Complaint Review: Funjet Vacations

We purchased a week long trip at Excellence El Carmen in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, to celebrate our 22nd anniversary (9/16/17-9/23/17) through Funjet.  American Airlines crew admitted error one the first leg of the flight out to start trip, which caused missed connections.  Of course, there were no other flight options that day so we had to stay overnight in Charlotte.  We bought trip insurance, so we mistakingly assumed everything would be handled eventually.  WRONG.  From the very beginning, we could not get representatives from Funjet or AON Insurance on the phone for almost three hours.  The airline tried to put us up in a very sketchy "motel" for the night, which we refused, again thinking the trip insurance would surely cover us.  Needless to say, we ddid not get to our destination until the 17th instead of the 16th (one day missed already). 

Now, when we get to the "5 Star Resort", they have no record of us coming in that day.  Obviously, because we are a day late!  But because of the language barrier, we could not seem to get them to realize they needed to look at the previous days incoming guests.  So after spending most of the now 2nd day of our trip trying to get our room, they take us to a room that is intended for some other couple as there is an envelope welcoming "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" which is not us.  We go back to concierge (which mind you we paid extra for the "Excellence Club" so we were supposed to receive superior service. right???) and ask for our room with our special items we had booked (i.e. fresh flowers, champagne and fruit basket, anniversary banner on the door).  We also at this point ask for and pay extra to upgrade our room to a beachfront 2 story rooftop terrace suite with a private plunge pool. We had booked that room type originally, just not beach front.  So at now 7:00pm on day 2 of our vacation, we finally get a room. 

In the package we booked and prepaid, we are supposed to recieve a champagne breakfast in bed for 2, a special spa couples treatment of 50 minutes, a private beachfront dinner one evening with a romantic bath prepared for us in our room upon return, petit fours each evening, and a complimentary Lovers Live CD by Sade.  This is all included in our package. But in our room is a letter (addressed to us this time) explaining that we need to contact the concierge to book these types of things at an additional charge.  By this time, we are exhausted from the ordeal of the past two days so we decide that we will go straighten that part out the next morning.  Did I mention I suffer from migraine headaches (and I take a preventative daily for them).  So we wake up the next morning (Monday) and I have a migraine.  I take medicine and go to breakfast with my husband and push through because this is vacation after all.  After breakfast we go straight to the concierge (same guy, Veranoble, helps us again).  We finally get the particulars of our package strightened out and he books our private dinner on the beach for Wednesday night and our breakfast in bed and spa treatment for Thursday morning.  We go and try to enjoy our first actual day at the resort.  By now are hearing that Hurricane Maria is forcast to hit the island on Wednesday.  Yippee.  We notice that lots of the other guests are beginning to try to make arrangements to go ahead and leave the island before the storm hits.  We try this as well and are told that all flights out on Tuesday and Wednesday are completely booked so we decide that maybe it won't be that bad and we will just ride out the storm.

On Tuesday, we get a call from concierge letting us know that because of the approaching hurricane and the fact that we are in a beachfront room, we will be moved to room at the back of the resort on Wednesday morning.  We are told to be packed and ready for someone to come get us at 11:00 am.  So we have breakfast that morning and go back to the room to pack. When no one shows up by 11:00 to move us, I call concierge and was told it will be more like 12:00.  Again, no one shows up.  We keep calling and keep getting told that someone is on the way and will be there soon.  At 2:00 pm, still no one has shown up to move us.  It is now raining and the wind is getting pretty strong (the worst part of the storm hits on Wednesday night and into Thursday morning).  We decide to take our bags and go to the main lobby and see if we can speed the process up.  On the way to the lobby, my husband slips and falls on the slippery tile stairs trying to get our bags down.  Luckily he's not injured, just a bruised arm.  At the concierge desk, we are given a key to a new room but again told to wait for someone to come get our bags.  By this time, we are really tired of "waiting" all the time so we just grab our bags and set out in the wind and rain to find our new room ourselves.  When we get in the new room, it is most definately not the same category of room we have paid for.  It is a basic room on the third floor of the building in the back of the resort that has only a small terrace.  (Here's the part of our complaint about not getting the room we paid for.)  When we open the door to this room, there is already water coming in through the front door due to the high winds.  We grab all the towels and try to block the bottom of the door, but is would be to no avail.  By the next morning, we were walking around in several inches of water covering the entire room.  This is understandable as we have just gone through a hurricane.  We also had no power in our room for most of the night.  We figured out the next day that the resort had power, but for some reason the breaker in our room tripped causing our power outage (probably had something to do with the flooding?) 

