Planning a trip to Europe?  A cruise to South America?  Scuba diving in Australia?

You can do that on the internet, savvy or not.  There are plenty of tour operators out there eager to make arrangements for you and collect your money over the net.

But what happens when things go wrong, when the reservation you thought you had paid for does not exist?  Or when the room you booked looks nothing like the photos online and the hotel is nowhere near where you thought is was?

Even worse – what happens when the cruise ship you are on has an engine fire and the 12 day cruise ends on the fifth day, nowhere near the endpoint and your flight home?  This very situation occurred this past week with a major cruise line, resulting in 700+ passengers ending their trip in Cairo, which was not even a port of call, rather than enjoying the next several ports on the way to Athens.  The announcement from the cruise line came across at 6:30 a.m. after a very uncomfortable nite that, within a few hours, everyone had to depart the ship and proceed to Cairo.  The cruise line was making arrangements for most guests to go home from that point.  Certainly those passengers who had booked directly with the cruise line had no recourse. 

One family had booked with AAA Travel in Evanston, IL, and contacted the agent immediately.  The impetus for this trip had been the ports in Israel.  They were now faced with missing all that had mattered.  The agent offered to save the trip by getting them to Israel and creating a custom 5 day tour of the sights most important to them.  Because this agent had an on-going relationship with an Israeli tour operator, she was confident that this could become a reality for them.  Over the course of the weekend, from Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon, the agent and the tour operator worked together by phone and email to transform a terrible situation into a wonderful memory.

There were many bumps and hiccups along the way!  Royal Jordanian airlines’ flight from Cairo to Amman left 5 hours late, causing the family to miss their connection to Tel Aviv.  A land transfer planned by the Israeli tour operator that should have taken 5 hours took closer to 8 hours because of a border crossing that did not go smoothly, for no apparent reason.

Finally, the family arrived in Israel and began their tour, and finally, the agent and the tour operator could turn their attention to other matters.  For all those other passengers that have nothing to show for their efforts except a very unfortunate description of a disaster at sea, there is no upside to the story.  For the family that booked with a competent and well-connected travel agent, they will have an adventure to discuss for a lifetime.  Part of that talk will certainly focus on the disaster at sea, but the bulk of it will probably focus on all the wonderful sites they saw in Israel and how lucky they were that they were in the hands of professionals.

Yes, you can book your own trip – anyone can.  You can also do your own taxes and be your own lawyer in a court of law. Remember that using a travel agent often costs nothing extra, and often saves you money because they know the ins and outs and have access to special values.  If you don’t want to be stranded in a foreign port with a ruined vacation, perhaps you would benefit from working with a professional in the field of travel.  The family that spent their vacation in Israel instead of at home would certainly recommend that.