Disasterous Mediterranean Cruise

Booked a trip in Jan 2017 for my husband and I to go on a Med Cruise in September through Imagine Cruising SA only to find original advert said 4* hotel and agent booked us into 3* hotel. After phoning and eventually saying this is false advertising we were then booked into 4*. A few weeks before the trip, travel agent Roxanne asked if she could organise our transfers. This would be almost an extra R6000 but promised private pick ups. On receiving documentation it stated 'multiple pick ups' and on phoning I was told this is normal and if I wanted private I needed to pay an extra R500 each! An argument ensued wherein I stated I had an email from her confirming all transfers would be private. She asked I send this to her and when I did she changed her mind about charging us and said we would have private pickups. I noticed we were being picked up from our hotel in Amsterdam and taken to the harbour at 11am, yet our ship only sailed at 6pm. I phoned Roxanne asking if we could move this out so that we could see something of Amsterdam. She said we would need that time to get to the harbour. On arriving at the hotel in Amsterdam there were others trying to move out this transfer, also people who'd booked with Imagine Cruising and we asked receptionist to change ours. It turned out the harbour was only 20 minutes from the hotel. Receptionist was told this was a set booking and could not be moved. However come 11am our transfer did not arrive and receptionist phoned them only to find they had cancelled our transfer. She had not asked them to cancel this. We eventually got taken to the harbour by another driver who was taking other people and kindly let us go in his mini van with him, we were not on his list. So much for paying for private transfers. On the first night aboard the cruise we came down for dinner to find we had missed dinner as Imagine Cruising had given them the wrong sitting. We had booked the second sitting and to be put at a table for 6 people so that we could mix. The restaurant manager said he was informed we wanted a table for 2 and the first sitting and could do nothing about the table as these had all been allocated now but could squeeze us into the second sitting. He put us at a table for 2 but managed to put another table near to us with a non-English speaking couple and that was our set up for the next 9 days. When we disembarked at Savona, to take the train ride through to Milan, I was told by Roxanne there would be a baggage compartment for our luggage but this was not so. It was an ordinary commuter train and there were lots of people from the cruise, all of us with at least 2 or 3 suitcases trying to find our coaches, get these suitcases up the stairs and onto the train in the 3 minutes allocated, as the train will not wait. It was a bun fight between commuters and cruise passengers. No coach numbers were on the outside of the train, one had to open doors to see which coach was which. There were no porters to help with baggage and everyone was trying to shove suitcases up stairs it was like a cattle train. I was inside the train trying to haul in the cases my husband was handing up to me. We are 68 and 69 respectively, not 28 and 29. The whistle blew and the doors started to close when about 5 hands came out and grabbed my husband and dragged him on board before he either got left behind or stuck in the doors. The station master was angry at the amount of suitcases piled up in doorways and told us all to move them. We said where? He said any space between seats and under seats you can find. Have you every tried to move heavy suitcases while in a moving train under people's feet and in spaces between back to back seats? Everyone was saying how ********** this trip was and to top it all we were told it would be a lovely trip through the Savona countryside and it was a trip through the industrial part of Savona with derelict buildings, graffiti and waste land. On checking in at the Best Western in Milan the hotel manager could not find any booking for us and asked for our paperwork and to wait in the lounge. We sat there for about 2 hours before things seemed to be sorted out. This was time wasted when we could have unpacked and gone sight seeing. Eventually he found a room for us. When we came back from a tour on the afternoon before we were due to fly back to Jhb., I used the hotel computer to check-in and print off our boarding passes on our Etihad flight only to find there was no flight, it had been cancelled. I tried phoning the emergency numbers Roxanne gave but could not get through. I asked the receptionist to try but she couldn't get through either. In a panic I phoned Etihad offices Malpensa Airport but it just rang and rang. I phoned one of Imagine Cruising's suppliers and was told they could not help me with flights. I tried phoning Holiday Taxi's who do the transfers and they couldn't help either but gave me another emergency number and also Imagine Cruising UK's number. The other emergency number didn't work either and once again I asked receptionist to try and she couldn't get through either. I tried Imagine Cruising's UK number and spoke to someone who said they'd get someone to phone me back. An agent called Sandy phoned me back and said she had no knowledge of the flight being cancelled and would check on this and get back to me. She came back saying that all Etihad could offer was a flight on the 18th September with a 13 