Marlin Travel
reviews and complaints

The agent told us that on our cruise we could use American dollars but the cruise line Costa Magica was an Italian cruise ship that only took euros and the exchange was extremely high at $1.56. The agent said that the findings on the internet and websites indicated that the cruise and the French Carribean Islands took American money. I did not have any euros left from a previous trip and asked the question prior to leaving on the trip. It was extremely expensive to exchange money on the ship and all the excursions were priced in euros. If I wanted to visit a european country or be on a european cruise line, I would have booked one. I believe the agent did not fully due the duty of an agent and properly inform the customer on this matter. Secondly, the agent did not say that drinking water on the cruise was part of the gratutities package. When we arrived, we quickly realized that bottled water was part of the package. Cold water from a dispenser and hot water for tea, etc. was offered on the cruise ship but the cold dispenser indicated that cruise customers were not allowed to place their bottles to the rim of the dispenser to fill their water bottles but this was not upheld. I saw many cruise passngers put their bottle they placed on their mouth and touch the cold water dispenser to fill their bottles of water. I could not drink that water because just prior to taking the cruise I decided to check on my antibody status for hepatitis and it was low but the doctor reassured me that if I was on a cruise I would be fine but not to drink water or ice cubes off the ship, and it was too late to get a booster. I needed bottled water and I had to pay in euros for every bottle of water I drank instead of American money. Not only did I have an issue with water, I was told that since I was the third person to book with two other friends that I would either have a sofa bed or a murphy bed. My bed was not a mattress rather a very hard sofa with the pillows removed and I paid the same price as my friends did for the trip. It was never explained to me what Costa Magica's murphy bed or sofa bed would be...usually a sofa bed is a pullout and a murphy bed is pulled down from a wall. I basically got a hard orange sofa with pillows removed. It was also a room that passengers had smoked in previously. One friend had allergies. Apparently the staff cleaned the room but put some fragent pot purri in the room without asking whether anyone was allergic to anything. And another scare on this boat was that the cook cooking pork chops took the meat with his bare hand...no gloves, no spatula! The next day after I saw this happen at the grill, I saw it happen again with the French toast! I asked another employee if the cook should be wearing gloves and within five minutes the cook had plastic gloves on. There are laws regarding sanitation and food. This boat did not respect those laws. I will never book with Marlin Travel again. I will never book with cruise ship. I would like a refund not because of my lack of enjoyment which is true but rather because of safety issues.

My fiance and I went to Marlin Travel in Sherwood Park, Edmonton. We were excited to be booking our honeymoon to Costa Rica. I was left embarrassed and hurt by the rude comments made by the travel agent. We were commenting on looking forward to wearing our swimsuits, instead of winter wear. Our agent made a rude comment that I of course would be covered up because of my size. I asked her what she meant about that, to which she said, "because of your large size". My mouth dropped open, I couldn't believe she just said that, and didn't seem to even notice how rude her comment was. I was so disgusted with her that I said I would never use such a rude company as Marlin if all their employees were like her. I got her name, DAYLIN KLATT, and I plan on making a formal complaint with this company.

Booking a March break trip to Disney World. Agents made unconceivable error of booking MAY instead of March. Having the 2 youngsters with me when confirming, I made the mistake of only giving cursory overview of details-hotel, check, suite, check, 11-14, check...it wasn't until I checked in on the Disney site, that I realized the problem. By then, since I had signed the paper, it was now my error. The agents refused to take any responsibility, which was bad enough-but to tell my May was a lovely time to travel, to say how lucky I was for them to be able to get me a credit for the original airfare (I had to pay for another flight, and for the average person, this does not come easy), and listen to her complain about how time consuming it was for her to rectify the whole thing. And again, when she made yet another error rebooking the dining plan, it was now Dsiney's fault, and all these things were just so time consuming. It is one thing to make the original error (and yes, I missed the mistake), but the subsequent treatment only adds to the deplorable customer service. Would never, ever book through them again.

My fiance and I were very excited to plan our wedding with Marlin Travel. They were going to book the airfare, hotel, transfers etc. for our large group. We thought this is great! We will provide our guests with their contact information and it will be easy and smooth. WRONG! We received numerous complaints from our guests having trouble booking with the agent. They would call and the lady didn't know who we were and almost book a few of our guests to Peru when our wedding is in Los Cabos, Mexico. Such poor service. On top the hotel website dropped prices by 50% and our travel agent refused to book this. We had a much hire rate and this was very frustrating. It would take us days and numerous calls and emails to get any response. When we did none of our questions were anwsered. I did all the work and I don't know what we were paying a travel agent for. We complained to Marlin Travel and they basically told us to take a hike. We will never use Marlin Travel ever again and I advise people to not use them EVER!