Hi there,
I am looking for peoples opinions on this matter.
I booked a holiday through Thomson with Virgin holidays to go to Florida for 14 nights in March 2010 for my birthday.
My girlfriend & I were going to cancel this holiday and visit Australia at the end of 2010 but we had a USA brochure from when we booked the holiday to Florida and having looked through this brochure we saw an excursion to Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles which said, "The NEW Universal VIP Experience - Be among the select few to gain ultimate access to the world of film-making with your own exclusive 6-hour tour of closed locations of sets such as Wisteria Lane and CSI. The VIP Experience also includes front-of-line access to all shows and attractions, and reserved seating for shows." so we decided rather than canceling the holiday we decided to change it to visit West Coast USA, it cost us £25 each to change the booking and also brought the holiday cost up considerably but felt it would be worth it as we are huge fans of CSI.
We changed the holiday from 14 nights in Orlando to 7 nights in Los Angeles, 4 nights in San Francisco & 4 nights in Las Vegas (We booked Los Angeles to visit CSI and as the other destinations are only a short flight away we thought we may as well try these also). Approx cost was £2500+ for the holiday but as we booked the hotel in Los Angeles direct there is another £1000 on top.
I contacted the VIP Experience manager at Universal Studios Hollywood and was stunned when they informed me NO tour allows access to the CSI set, she told me even though CSI is filmed at Universal Studios, they rent the stage out to the competitor network so they have no way of allowing guests access to the set as they have no control over it.
I contacted Virgin Holidays as I was very angry as we only booked this holiday to visit CSI - Virgin claimed you could visit CSI, I explained what I had been told by the VIP Experience manager at Universal Studios Hollywood and they emailed me back claiming they would remove all advertisings stating you can visit CSI and update all their advisors about this and as a "goodwill gesture" they would offer us transfers in San Francisco and Los Angeles (we had already paid for transfers in San Francisco) or 7 nights car hire, I emailed back and refused this.
I have now found this advertisement in three different editions of Virgin's USA brochure. I called a few times after this and the agents I spoke with still claimed they could allow us access to the CSI set and tried to sell me this product.
The Universal Studios Hollywood VIP manager suggested I ask Virgin Holidays for the name of their contact at Universal Studios Hollywood who Virgin claim told them guests could visit the set of CSI as no-one at Universal Studios Hollywood know you cannot visit the set of CSI. Virgin would not provide me with this information and said due to DPA I cannot discuss my holiday with them (even though I had been before) and I would have to get Thomson to contact them to get this information and discuss my holiday - Thomson called them but told me I could visit CSI and tried to sell me it. (Even though Customer Relations at Virgin said they would update all their staff and confirmed I couldn't visit CSI).
I called again and the man I spoke with told me "...sets such as Wisteria Lane and CSI." meant it wasn't actually those sets you get to visit, it was sets of shows with a similar concept of these mentioned. I questioned how much money we would loose if we cancelled the holiday now but he said he would have to put me on hold to find out this information, I told him to forget it as I had wasted hours of my time and the phone calls were costing a lot of money.
I got an email from the original staff member at the Customer Relations Dept in Virgin Holidays who said she see's on the notes on my account that I'd been told I'd loose 50% of the holiday cost if we cancelled (we were not told this as we told the agent we weren't being put on hold again) and she offered us the transfers and car hire previously offered plus an additional £50 each for my girlfriend and I as they didn't want us to cancel but if I want to accept this then I have to write to them to accept it and cannot email them as I have been previously doing, I have not made contact since as I think this is totally unacceptable.
The VIP experience manager at Universal Studios gave me the Operations manager's contact details and he confirmed no tour offers access of CSI and they have no control over how travel agents advertise. He also advised me has worked at Universal Studios Hollywood for 30 years and he has never had access to the CSI set. He sent me a copy of the daily call sheet (which the public don't normally get to see) which showed all the productions for that day, which included CSI. On this sheet it states very clearly that there's strictly no access available to the set of CSI unless the shows producers ha
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