I need your help

[aspen37]

Hi Pete,

I booked a room online thru Ramad. It was for two nights with two queen beds. There was four of us on this trip. When we got to the hotel I got our key and went to the room. When I opened the the door our room only had one king size bed . I went back to the front desk and asked if we could have a room with the two queen bed like I had booked. He told me they were out of rooms with two queen beds. He called the manager and he said that if you book online you are not guaranteed the room you booked and paid for. I asked if I could have my money back so I could go to anthother hotel. He told me no. In the end we stayed at that hotel. They gave us the biggest king bed room they had. We had the king bed, pull out couch, and a roll-a-way. I paid $170.00 a night for the room.

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

When I opened the the door our room only had one king size bed

Memo to me -- Only travel with very close friends!

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

Pete: I'll bet you could do an entire show on car rental nightmares!!!

We've had several times where they were so high pressure with adding all the *extras* that we threatened to walk away.

Our worst car rental experience came several years ago when our kids were both toddlers and still in car seats. We flew into LAX for a trip to DLR and went to pick up the car (which was booked online). I believe we had prepaid for a mid-size. It was raining so hard you could barely see your nose on your face and it was difficult even getting all of our stuff off the shuttle bus and into the building. Once we got inside they kept trying to upsell to a bigger car. We refused multiple times as we just weren't interested. After at least 1/2 an hour at the counter they finally give us our keys. We schlep everything to the designated slot number and what do we find -- a Ford Ranger with a standard cab!!! I could not believe it -- we were both tired, the kids were crying, plus now we're all soaking wet. My DH is the most even-keeled person you will ever meet...even he was starting to see red. We walked (no, make that ran) back in the building and finally over an hour after we first walked in, left in a Crown Victoria (which they still tried to upsell us to!). Grrrr!!!

 

[crazydisneyman]

Pete,
This story happened some years ago, but it illustrates how you handle the bad travel situations that you encounter. We were on our way to Disney from Warsaw, IN (a small town near South Bend, IN). We arrived at the South Bend airport one hour prior to our flight (there are two gates at South Bend) to catch our flight to Orlando that would travel through Dayton, OH. We went to check in at 9:30am for a 10:30am flight and the lady told us, "Oh, that flight just left." The airline, Continental, had not compensated for Daylight Saving Time (DST). No one from Continental had bothered to call us and tell us that the schedule had changed or help us in any way. So we had to wait until 2:00pm for the next flight to Dayton, OH. Big bummer.

So, we confirmed our new itinerary adusting our flights accordingly to make the connection in Dayton. Well the plane was late returning to South Bend, so we left late from South Bend. When we got to Dayton we were running to make our next flight and as we traveled down the Concourse we noticed that there were alot of people down here sitting. It seems that all Continental flights were canceled, and so they told everyone to have a seat and they would try to issue tickets for other flights. They started to call people up alphabetically. Well we are a 'W' so my Mom took charge and went up to the ticket counter anyway. They took her tickets and gave us the last four seats out of Dayton that night on United. What a miracle!

So, we had to run to the other side of the building (these places are never close by) to catch our new flight which left in 10 minutes. Yikes!

As we were running my younger brother asked my Mom, "So, are we going to Disney World, now?" Ans she said, "No, we are going to Chicago." I can still remember the look on his face.

So, we flew to Chicago, and found out on the way that we were booked on a flight from Chicago to Orlando. We got to Chicago and boarded the flight to Orlando, and it was pure heaven. It was a 747 and we had our choice of seats. They served a choice of dinner (beef or chicken) and it was really good. We got to Orlando and the luggage was lost, of course. My grandma had flown to Orlando from Minneapolis to join us at Disney, and she had been waiting all day for us to get there.

We found grandma in the airport, and headed for the Contemporary. This is why I love Disney. We showed up at 11:30pm and they were all smiles and very happy to see that we had made it. We were staying in a suite in the Garden wing and they made the trip worth while for us! Before we woke up the next morning our luggae was there waiting for us. Service was top notch.

My point in this story is that you MUST be your own advocate on any trip these days. If my Mom had not insisted on approaching that ticket counter, we would probably still be in OH. This trip has completely changed how we travel. We always have a backup plan, and we always advocate for ourselves. You must be a well informed, flexible and witty traveler these days.

I love to tell this story because it show that even in the worst sitaution you can prevail.

 

[cdfl30]

Several years ago my Husband and I planned a week long trip at what appeared to be a nice little resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains. One of the selling points for this resort was that it was lake front. It also had the typical "resort" amenities such as tennis, indoor pool, game room, etc...

