Fifteen Minutes: Experts of the Scam

As the wafting stench of Corona and sweat smacks you across the face, open beer bottles are shoved into your pasty palms. Price, one lowly dollar. Message: you are in Cancun. Forget Harvard and party. Spring-breakers eager to get a head-start on their one week stint into a college student's paradise dish out a few bucks for the cold brew as they board a charter bus from Cancun International Airport to their hotels. The bus driver, a rotund Mexican, safeguards the remaining beer in a red picnic cooler. He's saving it especially for the World Class representatives, employees of a travel company specializing in Spring Break student vacations and operated by Travel Turf Inc. Logically, in a universe where spring break is your job, beer must be the salary. For many World Class reps, whose duties include organizing spring breakers' hotel accommodations, food packages and party routes, acting under the influence is a common occurrence.

The 60-or-so lucky spring breakers who booked their Cancun getaway through World Class Vacations backed their asses up and started chugging away the memory of flying on "America's Greatest Little Airline," North American. The airline boasted many creative techniques: folding tables masquerading as check-in counters, colored-in poster boards explaining that the desolate region of Logan airport roping them in was not under construction, but was for those lucky few who had splurged on North American. Thanking God that they had made it to Cancun alive, they were confronted by the nasal sounds of Larry, a self-proclaimed World Class God who had been "fuckin partying on spring break for the past seven years." Impressive. "Fuckin' A," Larry yelled, "I know you guys are down here for two reasons and two reasons only - to have sex and to get fucked up. I'm here to help you do that. I'll be the one pouring the shots of tequila into your throat at our World Class parties to make sure you're fuckin' fucked up." Larry proceeded to explain that all World Class student travelers - everyone on the bus - were members of the World Class family and that a complex network of American and Mexican travel reps had been set up to make sure that partying was in effect at all hours. Larry and Noe, a Mexican rep, then proceeded to gulp down full Coronas to prove that they were worthy of respect. The $900 each traveler had dished out to book through World Class was certainly being turned over to some educated, classy people.

But spring breakers soon realized that the beer was a distraction from the more important point. World Class had already screwed up most of their reservations, including those for the group of 13 from Harvard. Lured in by the all-inclusive deal, large suites and in-room kitchenettes, most travelers had intended to stay at the Brisas hotel. Noe announced that the Brisas hotel had "run out of water" and that the Harvard group had been split up and rebooked at two different hotels, one of which, the Yalmakan, was a huge downgrade from the original accommodations. In their contract, World Class Vacations states, "If this is not the hotel that your party requested, we exercised our right to provide comparable or upgraded accommodations at our expense." Clearly, with no suites, no kitchenettes, no free food and half of the Harvard group stranded 15 minutes down the road, an upgrade had not gone into effect. Michael Edgett, a recent graduate of Western New England College relates the same story of a random switch from Brisas Suites into the Yalmakan. "The room at the Yalmakan was extremely small with no refrigerator. We paid extra money for trip insurance and were supposed to get a room upgrade if there were any problems with our accommodations. We were told that our room was actually an upgrade. But, if it was an upgrade, I would hate to see the room we were supposed to have."

The World Class travel reps, whose job it was to oversee all hotel accommodations and bookings, were powerless and unprofessional when it came to problem solving. A female World Class rep who graduated from the University of Delaware piped in that "you Harvard girls are lucky that you got a room. Cancun is booked at this season. Stop complaining like spoiled Harvard brats," to which Anna Haritos '02 replied, "That's not luck, that's my money. I paid World Class Vacations months ago so that I could get a room in Cancun, along with a kitchenette and a suite." Irritated that the Harvard girls wanted to be placed in the same hotel, another American rep reminiscent of Larry scoffed, "You girls should just get fucked up and have sex and then you'll forget about it."

World Class reps use the debaucheries, sex and hedonism of Spring Break like candy to distract most spring breakers from the issue at hand - downgraded accommodations and a slew of other costs hidden in the original contract, specifically the $150 "free" party package. The Reps even give each spring-breaker a complimentary "Spring Break Survival Kit" fully equipped with condoms and breath mints, Cancun must-haves.

An employee of Apple Tours at the Yalmakan hotel, who previously worked for World Class Vacations, states that "World Class splits up spring break groups all the time. They bury everything in paper. You will never get your upgrade. They expect your group to party and forget about it. Look, Noe hasn't even been here today. He is scared of you girls."

Back at the Allentown, Pa. headquarters, World Class customer service representative Terry Cole explained that the American and Mexican reps are not paid or even employed by World Class. They are hired by the Cancun World Class director as employees of another agency - in this case, Vi Travel. According to Terry, the behavior of the reps cannot be blamed on World Class. However, Terry contradicts himself by stating that the reps are "the people we have down there to take care of World Class situations. They provide participant accommodations, operational aspects of the trip, transportation, party packages and meal plans." In legal terms, World Class Vacations may be detached from their moronic staff. In real terms, they cannot escape.

Fabianna S. Del Canto '02 spent two consecutive days badgering the World Class staff in Spanish to place the group together. "Going out each night and running into slimy World Class staff at clubs that called me ‘spoiled Harvard chick' because they recognized my name was even more indicative of how unprofessional the staff was," she complains. "I had club promoters running around ‘looking for Fabianna,' basically to make sure I had a good time. They tried to appease me by throwing drinks in my face. Sorry, but alcohol was very little incentive or appeasement in Cancun, the land of the open bar." Some of the World Class staff was even amused by the tenacity of the Harvard group, as most other college-aged groups had never put up such a fight after having been given the run-around. Fabianna continues that "as I hung up the phone once, I overheard Paul [the director of the World Class headquarters in Cancun] complain that I called every other fucking minute." Paul, a law school grad, ironically acquired some courtesy when he found out that the girls he was speaking to were Harvard students.

Also commenting on the ineptitude of the World Class Reps, Sarah C. Geisler '03 remembers that "my group's rep, Jorge, was incompetent, and he thought that was funny. He would tell us that if he owed us money he would bring it to the hotel, and then he wouldn't have our money and would say, ‘me so silly.' He showed up late a lot of times and was very vague."

Not only do World Class reps toy with the reservations, they literally play with spring breakers. In Cancun, the reps do as the spring breakers do - hook up. Haritos states that "whenever I needed help at a club, I would find Roberto [a rep] in the corner somewhere hooking up with some high-school girl." To rev up the crowd at the club Fat Tuesday's, another rep actually entered himself into the "Craziest Kiss Contest" where he proceeded to perform oral sex on his randomly selected college-girl partner on stage. "They were obviously not there for professional reasons," says Catharina E. Lavers '02. "I guess Cancun is the perfect place to be if you can't grow up."

World Class Vacations has been in the spring break biz for the past 24 years and their youthful negligence mimics that of their college-age clientele. They will rearrange plans and then hope that the strawberry margaritas will leave their customers with a sweeter aftertaste. They have become experts of the scam - a scam tainted by blaring techno, unbelievable clubs, beautiful beaches and the stench of Corona. Advice: leave the beer in the red cooler. World Class Vacations needs to pop some breath mints of its own.