now that the holidays are over and life has settled down, I would like to discuss my cruise. I initially contacted Avoya Travel to book an upcoming cruise. The company that contacted me was Lux Travel {Kristin DeVilbliss}. I told her the exact ultimate cruise that my husband, myself, and our good friends, Ken and Melanie Hudson were interested in. I gave her the exact dates and the fact that both couples were traveling together and both celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary. I also stated that we wanted the premium drink package, the late seating for dinner, and pre-paid gratuities. When our paperwork came through, we found out not only were we not in rooms next to one another, they were not even on the same deck. It took us calling directly to Celebrity Cruise Lines, with the agent also on the phone, to get this corrected. Paperwork also revealed that we did not have the late seating for dinner. I insisted this be corrected, not an easy task, I might add. Now lets get to the original request which was pick 2. My choice was the drink package and pre-paid gratuities. On our own, since the paperwork work showed only the classic package, we upgraded ourselves on line, which by the way, in many of our prior cruises, this was done for us by the travel agent. Finally, at the end of our 11 day cruise and we wanted to pay any outstanding charges, of which we were quite certain there would not be any, since we had already paid for our excursions, only to find out that neither couple had pre-paid gratuities. This by far was the worst experience we have ever had booking a cruise or any other vacation. I will not recommend this travel agent to anyone else. I hope Celebrity takes "some" action(s) to compensate us, and/or give punitive measures to such a terrible Agency.
