Never Book With Thomas Cook!

09:23 Unknown 0 Comments

When Kevin and I got married, I knew that Kevin really wanted to take me to Disney World, Orlando one day. He loves it there and he had always hoped to take his future wife there. I was dubious because of the cost and I was worried about the rides. I've never been a big thrill girl.

However, as we came up to our 2 year anniversary, I realised that it was something very special to him and after Christmas booked a holiday with Thomas Cook to Orlando Florida. We bought our Disney and Universal tickets separately and were all set for a great 2 weeks in May.

The first hiccup happened when we were given our boarding cards and realised that we weren't sat next to each other. I suffer from mild panic attacks now and then and the thought that I wouldn't be next to my husband on an 8 hour flight had not even crossed our mind. We complained at the boarding desk but were told it cost £11 to book seats next to each other. Kevin pointed out that that option was not available to us as he had tried to book our seat numbers before but couldn't. Thomas Cook simply said that wasn't right and we probably didn't check the right boxes. After realising they weren't going to help us I burst into tears in front of everyone waiting to board.

Luckily we ended up behind each other on seats that were next to a wall so we could talk to each other through the space.

The next problem and the one we had anticipated was the car rental on our arrival at the airport in Florida. Kevin had been told twice by two different TC representatives that we definitely had basic car insurance. Alamo, the car rental place told us we were not covered and charged us $170. Kevin ran between Thomas Cook and Alamo. Eventually Thomas Cook admitted we shouldn't have to pay the $170 but to do it then and we would get it back later. The Alamo guy also tried to get us to rent a bigger car, insisting the car we had would be too small even though Thomas Cook had promised us a car suitable for our luggage allowance.

Again, luckily, when we finally got to the car section, the guy said we could just take a bigger car and we went for the beautiful red VW.

By now we were both stressed and uptight, not the relaxed excited start to the holiday we had saved months and months for and worked extra jobs to pay for. We were also apprehensive about the hotel and sure enough we were disappointed.

At the reception when we checked in we were told that we had to pay the daily resort fee which came to $55 in total. This had not been mentioned to us by Thomas Cook, who claim it is in the small print (of course it is!) and couldn't believe we had already been robbed of over $200 before even starting our holiday. Our room was also in a dingy, dark tower block. Although clean it looked like it needed a huge paint job and there was a huge hole in our bathroom ceiling where the lamp would have been.

The $55 we paid for resort fees included a shuttle but what we hadn't been told either was that the shuttle only goes to the various theme parks once a day at about 7.15 a.m and only comes back at certain times. I was horrified. I had expected free shuttle service that went at least every hour. Having to pay extra for a rubbish service was even worse. On top of which we were informed that we had to book this shuttle the day before or we might not even get on it!

We managed to get hold of someone on the Thomas Cook LiveChat where our details were forwarded to another desk and they rang us about an hour or two later. As expected, everything we had told about getting our money back on the car insurance was a complete lie and I saw Kevin put the phone down in disgust after trying to explain again and again that we had been promised a lot of things which were not true and being told that our records held none of the information we had been told we had. The insurance info had not been recorded and everything else was apparently in the small print, despite Thomas Cook representatives telling us otherwise prior to our trip and upon arrival.

It might not seem like much, and I know things could be worse but all this has effectively ruined the holiday for us. Not being able to get to and from the parks whenever we need to means long hot days in the sun coming back exhausted and grumpy from too much time in the heat.

I would like to warn everyone not to book a holiday with Thomas Cook. They exploit people, they lie and they answer every problem with "If you booked online you probably didn't realise you weren't checking the right boxes."

They are liars and cheats and they should be boycotted.

If you want a nice holiday - NEVER book with Thomas Cook!

Spread the word!