If it sounds too good to be true . . . it probably is

Spring break disasters -- from food poisoning to hotel mixups -- leave students with more than just bad memories.

First, their hotel got changed at the last minute.

"We were sitting on the plane and they came up with an envelope for us and it said they had a change of hotel for us," said Sinead Barry (junior-media studies).

Barry and four friends were heading to Cancun, Mexico, for spring break. "That was our first surprise."

Barry and her friends got on a bus and went to the new hotel, where they stood in the rain for three hours waiting to check in.

Their problems did not end when they finally got their room. To get to the beach or the clubs, the students had to get on a bus for 15 or 20 minutes.

To add to their troubles, Barry and her friend Diane Kovar (junior-accounting) said they didn't want to eat any of the food in the hotel.

Kovar said the food wasn't very appealing looking and there was some form of meat similar to hot dogs that was added to everything.

"We basically ate rolls," Kovar said.

When Kovar tried something other than rolls, she later ended up getting salmonella poisoning and missing a week of class.

Because she did not drink or eat anything that week, when she finally went to Ritenour Building, they put an IV in her arm.

She was so sick her parents came and took her home for three days. Kovar believes she got sick by eating meat at the hotel that was not cooked properly.

This year the students are hoping to have a better experience. They are going to the Bahamas through a travel agent at Accent on Travel, 444 E. College Ave.

"This guy is going out of his way," Kovar said.

The agent did a background check on the company and got the students a good hotel. It will also cost less -- only $500 per person instead of the $700 they each paid last year.

While having a spring break where nothing goes wrong is not always possible, students can do several things to improve their chances of enjoying the trip.

"I would stay away from the things in the mail, the postcards and the phone calls," said Amy Smith, a travel agent with Centre for Travel, 114 S. Heister St. "You get what you pay for. . . . There's usually additional costs in there that you're not told about up front."

Shelly Vaughan, who works for Omega World Travel, 215 S. Atherton St., gives students similar advice.

"Anybody who wants you to give them a credit card over the phone and you can't call back are a rip off," she said. "Just hang up and toss it in the can."

In 1992, a company ran an advertisement in The Daily Collegian for a $319-per-person trip that included "round-trip air fare to Jamaica, five days and four nights at Hotel Montego, deep-sea fishing, water skiing and sailing."

One group of students paid the company $1,400, according to an article, without ever getting the vacation.

If students do decide to book a spring break trip through a company that calls or mails them something, Vaughan advises they call a few travel agents to see if they have heard of the company. Students should also check with the Better Business Bureau.

Some students, such as Kovar and Barry, had a bad experience because of the company they went through. Some others stayed in a four-star hotel and still had problems.

Two years ago, Alissa Shields (senior-film) went to Aruba, an island in the Caribbean, with a friend and her parents. She described their last night there as a total nightmare.

It started out with Shields and her friend going to a local bar. They had a few drinks and met some Dutch sailors. Shields got tired and went back to the hotel.

But Shields' friend and one of the men continued walking along the beach.

Shields said the sailor attempted to rape her friend. Her friend screamed and the police came, scaring him away.

"I should have been there," she said. "She wanted to be alone with the guy, but I should have been in the vicinity."

Instead of helping her friend, Shields said the police laughed at her.

"They made her feel like the biggest piece of dirt. They didn't even try to find the guy," she said.

"They didn't even bring her back to the hotel . . . I would just recommend if you go with girls, never leave your friends alone. Stay in pairs or packs."