Now back to Tuesday after we get into our new room.  We are told that the the restaurants and bars in the main building will be open until around 7:00pm and then close due to the hurricane.  We weren't told when to expect things to re-open, which we understood.  As the storm approached through the day, the resort must have decided to close earlier than the announcement had originally stated because now everything except one bar will close at 3:00 pm.  We go to the sports bar to grab some lunch before they close.  Obviously lots of people are thinking the same thing as the place is absolutly packed.  We manage to find a table eventually and order our food.  We wait a long time for food and in fact have to send back my burger a couple of times because they brought me raw meat twice.  While waiting for our food, the entertainment staff of the resort come in (to mingle with guests, I assume) as they are just kind of walking around chatting with people.  One of the female employees stands behind my chair talking to two male guests.  Their conversation becomes a little inappropriate and they are talking about how she was working it last night and how much they enjoyed it.  She proceeds to rub her backside (butt) up and down the back of my chair as she is standing behind me and they are having this discussion.  She then proceeds to perfrom a "dance move" on a pole right beside where we are sitting.  I realize this is an adults only resort, but this was not appropriate behavior for staff of a "5 Star" resort.  We finally get our food and I ask for a to-go bag or box so we can just go to our room and eat.  I am told that is not allowed.  Mind you, I have watched other guests walk out with bags full of food while we were waiting for ours.  Finally, a "manager" comes over and tells me it is their policy not to allow food to be taken out but they can't stop me and he hands me container to put my food in.  By now, I've lost my appetite anyway. And I should also mention that with the approcahing storm and shutting down of the restaurants and bars, they also removed all liquor from the minibars in the rooms.    

Now back to the hurricane and services that we did not receive.  We obvioulsy made it through the storm and ventured out of our room around 11:00 on Thursday morning.  There was obvious damage to trees and things like that but the buildings of the resort stood up to the storm pretty well (they were concrete buildings). The pools were full of debris and unusable for the remainder of our trip (we left on Saturday) and the beach was closed for the remainder of our trip.  Only about three of the 11 restaurants were open for the remainder of our trip.  And only a handful of the 16 bars opened.  We never got our romantice beach dinner, or any of the rest of the things that were included in our package.    

Please know that we do not blame the resort for the hurricane and some of the problems that arose because of the storm.  BUT, we never received most of the services that we prepaid for on this trip.  As I stated earlier, we assumed the trip insurance would cover us for this stuff.  I filed 2 claims with AON insurance (as instructed), one for the trip delay due to the airline error and one for the trip interruption due to the hurricane.  By the way, the trip insurance had a "Hurricane Clause".  AON answered one claim, the trip delay, and offered us $200 each.  We did not feel this appropriate because it did not cover the hotel, food, and taxi expenses during our layover, not to mention the missed night and days at the "5 Star" resort.  AON never responded to our claim for the trip interruption.  I was finally able to get a representative on the phone after many attempts that explained to me that the "Hurricane Clause" is handled by Funjet diretly and not AON so I would have to file that part of my claim with Funjet.  I have done that and have gotten no response whatsoever from them.  We also filed a complaint directly with American Airlines since their employee admitted the error which caused our delays and they denied our claim. And finally, we filed a direct complaint and reimbursement request to the resort (Excellence El Carmen) and they denied us as well. 

Funjet did not deliver the vacation or services that we paid them for.  We were only able to enjoy the resort for one full day and part of another on what was supposed to be a 7 day vacation.  The resort employees and services that we did receive were not "5 Star" quality.  I doubt that the CEO of The Mark Travel Corporation would have been satisfied if this was the way he and his wife were treated.  Funjet's customer service is pretty much a joke.  We were basically at their mercy in a foreign country and they were not helpful and have not reached out to us to correct any of the problems we experienced.  We will be pursuing every avenue we can to get a refund for the full amount we paid.