You Know You Need A Travel Agent When...

You're about to plan the family vacation of your dreams.  You know, the long awaited all-inclusive fiesta on the breathtaking beaches in Mexico, where you have dreams of your kids building sand castles on the pristine white beach, you and your lovely spouse lay on your beach chairs, sipping Margaritas(with the cute little cocktail parasols in them), soaking up the warm sun, thinking to yourselves now this is the life!


Of course in your dream, everything is absolutely perfect.  Your suite.  The food.  The planned activities for the kids.  And your super cute Cabana boy named Pablo who's quick to bring you your next drink, snack, or to provide you with some beautiful scenery.


For the most of us, taking our dream vacation or going on your long awaited honeymoon takes a huge sacrifice financially and also personally.  You're faced with making deliberate, calculated decisions like:  do you take a day off for that doctor's appointment(the one you've been waiting to get in with for over three months), or do you save it up for our vacation?  Should we take the kids out to eat for a fun evening out, or stay home, and cook rice and beans to save more money up for our trip?  The point being that vacations are generally BIG deals for most people, and when you do get the privilege to depart on your long awaited respite, you WANT everything to go perfect.

So with that being said, rather than write a predictable article listing some of the many reasons you should use a travel agent, I thought I'd have a little fun, and hopefully you will too!

You know you need a travel agent when... you get to the airport, only to find that your flight that you booked online  is cancelled due to mechanical problems.  So, you get out your handy dandy itinerary you printed from bookyourvacationonline.com, call their customer service number.. wait on hold for 15 minutes... before an agent(who appears to speak more Arabic than English) answers.  After another 10 minutes, most of which you spend repeating 'what? can you say that again please?', Abdul informs you there's nothing he can do for you and that you need to contact the airline.  So you make your way to the airline's booth... and see the other 300 displaced travellers already in line... and wonder if a riot might break out.

You know you need a travel agent when... Two days later than expected you arrive at your resort eagerly anticipating the beautiful pools, ocean front suites, and the kids tropical water slide park... instead, what you ACTUALLY see are weeds taller than the buildings, the swimming pools are green(and not the good kind of green either), vaguely, you hear your 9yr old ask if you think that's mold growing inside the pool.  As for the ocean front rooms, well, the beach is really 3 blocks away, but if you look through the overgrown shrubs at just the right angle, you can catch a tiny glimpse of the ocean... though you might need to buy some binoculars.

You know you need a travel agent when...  you check in to your three room ocean front suite and are informed that they overbooked and your room is not available.  In their effort to have great customer service, they have one room available.. in the employees quarters.  So instead of your sleep number beds with Egyptian cotton bedding, you have two sets of bunk beds(they kindly offered to put in a pack n play for the baby), with one tiny window with the view of the garbage cans out back.  Oh, and that super cute Cabana boy Pablo.. well, now you're sharing a bathroom with him and 14 other employees.  

One of the many benefits to using a travel agent is that when something goes wrong, you only have to make ONE call to your agent and they will handle any problems that arise.  That's part of our job, we will ensure you have your dream vacation by handling issues like cancelled flights, overbooked rooms, resorts not meeting your expectations, poor customer service, etc.  This is a value added service which we take pride in providing at no extra charge to you.

Does anyone have any nightmare travel stories?  If so, how did you handle them and how did they turn out?

Please consider using Becker World Travel when planning your next vacation.  We'd love to have you!

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