Anderson Travel

I rarely use travel agents, as I’m well-​versed on finding & booking travel on the web, and I’ve yet to see any real «package savings» using an agent. However, for a friend’s milestone birthday celebration, I was pressed for time and felt the need to resort to a travel agent. I found Anderson Travel on the internet and chose them because they purported to being experts in the South Pacific (original destination intended) and Hawaii (actual destination).
Terry, my agent, was only moderately helpful in the booking process. Mostly she didn’t really bother to get to know me and my preferences and so couldn’t make any informed recommendations. She actually gave me too many choices, all of which I had to look up on the internet in order to make a decision, which I could have done on my own in the first place if I had the time. We went to three islands, and her recommendation for condo rental on Maui was spot-​on. We stayed at the Maui Hill (ResortQuest, I believe), which was great. After that, everything went down hill.
She incorrectly printed our connecting flight times to The Big Island, so we ended up missing our flight. Our splurge resort there, which Terry highly touted, was a complete disaster. Kona Village was a superb location with lovely hales, and truly horrid service. We even had to call Anderson Travel while there in order to resolve an issue with a dinner reservation, of all things.
In Kauai, I requested something a bit cheaper to offset the cost of Kona Village. Mind you, Terry did stress that we’d feel a big step down after Kona Village, but we’re used to staying in a variety of types of quality lodging, so we weren’t concerned. Unfortunately, Terry’s recommendation, The Best Western Plantation Hale, was perhaps the worst hotel I’ve ever seen at over $ 100/​night. The room was very dusty and musty — the windows clearly hadn’t been opened in years — the furniture was essentially plastic, the unit hadn’t been remodeled since it was built in the 60s, and the bedroom and deck faced on a busy road so was very noisy. We literally checked in, used the phone long enough to locate another place, and checked out. The place we found in Poipu, across from the beach, was gorgeous and not that much more than the Plantation Hale.
When we returned and had to deal with Terry for our refunds on unused hotel and tour, and the issues with Kona Village, she was extremely UNhelpful. She was happy enough to take our money, at almost $ 5k/​person for the trip, but she couldn’t even tell us how much our refund would be. She indicated she was «not privvy to that information.» She did nothing to sort the issues with Kona Village and generally acted like she just wanted to get us out of her hair.
Needless to say, if I’m ever pressed to use a travel agent again, it won’t be Anderson Travel.