Unfiltered Story #363444

I’ve been a travel agent for over twenty years. One of the benefits is going on familiarization trips (we call them fam trips) to acquaint ourselves with the product. They’re paid for by the agency and the vendors involved. When I started, I had never been on a cruise, so for my first fam my supervisor contacted our central office to get me on a seven day cruise in the eastern Caribbean. We didn’t hear back for a while, so she called and found that my slot had been given to someone else. I went on an amazing trip to Alaska and the Yukon instead, so that was okay. The next year, she signed me up for a western Carribean cruise. Two weeks before the cruise, we were told that the cruise was oversold, the fam was canceled and they were reselling our cabins. The next year, she felt bad enough for me that she signed me up for a ten day cruise from Rome to Athens on a much nicer cruise line (sadly now out of business). Unfortunately, that was October, 2001, and after the Twin Towers the company canceled all fams for the rest of the year. Tragically, this was overshadowed by the loss of several colleagues in the attacks. The next year we scheduled a Hawaiian Islands cruise. I told my supervisor I’d believe it when I’m on the ship sailing away from the pier.