hour stop over in Abu Dhabi but she could get me on an Emirates flight but it would cost us another 400 Euros each! That's over R12,000. I said I was not paying that when it's through no fault of ours that our flight had been cancelled. She also said we would need to see if the hotel could put us up for another night as the Emirates flight would only leave on 18th September and we were booked to leave 17th September. On checking with hotel manager if we could extend our stay by another night he said yes provided we paid our hotel bill! I was shocked, as we had paid everything months before we were due to travel. I phoned Sandy again and she was surprised at this but said to pay the 2 nights and she would pay the 1 extra night and I asked about food as we should have been on the plane that night and now we were having to say an extra night. Sandy said she would reimburse us for our dinner. I asked about our transfer that we'd already paid for to take us to the airport and she said she'd move it but she came back saying we'd need to pay for a cab ourselves as it couldn't be moved. I asked that this also be reimbursed once we got back to SA and she agreed to this. The Emirates flight that was booked had hardly an hour between the flights and when we got off it was so tight that a few of us were met by an Etihad representative and it became practically a race through the airport as our terminal was in a separate building right at the other side of the Dubai airport, which is huge. We were told we'd need to keep up or we would not make the flight. We were up and down escalators, on the metro train and more escalators and quite a walk. There was even a special security desk set up for us, as we didn't have time to wait in queues to take off shoes, belt, empty pockets. etc. I got really worried about my husband as he was getting really breathless and has angina and was battling to keep up and I thought to myself this is a nightmare and we have paid for this! When we got back to SA and I wrote to Sandy stating all the things that had happened and asking to be reimbursed she wrote back apologising in the first paragraph but in the next paragraph stating that all of this was not Imagine Cruising's fault it was the airlines, the hotel, the transfer people, etc. and we should contact the hotel ourselves to be reimbursed and that she was already running at a loss with our trip and we should have claimed from our travel insurance. I was stunned by her complete turnaround to what had been said on the phone and wrote back saying I cannot claim the travel insurance for double paying the travel agent and that Imagine Cruising had been paid a commission so that we could have a hassle free trip, otherwise I could have done it myself and saved money! Sandy then said she would reimburse us for the taxi cab, we had paid 100 Euros, and also for the dinner which was 75 Euros and if we gave her our bank details she'd put R1343 into our bank account. The actual bill came to R2809, so I stated that figure was what I'd paid out and that was what I wanted back. The rate of exchange for Euros was R15.825 to 1 Euro, so do the maths, the amount offered was not even half of what I'd paid. I contacted the hotel asking to be reimbursed for our 2 nights only to receive an apology stating they couldn't as they still had not been paid by the agent. I also decided to phone Etihad in Abu Dhabi head office and ask what the story was about the cancellation of our flight only to be told that flight had been cancelled on 4th July already and all travel agents and passengers had been informed. I went back to Sandy and told her that but she denied they had received any cancellation message. I also mentioned the hotel had still not been paid and when would we be reimbursed. She came back saying that she felt we had already been 'overcompensated' and that our travel insurers should reimburse us. I spoke to a lawyer about this and he said that the reason people book through travel agents is because they want a hassle free trip and travel agents get paid a good commission to ensure that this happens. Therefore the onus is on them to check things through with their suppliers and also as they are in the front line they should be taking to do with getting their client reimbursed. He also agreed that if someone has been paid twice for the same service, you cannot then go to your travel insurance company and ask them to pay you, they would send you back to your travel agent to recoup your money. I eventually went back to Sandy and said if I didn't get my hotel bill reimbursed I would take the matter to ASATA. I also said that instead of being 'overcompensated' we felt we had been 'undercompensated' when you look at the big picture and the money spent on a trip which should have been a holiday of a lifetime and it turned out to be a stressful nightmare! I spent most of the day trying to find out what happened to our flight and trying to get through to 'emergency numbers' when we should have been out sightseeing Milan before returning home. We were so stressed out that I was having panic attacks and we did not sleep a wink that night. It was anything but the relaxing holiday we'd paid a lot of money to enjoy, it was ruined but Imagine Cruising couldn't have cared less, the apology was always followed by 'but we've run at a loss, but we've overcompensated you, etc.' I would never, ever, book a holiday with Imagine Cruising, not even if it was for free!