I'm too annoyed and stressed right now to post full updates (I'll update later), but I just wanted to vent to you all that our honeymoon has now been cancelled because the resort that previously assured us they wouldn't be renovating is now closing for renos April 1.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
**Details, as promised**
Okay, so here's the deal. We booked our honeymoon to Couples Barbados in Sept or so. We found out about a month later that the property's owner/lessor (Couples had just signed a long-term lease in Jan 2013) had a loophole in the lease agreement and was permitted to sell the resort and terminate any current lease... And they sold to Sandals.
We (thankfully) booked through a travel agent, and she liaised with Sandals on our behalf to guarantee that our room would stay the same and that they wouldn't be renovating during our stay. So we decided to keep the booking, not really knowing exactly what was going to change in terms of the resort offerings but trusting that it would be fine.
Last month, they released their list of excursions for the property and they were now charging for things that we originally had included with our stay (when it was still Couples). So our travel agent worked with them again to get all of those included at no additional charge.
I got out of my weekly team meeting this afternoon and had a missed call from her, so I called her right back. Turns out, it was not good news. It just came down the pipeline this morning that Sandals was going back on their word and were going to proceed with renovating the property. They are closing for renos as of April 1.
Our only options were to transfer to one of their Jamaican resorts, or cancel with full refund. We didn't want to do Jamaica, Mexico, Cuba, or Dominican when planning our honeymoon, so we stuck with that and took a pass on Sandals' offer. We are being assured that we're getting a full refund, including the cost of our flights. Our travel agent has also already emailed me alternate options for all-inclusive resorts in Barbados and neighbouring islands.
So now I get to go through the process of booking our honeymoon all over again -- comparing amenities, room types, excursions, locales... Everything. I'm exhausted just thinking about it (we also had some family drama this week that came to a head last night/this morning, so I was already drained).
I know that it will all work out in the end, but I'm suuuuuper annoyed and frustrated right now.