turned into a near disaster.

The group, calling itself "Spice of Life'', have just returned from a motor tour of Canada and an Alaskan cruise -- but their trip was nearly spoiled by a careless local travel agent who said on Friday that he was "sorry for the mix up''.

"Spice of Life'' put together their excursion with the help of travel agent Kevin Darrell of the Travel Centre. They paid in full for the tour through western Canada and a cruise to Alaska on board the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Legend of the Seas .

As the group assembled for their August 11 departure, they were shocked to find their bus and airline tickets were in order, but they had no tickets for the cruise which was due to get underway on August 17.

"After long distance calls to the cruise ship company, we discovered Mr.

Darrell had not made the final payment, causing them to withhold the cruise tickets,'' said a `Spice of Life' member on behalf of the group.

The group travelled through western Canada for five days, not knowing if there would be tickets waiting for them when they got to the dock in Vancouver.

"We kept in constant contact with Royal Caribbean. By the time we were due to board, Mr. Darrell still hadn't paid and if it wasn't for the cruise line's help, we couldn't have gone.'' According to the travellers' spokesman, they were only able to board after paying for the cruise through their credit cards.

Three days into their cruise, the payment from Mr. Darrell's agency arrived at the Royal Caribbean office, and the rest of the trip went ahead smoothly.

"We were caused a lot of anguish, humiliation and embarrassment by this,'' the visibly angry and upset spokesman said. "I really don't want to talk about it,'' said travel agent Kevin Darrell when contacted by The Royal Gazette . "I've been in business since 1993 and I've never had any trouble like this before. This is not the way I do business.'' Mr. Darrell said he was sorry. "There was a mix up, pure and simple,'' he said. "I had a group the week before `Spice of Life' go on a trip with no problems, another group left a week later with no problems.

"What happened to them was not normal. It won't happen again. That's all I have to say.''