Continental Travel

This was my first experience with a travel agency. I was planning a post-​wedding honeymoon in NY, and I thought I would let a travel agency help plan all the complex details of the itinerary (and everything we wanted to see and do). My wedding was September of 2013, so I figured I’d get an early start and first contacted Rick Long in December or 2012. Planning started off slowly, but I was OK with that. RIck was initially very good at communicating and assisting, but as the months went on and the wedding neared, I heard less and less from him. He booked the airline tickets early (and charged a surcharge for it). I let the surcharge go because I wanted Rick’s help to plan everything and it’s understandable they need to make money somehow.
Rick also suggested a NY Pass, which was a good idea, but we ended up having to purchase it ourselves. The next thing he tried to book for us was Broadway tickets. We told him roughly what we wanted, and he said he had tickets on hold I just needed to confirm within 24 or 48 hours (I forget). I did and got no response. Finally, I just booked the Broadway tickets myself.
Every time I talked to him, he was in the process of confirming this or that, but never gave me anything concrete. He also found a hotel for us and reserved it. However, that ended up making this more complicated because we needed to extend our stay, and by that point, we’d given up on hearing anything back from Rick. We couldn’t extend the room reservation because even though it was reserved in our name, Rick has to be the one to change it. We ended having to book another room and change midway through the stay.
The wedding got nearer, and I still wasn’t hearing anything concrete regarding itinerary despite one or two e-​mails requesting information on when I would expect something concrete. I noticed that the crown tickets for the statue of liberty were running out, so I grabbed my own. After 4 – 5 e-​mails with no responses, Finally, I just started planning my own itinerary… just in case. Eventually, I had planned and paid for enough on my own that I decided it wasn’t worth trying to follow-​up with Rick anymore. At that point, I just wanted to see if he would try to follow up with me on his own.
Well, the wedding came and went, and I never heard from him again.
End result:
Rick:
–Purchased airline tickets (even had to toss the return ticket to buy a ticket to Niagara Falls since we bought the tickets before the plan was fully fleshed out).
–Reserved hotel rooms
Me:
–Everything else
Summary:
If I had continued to wait for Rick, my honeymoon would have been ruined. I’m glad I just planned everything myself. Would strongly recommend you avoid this company (or at least Rick!).

We used Rick Long at Continental Travel for our recent trip to South Africa. We wanted to break up our trip with a several day stopover in Paris on the way back and that was very difficult to arrange with online sites. Rick not only gave us great service in finding what we were looking for, the price almost matched the round trip flights we were looking at before adding the stop! Rick also recommended a great hotel with family sized rooms in Paris, which we were very happy with as well. We are grateful to Rick for his expertise and will call on him again when we need such specific travel arrangements!

Rick Long (
) quite literally saved our Italy vacation. After hours of Internet research, I had selected American flights so my wife and I could have the two seat isle for the long 9 hour flight. At the last minute, American rerouted our flights and stuck us in the middle aisle. Hours of talking to agent and supervisors, but American would neither explain its decision nor help us out. Nor could I find anything comparable on my own. I called Rick Long and in an hour he had us rebooked on United with the seats we wanted. I learned two lessons: (1) go to Continental FIRST; and (2) NEVER AGAIN AMERICA AIRLINES.

Spoke with Sharon today and she worked with me to arrange flights and a rental car during a last minute arrangement for bereavement. She was able to lock in rates and was very flexible with waiting to arrange for payment from the estate. It took her 30 minutes to get it all arranged and send me an itinerary… the best part, I called her at 4:15 PM and she took care of it before going home. This is a fantastic service and has made me a convert to this agency! Thanks Continental Travel and Sharon!

What a huge disappointment. Instead of booking online, I thought I would go with the ol’ method of using a travel agent. I saw the high Unilocal reviews on here and called them. I told Rick what we were looking for (completely flexible on dates and number of days, etc.). He said he would contact me later that day; I heard nothing. The next day was New Year’s Day, so I figured he was out of the office. The following day, I still heard nothing. Finally, I decided to follow up (which, really he should have done), but no one was there so I left a message. Rick ended up calling me back. He said he had sent something to my e-​mail (he had the address wrong) and never heard back. I asked him why he didn’t call to follow up. He said that he thought the e-​mail was sent correctly. Anyhow, he said he would resend the e-​mail to me, and he did, but the prices were more expensive than what I found online. I asked him some clarifying questions and to see about the rates (if we go another time or something???), but haven’t heard back; that was four days ago. When booking far enough in advance matters, to be at almost a week (tomorrow) and still not have anything concrete is worrisome. With the poor communication and high prices, I am really saddened to say that I might as well just book online.

We had a wonderful experience with Continental Travel. We booked our trip to Italy through them a couple weeks ago and everything went off without a hitch. This is the first time we used them and wont be the last. I think we have found our travel agency for life. Thank you Unilocal for connecting us!

I have been working with Alisa Kruse for several years now with booking our travel. Think you can do it yourself and don’t need an agent??? Sure, you could but I have found that I can tell her what I want and she can either:
A. Get me a better price for the same thing
or
B. Get me the same price but a better room, (features or upgrades or larger)
I have NEVER been disappointed and I totally recommend you try it out!
She works with clients all over the US. I have used her for domestic and international travel. I do know that she is a WHIZ with Hawaiian vacations.