After a 10 hour drive we got in after dark and checked into a cozy lake front room with a balcony (which I believe we paid extra for). We woke up the next morning excited to sit out on our balcony and enjoy a relaxing sunrise over the lake but to our surprise there was no lake!! It had been drained for some sort of upgrade/maintenance. So we now had a nice mud pit view to enjoy. Well, there go our relaxing walks on the lakeside trails, enjoying our lake front balcony, etc...

I was really bummed but we tried to make use of other resort amenities. We thought we would start with Tennis as we wanted to be outdoors. We get to the tennis courts and there are no nets set up. I don't recall the exact reason they told us about why the nets were missing but it had something to do with the cold weather (It was March but I don't recall it being that cold). We were basically told tennis was not an option.

Next we found the game room which just turned out to be a pool table over looking the indoor pool. There may have been some other small games there but I don't recall any of them. Given that we seemed to be the only people staying at the resort, we had it to ourselves. It wasn't my first choice of entertainment but we had fun with it the first night and looked forward to playing pool the next day. So... the next day we get to the "Game Room" an guess what, the pool table is gone! We inquired and were told it was sent off for service.

So... there wasn't much else to do. We did look forward to dining at their on-site restaurant but once we saw the menu we knew there was no way we could afford it (we were only about 22 at the time). We did venture out of the resort to the nearby mountains but roads were closed (due to ice) and the main attractions were closed (due to off-season).

Around the third day we were bored to tears and were able to get out of the reservation with a refund which I was so thankful for!

I don't know if part of the failure of this trip was from us being naive travel planners at the time. I have lived in Florida my entire life and am not used to the concept of an "off season", pretty much everything is open year round. Bottom line is we learned our lesson with this trip. We are a little more careful when planning vacations now, especially off-season ones. The rates may be good at those times but the boredom is not worth it!!

Although it wasn't a nightmare experience, it was one of my biggest vacation letdowns.

 

[cdfl30]

Just one more... Last summer I got brave and used priceline.com to book a hotel in Clearwater for a last minute weekend trip. We ended up in one of those exterior corridor hotels (which I hate) but I had to deal with it as we had no choice as it was prepaid.

We checked in around 8:00 PM and were very tired after a very long day. I wasn't feeling all that great so we went to bed pretty soon after we got there. Not long after we lie down, we start to hear this very loud and annoying bass music. We thought it was just someone in a car in the parking lot and that they would eventually drive off. Well, after it didn't stop we went looking around the hotel and it turns out the building next door was a night club, a very loud one at that! Needless to say, neither one of us got much sleep that night.

The next day we spent sightseeing but I was getting more sick as the day went on. I thought it was something I ate but wasn't sure. I told my Husband that because I didn't feel well that I thought we should check out early and head home. He agreed as he couldn't bear another sleepless night.

A few days after we got home, I had to undergo an emergency appendectomy It turns out the pain I was going through was a bad case of appendicitis. I more than made up my missed sleep with over my four days in the hospital!

Although most of the misery of this trip was from being sick, I don't think its right to allow an extremely loud nightclub to be adjacent to a hotel. I'm sure we weren't the only ones not getting any sleep that night.

I also don't think I'll use priceline.com again either. I learned its not worth risking the quality of your vacation over saving a few bucks. I had only used them once before and got put in a hotel that I hated (That Lake Buena Vista Doubletree with the Pineapples on the roof - YUCK!!). I thought I'd give them one more chance this time but we ended up with a second bad experience. There must be a reason these hotel rooms are on clearance, no one wants them...

 

[Disneybridein2k3]

I know Pete was looking for hotel nightmares but I have an Amtrak nightmare and even if it isn't what Pete is looking for, it is a story worth telling - and I tell it every chance I get (for a few reasons - we often hear of airline delays but not many stories of train delays float around, and the second reason is the great customer service story at the end on Disney's part). This is page one from our wedding recaps:

