Neutral: A balance of pros and cons - Reservations Agent AmaWaterways Employee Review

4.0
Apr 8, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

This is a family run business where the owners work from the same building as their employees, meaning you can get to know them (but they are very busy, so depends). There are monthly free lunches, some work sponsored events every so often. Generally positive work environment, and coworkers are mostly quite nice. Because this is a great product, it is easy to promote and sell. Main benefits are the free trip once a year for you an one other person to accompany you, 401K matched up to 4%, insurance HMO coverage (not PPO). There is a yearly review with potential to earn a bonus and/or raise. Lastly, they have introduced a gym with trainer-run classes free for employees to join, or go on own.

Cons

You work very hard here, and the phones are constantly emotionally exhausting. Be mindful that you do not receive commission on top of the hourly wage, so it can sometimes feel like not enough pay for the constant stress and sometimes high anxiety (especially when handling a difficult call in reservations). Part of the stress is that there are not enough employees hired to handle the workload, so if someone is out of office, everyone else pays for it by sharing that person's workload. Though the hard work can sometimes feel rewarding when you have an appreciative client, this happens very little (therefore can sometimes feel draining). The computers are so old that they are almost working against you. Management is well meaning, but slow to action and can be ineffective at addressing issues. It can be hard to get promoted or move elsewhere from where you began, and I have noticed a strange social aspect where management will try to keep employees in the dark about new positions or the filling of positions (also pertains to firing of employees: people will be fired and we don't know why). Lack of training used to be a major con, but this has luckily improved to minor con. I've noticed greater micro-management from when I was hired on- this appears that it will most likely become greater as time goes on. Lastly the commute can be a challenge due to location of the Calabasas office (not sure about location difficulties for the Texas office).

Explore other reviews about AmaWaterways

5.0
Mar 31, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay is good quarterly bonuses

Cons

Management and must wait 1yr to move up the ladder

3.0
Jun 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Steady work, kind colleagues, decent pay, and a great way to enter the workforce and build career. Great health insurance. They had a birthday celebration lunch each month which was nice. They do strive to keep hard working employees where possible, and I appreciated that. They also do a good job of finding kind people.

Cons

Toxic positivity from leadership. They over hire with the expectation that they will lose employees, and then if they don't lose employees, they tell the hire group that they're going to need to let someone go because they over hired and that forces the group to compete against one another for fear of losing their job. Not a lot of upward mobility- they typically hire managerial and director level from outside the company. When they do their annual assessment, I was told that we as employees are meant to exceed expectations as the standard, so nothing could be marked higher than standard. I think it was a way of preventing employees of being hopeful for a raise additional to the standard raises. When I joined many years ago they were a family company and acted like it, but corporate greed got the better of them over the years and they stopped many of their more endearing qualities. It has been a while since I left, but I can't imagine it has improved in that aspect. Very few days off per year. Strict bereavement days off. The work culture makes everyone work as hard as they can for as little compensation as they can get away with, especially in the later years of my time with them.

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