Wednesday, September 28, 2005
To Whom This May Concern,
I'm writing this letter to express my EXTREME displeasure with the services render to me by Cindi Tacci and the Travelsmiths Travel Agency of 10680 South De Anza Boulevard, Cupertino, California. I am sending a copy of this letter to Cindi, her travel agency, the Better Business Bureau, and posting a copy on my website with links to the various search engines. I think it is important for other consumers to know what a terrible job Cindi did so they can be warned. Moreover, after speaking with both friends and other travel agents, I believe the only fair thing for the Travelsmiths to do would be to offer us some money back as the vacation we got was NOT the vacation we paid for.
Let me start running through the events in chronological order.
At the very beginning of the summer, my partner and I went to the Travelsmiths on a whim. I had been working VERY long hours on a software project as well as going to school. My partner was likewise finishing up his degree. With no time and two weeks of vacation I HAD to take over the summer or lose, we decided a travel agent would be able to find what we wanted and save us the time (in the form of leg-work/research) we didn't have. Our requirements for this vacation were simple: 1) some place that was gay-friendly or gay-comfortable, and 2) someplace where we could go snorkeling whenever we wanted with a five minute walk or less. These two points are extremely important and I would like to delve into each in detail.
Our number one requirement was someplace we could be comfortable as a gay couple. We had almost gone to Jamaica early in the year, but just before we confirmed, I found out that Jamaica is the least gay-friendly locale in the Caribbean. As a result, we scrubbed our vacation plans entirely. This event was forefront in our mind and as we knew up-front that we didn't have time to do research, we expressed that it was important to find somewhere that two gay men can be comfortable. Cindi assured us that the resort in question would be fine.
Well, notwithstanding the fact that the resort employs several third-gender workers, Fiji is, according to the consensus of gay travel sites and Fijian guide books, the least friendly place for male-male couples in the South Pacific. The Australian government has a travel advisory AGAINST Fiji because one of its citizens was sentenced to two years for consentual sex. This case went to the Fijian Supreme Court, where the sentence was upheld and further, the judge declared that gays have no protection under the law in Fiji. The punishment for gay sex in Fiji carries a minimum penalty of one year and sentences closer to the maximum of 14 years are not unheard of. Worse, in 2001 the Director of the Red Cross in Fiji and his partner were brutally murdered -- decapitated and with their bodies mutilated.
These were facts we didn't become fully aware of until after our plane was in the air and I had the time to read the printouts and guide books we brought along! Needless to say, had we known, we would NEVER have booked the trip. As a travel agent, I would have expected Cindi to have at least as much passing knowledge with Fiji as five minutes reading a Let's Go: Fiji or Lonely Planet: Fiji would engender. Unfortunately, no. We were under the impression that Cindi was an informed professional, familiar with at least the basics of Fijian travel and because of her expertise as a travel agent we trusted her advice. We believed she knew what she was talking about and didn't bother to do research ahead of time. Clearly that trust was misplaced!
I'd would like those reading this letter to really understand what this felt like for us, reading about the grisly murders, the incarcerations, all the warnings AGAINST gay travelers to Fiji, but knowing that's where we were going to land, despite having expressed our number one priority as someplace gay-friendly. Imagine going to a travel agent and asking for a trip to an archeological site where Americans are welcome, but then discovering you're hours away from landing in Falujah or Sadr City! That's how we felt. And every piece of evidence we read only further supported that. Heck, a quick search for "gay" and "Fiji" gives PLENTY of warning messages -- too bad we trusted Cindi to do her homework before our trip...! This strikes me a clear negligence on her part. Had we encountered an unfortunate incident, we would have had clear grounds to sue...
While were never mugged or attacked during out stay, it was probably mostly due to the fact that we had to be on-guard and on-edge for most of the trip. We couldn't relax and be ourselves, but rather treat one another as merely friends. Imagine a "relaxing" week in the tropics with your significant other where the very "significant" nature of your relationship had to be hidden in order to avoid potentially violent consequences... Wouldn't you be outraged? Tired of living a lie? You don't know how many times we just answered, "yes, that's right, we're brothers" in order to avoid any potential conflict.
