using V2G again!

I booked with vacations to go, and when they drop the price, they told me there is nothing they can do, because it's Norwegian's decision, but when i call Norwegian, they told me it's vacation to go's ad.

this is true, DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT OTHER SAY ABOUT THIS TOUR AGENT, they are terrible! I learned my lesson the hard way: Always book with the cruise liner/airline company directly, even though it may cost a bit more, because if anything shall happen, Vacations To Go is helpless!!

And the golden rules about travel is: if it could happen, it probably would!

The two posts above this one were made by new members (or one member using different accounts) who joined Fodor's in Nov. 2014 (today is Nov. 2, so they joined either yesterday or today), and have only posted once, bashing Vacations to Go. More than likely a troll or two trolls whose experiences should be disregarded.

Vacations to Go is widely known as a very reputable agency. I have no affiliation withe the company, but wouldn't hesitate to use it when booking a cruise.

I have used VTG for four cruises and been quite pleased. I do a ton of research first though.

Understand that you may or may not be able to take advantage of a price drop. If you have paid in full for a guaranteed cat of cabin, or past a certain date, you may not be eligible for any drop in price. Some big companies reserve a number of cabins and sell them cheap (even at a loss for some cabins) near the date so they can maintain sales numbers and get a higher sales percent or get more benefits from the cruise lines to offer their customers. Example, (not factual or actual numbers, just kind of how I understand it might work) VTG might need to sell 10,000 cabins with a given company to be able to offer on ship credit to to earn a larger percentage from the company. If they have sold only 9,990, they might reduce the last 10 to make that quota. They are taking a loss and could not go back and cut every cabin price.

Take some responsibility for yourself. Check a map to see where hotels are located. Call the hotel to ask about food, excursions you might want to take, etc. Read reviews of hotels, trips, ships, ship's food, cabins, even the type of fellow passengers you can expect, etc. pick carefully. Then, go and enjoy.

Sometimes you will pick perfectly, other times not. Travel is always an adventure. Or stay home where everything is perfect, nobody is ever late, food is to your liking, taxis are never impatient, you can associate only with people of whom you approve and nobody ever gets a better bargain than you.