Let’s be honest. Pre-pandemic, I was the person that thought that Travel Advisors were as relevant as the Yellow Pages Phone book. Why would you talk to someone when you could book your trip yourself for the same price, or even sometimes less expensive than an Advisor? I could research destinations and hotels, and come on, who knows what I would like better than me?

Ppffftttt What a waste of time!

As we started to come out of the pandemic and started to see travel opening up and eager passengers booking travel, we also were starving for the next trip, the next adventure to begin. We gathered with family online and planned a family reunion. A chance to see each other, and hug, after 2 long and scary years. On March 20th 2022 we were collectively off to Mexico.

We spent 10 glorious days, playing beach volleyball, swimming in the ocean, exploring local restaurants and just slowing down.

Okay, it all sounds amazing right?

So, a little bit of a back story.

  • Over covid, my Husband, who has always booked our travel and that of the family, got his certification and became a Travel Advisor. This was the first trip he booked for us as a family since Covid19. It was amazing all of the tools he had, and things went great, even coordinating with family coming from all over Canada. We knew all the Covid protocol, and he had filled out most of the information he could for everyone. He made sure we had the best insurance coverage for Covid as this was still during Canada’s negative covid test for entry time. It is a good thing we did have all of the information as two of us out of 14 tested positive.
  • Eleven days before we were to fly out to Mexico, we had a call that the resort that we had booked, had cancelled our rooms. Seems they were booked out by a concert or something. Anyway, we had a choice of 2 other options, for our resort, or cancel the trip. We had waited so long, and no one wanted to cancel. We chose the best looking of 2 options. We also receive d a ten-day free stay at the first resort for another time, for our inconvenience.
  • As not all of us had booked with my Husband, and not all of us in our group, had our rooms cancelled at the first resort. The Advisors all had to work together to get all of us out of the first resort, with no penalties, and into the next resort. Good times!

At last, we are in Mexico and guess what, the resort we had chosen is HORRIBLE!

I will not go on about the place and water dripping through the light fixtures in the room and such, because we would be here all day. I will say though, that my Husband was able to help all of us, by calling contacts, and other Advisors, and his team as well. What I will say is we had a team on our side to sort things out and having one point of contact through him for all information was so organized and it went a long way in making our vacation turn out way better than it could have been. Certainly, way better than if we hadn’t had a Travel Advisor working for us to make things better and ensuring we got what we needed.

The two people that tested positive for Covid and had to stay a few days longer, were taken care of and arrangements made to get them home.

My point? In the past, I was willing to take a chance and book on my own. Be on my own and handle my own issues. Now, in a world with war, pandemics, airlines and their policies changing. With last minute changes in my life, and the world that I am going too, I really want to know that when things go wrong, I can go to the beach or the bar and my Advisor is working on a solution for me.

It isn’t safe to travel alone anymore. Hire a Travel Advisor and travel carefree.