Honeymoon with Imagine Cruising: Don't do it.

We really wanted to have an amazing Honeymoon, and decided to book with Imagine Cruising for a trip to Norway to see the Northern Lights. Being a newly married couple, and this being our first International trip, we wanted everything to be smooth sailing (no pun intended) We booked and put our deposit down of R45 000 in February 2019. Our honeymoon was only for November 2019.

With our wedding in August (which we organised and paid out of our own pockets) I got an email the day before my wedding saying I missed the due date of the balance payment, and if the outstanding R43 000 was not paid within 3 days, our entire booking would be cancelled. We did not receive any emails for a reminder for payment, and we're unaware of the final date everything had to be settled on. Making numerous phone calls, we managed to get the balance settled in time, and then got an email with all of our details for the trip. About a week before leaving, I checked one of the transfers booked for us, and the transfer was booked for 9am but we were only docking at 14:30pm. I alerted Imagine Cruising and then got a casual email back saying they've changed the pick up time. If I had not noticed that, we would have been in a huge pickle.

This was my first International Trip, and everything went smoothly until we arrived at Bergen (Norway) Airport. Our taxi was supposed to be there between 17:30 and 18:00 (he only was prepared to wait 30 minutes) so at 17:38 we had our bags and rushed off to the Arrivals Hall. No one was waiting for us. My husband went outside. I walked up and down. We were told he would be waiting with a signboard. I phoned the emergency number but my cellphone kept dropping the call. I emailed Imagine Cruising. I even Whatsapped the lady who had booked our cruise, but she just said I must phone the Emergency Number, even though I told her we were now stranded at an airport in a foreign country. I didnt get a further reply from her. She had already got her commission from our booking. Panicking, I phoned my dad back in Cape Town and he managed to get through to the emergency number but only from a land-line - how were we supposed to phone from a land-line?! The guy was extremely rude and told my dad that his driver was there and waited an hour and we did not pitch. This was an absolute lie! We looked for another taxi and they wanted to charge us R1000 to get to our hotel, which we had to do. The next day, I get an email from Sharon saying that we were not at the airport and we kept the guy waiting so he left. I explained we had already paid for the transfer and we were there on time. She asked for evidence, so I Sent her a picture of the Arrivals Hall, but she said there is no time on the picture so it doesn't help! She also told us we will just have to claim from our Travel insurance! No apology, no help. Immediately blaming us as their customers. Great way to make your customers feel like ***** and to make them feel stranded in a foreign country. We then boarded one of Hurtigrutens Ships and we saw that even though it was our honeymoon, we had been booked into 2 single bunk beds. We queried this with the reception and they said at the time of booking, Imagine Cruising didn't ask for a double bed, and it said on our booking it was an anniversary not our honeymoon. So we spent 12 nights in single bunk beds as a newly married couple. When we arrived back in Bergen and docked, surprise surprise: taxi driver was not there again. I emailed Sharon again. I tried to phone the emergency number. Yet again, our cellphones could not make the call. Got hold of my dad in Cape Town again and asked him to phone off a land-line. The owner of the company was rude once again and said his driver waited for us (impossible since we docked early and were sitting at the Taxi pick up the entire time!) then another taxi showed up and said he just had a call and the pick up had been transferred to his company instead - clearly they had forgotten about us and if my dad had not called, who knows what we would have done. He was a lovely guy, and explained that our taxi company had just moved our pick up onto him, and he would claim the money from them. Only 2 days later, did I receive an email from Sharon saying offices are closed on weekends but she assumes we made it to the hotel and enjoyed our flight home. Since then, nothing. No follow up service. No customer service after almost spending R100K with them. No apologies for all the hiccups. As a young couple who is going to do ALOT of traveling, we will not be using Imagine Cruising ever again. They just do not care about their customers, they just worried about closing the sales deal. Very disappointing as we were hoping to find a company that would book all our international trips. I do not recommend this company if you looking for someone to go the extra mile and actually care about their customers and look after them when they are overseas.