Complaint Review: Sunshine Vacations

I was contacting saying I had won a free 3 day Bahamas cruise. I hit redial on my cell phone and got the "main" number. I specifically asked the lady who answered if this was going to include a sales presentation or if I was going to be asked to buy anything additional. She said absolutely not! This is a promotion only. If we like the cruise, they hope we would tell our friends, recommend them and/or come back to them in the future to book our vacations through their agency.

I asked how "free" was "free". I was told we would pay nothing other than incidentals we would want to purchase, such as alcohol, gambling in the casino, shore excursions, and shopping. I called another number to schedule my "personal appointment" to schedule our cruise. Our "personal appointment" included 15 people and an hour long sales pitch to purchase 25 week-long vacations at their properties for "only" $12,000. There was an additional $359 annual fee to be paid for the "membership" for which we were paying $12,000.

Anyone in our world could use these vacations for only a $99 booking fee per booking, and they were adding 5 additional weeks today only. (It reminded me of Vince, the Sham-Wow guy.."because we can't do this all day...")They were asking for $2,400 down today and we could finance the rest. :-D When it became obvious we weren't capable of and/or willing to doing that on that day, other numbers were thrown at us.

We finally said no, we don't vacation enough to make this equitable. We prefer cruises. They could schedule our cruises, but they would have to go through another company and we would have to pay for them. Cruises were not included in this vacation package. If, however, we would join and insist on cruises being added, a member's voice would be far more powerful than a non-member's voice.

After the final no was issued, we were taken to a waiting room to speak to another person to schedule our cruise. We were instructed we would be paying taxes, which amounted to $175-$250 per person and were responsible for all transfers to and from the ship/airport. All we got was a piece of paper with a certificate number on it and a website/mailing address on it. I registered at the website and now must wait for a response.

Granted, we signed up for a chance at $50,000 or a new car, so this was only an interim drawing. There was nothing in my e-mail, as suggested by the supposed employee in the rebuttal, stating there was an hour long sales presentation. I was lead to believe this was our private time with a travel consultant to choose and book our cruise. I'm not saying that I'm not happy they're offering us airfare and the cost of a 3 day cruise. What I am saying is that they used misleading tactics. If they had told us up-front, we would have probably still gone, but with full knowledge.

For the record, we have won a cruise before in a promotion. Not everyone offering such prizes insists the winner pays taxes and transfers. A friend just won a cruise during a different promotion from a different company this very weekend. He is paying NOTHING for his cruise, so this isn't a "new" development since we last won. Bottom line...just be honest with people and it will go far.

Lyn
Westerville, Ohio
U.S.A.