Cruise Planners was founded in 1994 by current CEO Michelle Fee and two other travel industry co-founders in Coral Springs, Florida. Fee had already worked as a successful travel agent for many years. She and the other co-founders wanted to share their knowledge with others.
Today, Cruise Planners is America’s largest home-based travel agent franchise. The company currently has 1,000 franchise owners. Agents work from home selling travel packages such as cruises, land-based vacations, travel insurance, car rentals, and equipment rentals.
The company offers in-house financing to cover most franchising costs as well as special incentives for veterans.
Cruise Planners is listed as #3 on the Entrepreneur Franchise 500 List of America’s Fastest Growing Franchises.
Cruise PlannersCruise Planners was founded in 1994 by current CEO Michelle Fee and two other travel industry co-founders in Coral Springs, Florida. Fee had already worked as a successful travel agent for many years. She and the other co-founders wanted to share their knowledge with others.
Today, Cruise Planners is America’s largest home-based travel agent franchise. The company currently has 1,000 franchise owners. Agents work from home selling travel packages such as cruises, land-based vacations, travel insurance, car rentals, and equipment rentals.
The company offers in-house financing to cover most franchising costs as well as special incentives for veterans.
History
Cruise Planners is listed as #3 on the Entrepreneur Franchise 500 List of America’s Fastest Growing Franchises.
Maria Tilton of Cruise Planners was the travel agent for 10 of us. Once she sent the itinerary summary in September when she asked for deposits, we asked questions and she told us to wait for the answers, that they would be included in the manuals provided to us before our trip. When she sent out the final bills in March, they were for total amounts only and they were incorrect. Since I had already authorized payment when she told us to hold off until we received the correct bills, I asked if she was going to refund the excess to me or the total amount and recharge the correct amount. She assured me it had not been processed; it was just an authorization. Then, without sending us the corrected “old” authorization for the new amount without notifying me – I found out from my credit card company. I called her and told her she may NEVER charge my card an amount without my specific premission to use it for that specific amount. She did not apologize and tried to make it sound as if someone in my group should have told me. Really? She didn’t think she should send out a revised bill before processing a charge?!?
When we received the manuals, we had many questions. She responded by telling us all of the answers were in the manuals she specially prepared for us (not true) and that we should take the time to read them.
Our manuals included instructions to contact the European office if we needed assistance while abroad or to ask our concierge for assistance. The European office was closed for the weekend on Friday and not open again until Tuesday (Monday was a bank holiday) – not much help since we arrived on Friday.
When, after trying multiple other options, we contacted Maria for assistance the following Sunday, she did help only after the second message and let us know we were pulling her away from a personal event.
The trip was poorly planned. It was not possible to complete the day’s tour and attend the evening events even skipping dinner two of the days. And we were unable to use the Hop On Hop Off bus tour tickets in Paris since they were for the day we arrived as scheduled at 1:47 pm and were checked into the hotel by 3pm. We had a Wine Tasting scheduled for 5 pm and we needed to first obtain directions to the location and arrange for transportation. This left no time for the Hop On Hop Off bus tour also scheduled for that day. I would expect a travel agent to arrange a schedule better than this.
When we asked (in March for a May-June trip) Maria to get theatre tickets for us, she told us we would have to do this ourselves – so we did. We only found out that she scheduled us for a 10.5 hour tour that day when we received our manuals less than 4 weeks prior to our trip. When we asked if she could move the tour to one of our “free” days or switch it with another tour, she said she couldn’t.
There were many other little things that Maria didn’t do for us (she said she could not provide maps; she never did provide a bill or statement for the amounts charged, etc.).
I will not use her again and do not recommend her for European travel.
My husband just had quadruple bypass open heart surgery and is not medical clear to travel for our Dubai trip, which is schedule on the 02/22/19 and our travel agent from your company Cruise Planners is stating you are unwilling to assist. Please advise
on june 2018 and for 6 days carmen oreilly whos affiliated with this company set us up for the worst travel experience ever. while i had paid in full a month and weeks prior to the trip to punta cana n constantly asked her about my intinerary ground transportation n hotel…she did not do so until 2am of the morning of the trip. my classmates n myself all 28 of us could not believe this n some arrived at punta cana n went to the wrong hotel cause she never told them that she had changed it at the last minute. we were ptomised a 5 star hotel but didnt get it. n when we arrived we were told to take a taxi there was no shuttle as she promised there would be.so you think that would be the end of this nightmare. carmen made sure it got worst everyday at 11am our keys wont work we found out that although she collected all our monies the hotel had not been paid. so for 5 days in a row we were let out n not allowed back until 8pm. trying to assist carmen 2 classmates offered their credit cards to cover 2 days at tge tune of over 14000. carmen issue them checks to cover the cc charges then she put stop payments on the checks n 2 this day hasnt paid them. shes dishonest n a poor reflection of your company.