The 20 Craziest Requests Travel Agents Received This Year

by Claudette Covey
Last updated: 1:29 PM ET, Thu May 7, 2015

Photo courtesy of Thinkstock

Part and parcel of any agent's job, at least in theory, is to make good on clients' requests in the hopes of fashioning idyllic travel experiences for them.

That, however, is not always possible, particularly when the requests are impossible to fulfill. What, for instance, is an agent to do when a client expresses a desire to meet Elvis? Or inquires about alternatives to air and sea transportation to Europe?

Well, for starters, if the travel advisors are ASTA members, they share those requests with the Society, which, in turn, compiles the 20 Top Strangest Requests list as way in which to commemorate National Travel and Tourism Week, which runs through the rest of this week, and May 6 Travel Agent Day.

"When planning your trip, travel agents know what consumers often don't know to ask," said Zane Kerby, ASTA president and CEO. "But according to this poll of ASTA professionals, agents also sometimes have to save their clients from questions they DO ask. It's clear from the list of 'strangest requests' that some travelers need a little more hand holding than others," he said.

While it is arguably the policy of most agents to respect their clients' privacy, agents clearly found these 20 requests too entertaining not to share.

The Full List:

1. Can you please book the honeymoon suite for us and another couple?
2. Can you please plan a honeymoon for me, my bride and my mother?
3. Can you guarantee that no pet has ever been in the hotel room?
4. Can I fish off of the cruise ship?
5. Do they speak English in Britain?
6. Can you book two rooms in different parts of the resort-one for me and my wife, and the other for my girlfriend?
7. Is our relationship like a client/lawyer relationship? (ASTA wonders if this is the same client who asked Question 6).
8. Does the crew actually sleep onboard the cruise ship?
9. Don't tell my fiancé this is where I took my first wife for our honeymoon.
10. I would like to go somewhere where there are NOT a lot of men.
11. I'd like to meet Elvis.
12. I'd like to get married in the Caribbean on an island where the marriage is not legal in the U.S. (Again, we refer you to Question 6).
13. Will there be shadows on my face at 4 p.m. when the pictures are taken?
14. Will you watch my pet while I'm away?
15. Are there toll roads on the way to Hawaii?
16. How can I get to Europe without going by air or sea?
17. I'd like to visit Scotland and Denmark on the same trip. (Agent then tells client he does not have time in his schedule to travel the distance). But they're only an inch apart on the map!
18. Can you set it up so that the whales jump in the background at the same time I'm proposing to my girlfriend?
19. Can you ask the airline to block the seat next to me so I can stretch out?
20. I don't want a window seat on the plane because I just had my hair done.