Our Case
Following is the letter we sent:
Mike Wendling
Journey’s End Resort
5847 San Felipe
Suite 2195
Houston, TX 77057
January 13, 1997
Better Business Bureau Houston
2707 North Loop West, Suite 400
Houston, TX 77008-1085
Dear Sir or Madam:
This letter is to inform you of our unsatisfactory vacation experience at Journey’s End Resort, Ambergris Caye in Belize. There were many reasons for our dissatisfaction with the quality of the "resort".
Upon arrival to Journey’s End, we were taken to a room other than what was promised. We had booked a lagoon view room, and were taken to a "garden view" (there was no garden) room without explanation. When we inquired about the change, the staff told us the lagoon rooms were "under construction." We were not pleased with the garden view room, and asked about the ocean view rooms. We were told that they were $50 more per night and an upgrade. We expressed our unhappiness at this point, and then we were shown an ocean view room which was smaller, and one could not really see any ocean due to the overgrowth of the palms and the extensive docks. The management at this point attempted to waive the extra $50 per night, but we took the garden view room because the other rooms were too small. During this whole ordeal, we were surprised that there were no other guests to be seen, and in fact the whole time we were there, we saw only 4 or 5 other guests.
The room itself was in disrepair: broken lamp shades, lamps, incomplete window screens, no window shade in the bathroom, and the bed sagged (see related photos). Overall, the room was not as clean or new as we were led to believe from the Journey’s End brochure. We could see an abandoned piece of equipment from the back window of our room (see photo).
Although the room was far below par, we hoped the resort itself would be acceptable. We took a walk to see more of the grounds, and found the beach very unkempt. There was garbage washed up on the shore, and all around the waterfront area (photos of both beach areas show such garbage). We can not emphasize enough the poor quality of the "beaches". No reasonable person would enjoy swimming or laying out near there.
The area between the room we were in and the lagoon view building we were promised was
under construction. There was a bulldozer and dump truck at work at all daylight hours in
the area. We could hear the construction noise from our room and it was louder and very
distracting from the pool area. There was a half-filled in "moat" surrounding
the lagoon view building that the construction workers were filling with garbage before
bulldozing it under with sand. We have photos of this as well. The management told us it
was causing a problem with mosquitoes and alligators.
We returned to our room for a shower after our long day of travel, only to find that it
was not even fresh water. The shower was saltwater, and left us with no real way of
feeling clean.
The brochure shows a colorful and clean resort. The reality was a run-down and deserted "camp" that was under construction. In case there is any doubt about the accuracy of our account, we took quite a few pictures. We should have taken more. Perhaps of the tire laying in the sand near the small beach, or of the outdoor chess board mentioned in the brochure that was in a laughable state of disrepair. Frayed and tattered "hammocks" were strung between palms.
The main restaurant building also looked to be under repair (see photo with tattered
volleyball net). The state of the room and resort left us uncomfortable with using any
on-site diving equipment or services.
Without a nice room to stay in, or acceptable places to enjoy the outside we had no other
recourse but to leave. We went to a lot of trouble to get there and would not have cut our
honeymoon short for anything but the gravest problems with the resort. We felt completely
mislead and cheated. At the very least, the operators of the resort should have informed
us of the fact that the resort was under construction and the room we had paid for was not
available. Preferably, the resort would have been in the sort of condition one might
expect of a resort that claimed they were highlighted on "Lifestyles of the rich and
famous".
Our attempts to work with on-site manager Jim Scott on reaching an agreement of a partial refund went nowhere despite repeated discussions. He claimed it was not up to him but the tour organizer and tried to blame our travel agent. The tour organizer, GoGo Travel, said that Journey’s End Resort had to make the determination. We spent some time making international calls to our travel agent who talked to GoGo Travel to no avail. Jim Scott finally told us that Mike Wendling, the representative in Houston for Journey’s End Resort had to make that determination. We called Mr. Wendling from Jim Scott’s office to state our case and he declined to give us any sort of refund. Neither Mr. Scott nor Mr. Wendling seemed much concerned with customer service other than trying to talk us out of leaving.
Our position is that the goods/services we had purchased were of such low quality as to constitute breach of implied contract. Since we left the very next day, we received only several flights, one sleepless night, a salt-water shower, and a single meal (dinner) for our US$2,500 ($2,200 MasterCard charge + $300 deposit). We are seeking a full refund of our money. We consider it extremely inappropriate of the company to try to take our money when we did not receive the goods or services promised.
Although we can never recover our honeymoon, we at the very least will try to keep GoGo Travel or Journey’s End Resort from keeping our money.
Sincerely,
Brian D. Hutchison and Emily P. Hutchison