And so I'll move along to our number two requirement, a place within walking distance of the hotel to enjoy good snorkeling. Last summer we went to Kauai and told Cindi we were looking for at least something on par with what you can find there. We also mentioned snorkeling trips in the Caribbean and Yucatan, so she could really understand our expectations and requirements. So, it was with great distress that as I read Lonely Planet, I learned that where Cindi booked us, on the so-called "Coral Coast", is known to have crappy snorkeling. Again, five minutes consulting a travel guide could have really avoided this problem. Again, as a professional travel agent offering clients advice about a major aspect of what they were looking for, Cindi failed completely here. Now, sure, there a few places on-site of the Hideaway resort to go snorkeling -- at high tide, in surgy conditions and looking at an almost totally dead reef. You have about an hour a day, either right around dawn or dust where the conditions are right. Otherwise the coral reef is an ugly collection of bleached white rocks jutting up well above the sea -- so, yeah, that would be DEAD and/or DYING coral. And I have MANY pictures from various times of day to prove it.
So, realizing what a complete failure this trip was, we called Cindi and the Travelsmiths late in the morning of our first day in Fiji. The fee to call translated to about $3 US per minute, and since this problem was clearly a failure on Cindi's part, we tried to place a collect call. Cindi wasn't there and Travelsmiths had no interest in hearing about our problems collect. Marie Marrero, the manager in Cindi's absence had the receptionist hang-up on us. As a former information services manager, I'm more than well aware that businesses calling from the US can reach just about anywhere for pennies per minute, so we called back and asked Travelsmiths to call us. Marie sounded hostile and totally disinterested in helping us. On the phone, she was down-right rude and unwilling to listen to our issues. From her reaction, as well as talking to other tourists later, Marie seemed to be aware that hotels in Fiji didn't offer the same rooms they promised over the phone and dismissed our problems accordingly, without bothering to really listen to the real nature of our concerns. The best we got was "oh, well, if Happy Vacations can switch you to another location in Fiji, that's the best I can do." Clearly, Travelsmiths believes that if they sell you a faulty and defective vacation package, well caveat emptor and too bad for you!
We did speak with someone from Happy Vacations, but naturally she was about as much help as a cancerous tumor. She couldn't bring us home, so we gave her a list of various gay-friendly hotels and resorts on the islands, but she couldn't help us at all. We were stuck at this resort with crappy snorkeling in a country that kills and arrests gays -- a place where the Supreme Court ruled gays have no rights under the law. Would YOU want to stay in such a place?
Unfortunately, we were trapped and had to make the most of the situation. We spent a great deal of time in our room, basically hiding out, so we wouldn't be "obvious". We signed up for any tours we could get away from the resort so at least we could go snorkeling on one of the OTHER coasts of the island. We basically tried to at least have fun with the absolute crap we were dealt. And that cost us quite a bit of additional money, over $1000 US each.
Now ultimately, as we are generally easy-going and well-traveled men, we did manage to enjoy ourselves in Fiji. But, the trip we got was NOT the trip we asked for. By analogy, we ordered a big screen TV for $3000. Instead, we wound up paying more than $5000 for a refrigerator we weren't really interested in. Sure, the refrigerator was nice and useful, but what we ordered, what we wanted, what we set about trying to buy was a TV. And in the end, it's still a TV we need.
This vacation was the same way. We wanted a quiet, relaxing, peaceful place where we could enjoy the sea and each other's company. We got a far-more-expensive adventure-style trip full of anxiety and stress. In its own way, our trip was fun, but absolutely 180 degrees from what we were looking for. We still need our soothing vacation.
The Travelsmith's web site claims that their mission is "We strive to provide superior quality and service to each client, and to make every traveler's dream come true." Clearly, they failed here. Moreover, as their website has Fiji as a featured destination, you would expect Travelsmiths' agents would have some expertise or knowledge about conditions in Fiji. And yet, although Cindi suggested this as a destination, her awareness of the location was less than that you can gain by spending a few hours with a travel guide.
I honestly believe Travelsmiths and Cindi Tacci has an obligation to either deliver that vacation we asked for or refund the money we had to fork out. In the case of a TV-turned-refrigerator, Home Depot or Sears wouldn't blink; they would acknowledge THEIR mistake and either refund the money or make it right. Well, Cindi, are you that professional?
Sincerely,
© 2005 buddhabear@geocities.com