I'm usually the one that plans our family vacations. This one was special because it was to be a…read morebirthday present to me. I didn't want the hassle of researching and looking and watching tons of videos. I had seen this company's tiktok and sent it to my husband. I said ask for their help. They did an amazing job. After contacting them they sent him a form with a few questions. Location, budget, days, preferred airport and what he was looking for in a vacation. Maribeth quickly Came up with an itinerary. He asked them to switch the order of the island. We wanted Anguilla first and then St. Martin. He had them move around the itinerary a bit. Changing the amount of dates, with St Barts, without, more days here and there. Everytime she promptly responded with the changes and the price. Once finalized she sent the form for payment. He forgot and they tried again a few days later. We got email reminder of forms we needed. A detailed itinerary with confirmation numbers. Contact info and emergency contact info for the company. Now the trip was above superb. They set up our ferry transfers with a private company. This was the best decision. Our flight was delayed by a lot and the service they picked for us waited for us and quickly got us on our way to Anguilla. Our experience at Zemi Beach house was perfect. The distance to the best beach was short. We ate at the other bigger resorts and felt although bigger the distance to the actual beach was too far. In St. Martin we stayed on the French side and it was the best choice for us as well. Now our hotel was also a few steps from the beach and a short drive to a calmer beach. We already said that we will contact them again for our next tropical vacation.

Leading up to our travel to the Dominican Republic and Live Aqua the communication was good with…read moreconfirmations of itineraries and booking confirmations for special things that were supposed to occur for my wife's birthday with the travel agency - The Tropical Travelers. Upon arrival at the airport the private driver that was booked for us was hard to locate, but once located went smoothly. The company itself was not great as the driver on both our route to the resort and back drove very fast and our safety did not seem a priority. Upon check-in at the hotel after almost 48 hours of being awake from traveling we were met by the concierge and told they would check us in, great! Until we were offered a free couples massage after asking for our photo ID and credit card type and not being fully aware we agreed. This was a mistake. We just wanted to get to our room and settle into the hotel, but instead were swindled into a breakfast the next morning to meet the concierge again and be handed off to a timeshare presentation that took over 2-3 hours of our time. They were not super pushy, but did keep trying to offer more incentives and have the next supervisor come over with more deals when we just wanted to enjoy our vacation we paid for. Live Aqua itself is small and quiet but almost every room smells amazing. We had the Fuego ocean front which was nice, but the pool area is not private at all and almost a safety concern if you forget to lock your patio door as you can just hop over to the next room. The beach area is small and not private so locals came right up to us multiple times offering goods and services. We said no thank you and most kept their distance after that. There are not many pools on property and no hot tubs at all. The concierge did ask if we had feedback on the resort the next morning and we stated it would be nice if they had a door for the toilet area and he said yes multiple people have given that feedback and they were looking into it. Only to find out after visiting a couple's room we met that there were some of the same rooms with doors for the toilet area. How did the concierge not know this? We felt once again like we were not given the truth. According to our travel agent the hotel was made aware that it was my wife's birthday, except upon arrival they seemed surprised by this and only had some very small balloons in the room upon arrival and a small cake when I had asked for more to be done. Every time we met with some new staff member it seemed like no one communicated between the travel agent, concierge, butler, and supervisors as each person had to ask why are you here? What are you celebrating? On another occasion we had asked our butler if they could change out the bottles/type of alcohol in the room in our mini bar. We were not looking for top shelf, just a different kind and were told he could not do that. Then after speaking with another couple with the same butler they were able to accommodate their request. Once again we were not treated the same as others. We were supposed to have a Bali bed reserved for one day on the beach and a hydrotherapy session at the spa another day. Upon checking into the hotel these items were not mentioned at all and only after we did more research realized these items were already included in our room package, which our travel agent apparently did not know, although books this resort frequently? The Bali bed had no reservation sign or anyone even checking to make sure we weren't just using it un-reserved and there was supposed to be a bottle of wine and there was not. We had to even setup our own towels for shade and setup the tables as it was just all stacked up. Not a huge deal, just was hoping for something more romantic. Upon emailing these issues to the travel agent, she said she was speaking to the hotel to ensure our next few days went better, even stating she escalated it to management. There was the same small cake one other day (unsure who put it there or why) and only upon asking our butler to have some better decorations in the room was there something done by him that should have been done in the first place. We had high hopes for the food with our past experiences in the Caribbean, but found the food very bland. The options were ok, but lacking in flavor and some restaurants did not have many options. We did enjoy the Asian hibachi. The positives were time together away from the hustle and bustle of life, but we would not recommend using this travel agency again nor staying at Live Aqua. The travel agent did reply two times while we were still on property, but did not check back in to make sure our experience was improving and still has yet to follow up post trip to see how it went.