A honeymoon is supposed to be a once in a lifetime trip,
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not really something you get a chance at a "do over" on- but I wish we could have had a do over on this trip.I'm no stranger to travel, and would usually book a trip like this myself, however with all the activity from the wedding we thought it would be appropriate to 'treat' ourselves to a travel agent who would pay attention to all the details, understand the concept of a romantic honeymoon in Italy, and be able to execute to luxurious expectations. Italy Customized did not meet those expectations. We spent 8500 Euro, a significant fee, and were left wondering where all that money went. We were sold (and put non refundable deposits down on) a luxury vacation with accommodations within "4-star luxury boutique hotels". As we passed 4-star hotel after 4-star hotel on the way to our cramped outdated room in our 2-star hotel in Venice it became apparent very quickly these were not the accommodations that were booked for us. They were not the romantic rooms you want for your honeymoon, maybe a 17th anniversary trip when we're middle aged, but not for a honeymoon. Other hotels were outdated, filled with senior patrons or mass tour groups, and likely hadn't been renovated in the last few decades. I became so frustrated with our stays that we actually checked out and spent our own dime to stay at an actual luxury boutique country estate for 3 nights, the kind we should have been booked at the entire time.We expressed our concerns to our travel planner but were met with disinterest, apologies, but no offers or means of compensation. She even stated several times that she had "5-star" clients stay in some of these same accommodations who "loved them" which I find very backhanded and also hard to believe. She also claimed that we were booked at "3-star" accommodations all along due to more money being spent on tours and transfers. Wish I had known that ahead of time, considering the fact that I clearly requested 4-5 star accommodations on Zicasso, not to mention that once again we were sold a package with "4 star luxury boutique hotels". We clearly did not receive what we were sold.The attention to detail paid in our itinerary was also frustrating at best. By two weeks prior to our trip we had not received any detailed itinerary, and I only received it after having to reach out and ask. When we did receive it, it was incredibly sloppy, filled with spelling or cut and paste errors, all of the dates were incorrect, and it was missing components from the original itinerary we had put our money down on. I had to take time out of my day and go through both itineraries side by side and wrote an email that had questions or needed changes on no less than ~10 items. The final itinerary we received still had errors in it, and not errors within small details. For example it told us to return our car at our last hotel, when we were supposed to return it at the airport. Other annoyances were recommendations for restaurants in the itinerary, when the restaurants were closed the one day we were in that city. Something quite easily looked up and double checked in advance for anyone with any sense of attention to detail. She was good about texting each day with itinerary details, however they were more cut and paste so if the itinerary was wrong, the texts she would send us also had the wrong information. She would also give us information about the names of our tour guides or those picking us up from the airport or train station which were wrong about 80% of the time. Again, for an obviously cut and paste itinerary I'm not sure what we were getting for, for the money we spent.
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