I was told my travel agent that cayo levantado was transferring to thomsons next year ages ago because she could not originally get me the room i wanted for this year i said i might go next year and she told me they would not be doing it only thomsons and that was months ago they are splitting up alot of areas in the carribean first choice will have some and thomsons will have the others

I have already book a holiday for next year I booked a twin centre holiday with First Choice for June 09 Ist week Iberostar Costa Dorada then transfer 2nd week Cayo Levantado the flights are with Thompson and when I asked about this the travel agent told me that

First Choice and Thompson are merging as of September 08 I dont know if this is true but I am now really worried as going to cayo leventado was the most important part of the holiday. I wish there was someway to find out if they have cancelled these holidays as I wont be able to stop worrying untill I do I am sure that the holiday companys will not give us that information just yet

Hi julieward

I'm sorry if I've got you worried but I really do not know what is going on. As I said earlier First Choice told me that the entire programme was cancelled for 2009 but it is featured on Thomson. Yesterday (Saturday) I went into two different First Choice shops to try and find out some more information. Needless to say they were their normal helpful selves and all I could get out of them was that I had to phone their 'web support' section - do they not think that I had already done that! Anyway, I also asked them if the Cayo Levantado was being featured for 2009 on their systems and they (and I saw it on screen) said it was departing on 28th June - some two days after my original booking date. Armed with this information, when I was at home I went onto their site and tried to do a 'dummy' reservation for that date and guess what - there are no flights on 28th June! It seems to me that with the merger between the two companies that they haven't got a clue what is happenning but they will still take client's deposits and sort it out later. Obviously I will keep on trying to find out more information and as soon as I do will post it.

We went in to our local First choice shop on Sunday to try and book for May 09 after having no joy on there wed site or thomsons for that fact. The girl was very helpful but she could not get it up on her screen so she phoned hesd office all they would say was that there was a bar on selling Cayo and she was to ring someone to day (monday 8th sept). They are going to ring me today when they speak to someone, i will let you know what they say. One thing that was funny was that when see put in the code for flights to samana they were coming up on a sunday for next year.

Hi a update to the above First choice got back to me and they could give me no futher info on why there is a bar. I have just spoke to Thompson and they are now the same, they are saying that they are not takeing any more bookings for Cayo and they dont know why. But thompsons will still take bookings for flight only to samana next year and the flights are now on a sunday might try and do a diy.

with regards to the blocking on cayo that happenned to me this year when i originally could not get cayo levantado i decided to book a hotel in mexico and i could get the details of the hotel on the internet but when i tried to book it i could not. I went into the shop and it too was blocked. When i asked why she said it could be because prices had gone up or because demand was too high for that hotel and so they wanted to give the other hotels a chance. If it was due to demand she said it could come back for sale. In the mean time i did manage to get what i wanted at the cayo and so booked that but i did see that my hotel came back up three months later.

Update to my previous posts. I have spoken to Thomson/First Choice this morning and they now tell me that the entire Samana programme has been cancelled for 2009. They gave me the opportunity of cancelling my booking on the phone today but I have decided to wait for the official notification to come through. In the meantime I've now got to find a way of telling my wife!!

just wanted to add i spoke to my sister and she said on saturday morning on sky travel shop they featured on tv the samana peninsula and all the gran bahia hotels. I have gone on and did quick search could find all bahia but not cayo levantado but it might be available might not just be available for the period i was looking.

Another update which has left me looking rather stupid but at the same time is good news. Yet again I have been speaking to Customer Services at First Choice and they have assured me that the programme has not been cancelled and the reason for the 'bar' is that the flight is probably going to change from a Friday to a Sunday. The very helpful lady that I spoke to even spoke to their accomodations manager who said 'why on earth would we cancel Cayo Levantado - it's one of our best sellers' so it looks like everything will be OK for 2009. I apologise if I have got people worried but I was only passing on information given to me.

If you look on Thompson website at there holidays it still says flights on a Friday but if you go to there flights only they are showing up as Sunday flights.Just been into a Thompson travel agent they have not got got a clue what's happening, but they did try and sell me a cruise.