May 2-3

Well, it didn't start out as we had planned (does it ever, though?) – We chose Amtrak because we needed to bring a good bit of our wedding things with us. I have to admit we got a good online deal but I soon regretted it. We departed Union Station in DC on time at 4:35pm on May 2. Our train should have arrived in Orlando at 11:44am on May 3. But that isn't what was meant to be, apparently (NOTE TO SELF – DO NOT TAKE AMTRAK!) I guess I knew it was bad when we got on the train and they told Ken and I (and many others) that they always overbook the train by 10% because many people don't show, but wouldn't you know EVERYONE showed this time??? Yup, no seats for us! Ken and I stood outside of the smoking car (neither of us smoke) from DC to Richmond, and the train was an hour late getting to Richmond. Finally, we reach Richmond, VA and get seats. At that time, we were thinking "If this is the worst that is going to happen then we shouldn't complain." We spoke too soon…Due to bad weather, all of the train crossing signals were out through both North and South Carolina forcing the train to travel 25 mph through BOTH states. I mean, CARS WERE PASSING US. Well, of course this was making us late. Several times in the middle of the night we were at a standstill. Sometime on May 3 (remember we were supposed to get there at 11:44AM, right?) we came to a stop right on the tracks in a Podunk town in South Carolina. After a half hour, the conductor gets on the loudspeaker and announces that he cannot work anymore because his 12 hour shift is over but he just called someone to replace him for the remainder of the trip. Bad news though – the new guy is driving from Jacksonville, Florida (from Fl, through Georgia, and still further to the town we were at in South Carolina). Did I mention that the train had run out of water by this point so we didn't have use of bathrooms??? Well, it just so happened that the place we stopped at was just a half mile from a volunteer fire dept that had a bathroom. We literally went car-by-
car and walked the half mile each way to use the bathroom. Four hours later (starting to feel a little like Gilligan's Island, isn't it?) we finally start moving slowly again and are on our way. Because the train also ran out of food, we were told they would buy some food and give us a complimentary dinner. I mean, we haven't eaten since the day before so we were hungry. We got to our next station and I guess they miscounted. Remember when I said we didn't get a seat in the beginning? Well, when we finally got our seat it was in the last train. This is important because when they were calling everyone to get food, they went in order of trains. Because we were the last train, they had run out of food by the time our train was called. I do realize not everything that went wrong was Amtrak's fault - they couldn't control the train crossing signals, BUT they could control the amount of seats they booked so everyone had a seat, when they placed the call to the new driver so we didn't have to wait at a standstill while the new driver drove 4 hours to get to us, and lets be frank, their math when counting how many meals they needed (because if you tell everyone that they are going to get something to eat and drink, it really isn't right to get to the last car and say, "oh, sorry, we ran out".) Had they made the call to their driver earlier, we may not have run out of water and been able to use the bathrooms - what a great thought! Not exactly a great start to our Disney vacation/wedding! We finally arrived at the train station and got a Mears van to the Boardwalk. We arrived at 1:15AM on May 4th – 13 ½ hours late! We were definitely ready for some Disney magic! It didn't take long for us to get some of that magic, either! There was one person working the check-in counter – her name was Marlene but she was a fairy Godmother to us – she handed us our room key and we started off to find our room – it turned out that she had upgraded us to the concierge level! As soon as we put our things down and got our badly needed showers (and checked out the cool view from our balcony!) we were off to sleep – around 2:30am.
________________________________________________________________________

I wish I could tell you that we had some wonderful way that we handled this but I can't. We, like everyone else, made a complaint. Amtrak chose to ignore the complaints. Our last car even signed a complaint letter but we never heard anything from it. To be honest, I never followed through because they likely would've offered some discount on a future that I have no intention of EVER booking with them EVER.

 

[cv workout]

This horror story was all my fault. I booked a condominium on the Florida panhandle. I was having so much fun I completely lost track of the time and when it was time to check out, I thought we had one more day. The cleaning people showed up to clean the condo and we were on the beach playing in the waves. Besides being really sad about having to leave, I also had to pay a fee for not checking out on time. The ride home (11 hours) was really sad. Talk about end of vacation blues!

Obviously the way to avoid problems like this is to double-check your reservations and keep track of the dates. Isn't it amazing how fast time flies when you're on vacation?

 

[cdfl30]

Hi Pete! Hope your vacation is going well.

I have a travel story you can use, but I can't remember the name of the B&B.

When my husband and I were newly married and wanted to do a romantic B&B vacation to New England. I bought books about B&Bs searched the web and talked to everyone I knew. After searching I found a B&B online that was in CT that had an adjoining winery, restaurant, and a view of a beautiful lake. The same B&B was also listed in two books I had and were given high marks. The web site showed a beautiful lake, a warm lobby area with sitting room, wrap around porches, people in the restaurant having cooking classes, wine tastings, and all the comforts of a hotel, including TV, phone, and beautiful bedrooms with attached bathrooms. There was even a spot for testimonials from previous guests with glowing remarks. I made our reservation on-line and received an immediate confirmation. I even called to confirm prior to our drive from Delaware.

Upon arrival, the lake was amazing. I haven’t seen one like it since. We immediately recognized the B&B from the website picture. We entered the front door and were confronted by a smell I can only explain as musty and old, with a heavy touch of moth balls. We were still optimistic and kept moving forward looking towards a delicious dinner and wine tasting later that night. We stepped up to the sign-in desk to find a generic letter to guests stating they were not in the at the moment and please take the key in the envelope with your name on it. We think okay, but which way do we go? We dragged our luggage up and down 2 flights of stairs all the while being followed by a little boy whom I’m sure I have seen in the Shining! Finally we find our room and the thought of taking a nap before dinner is making us giddy with excitement. My DH opens the door and we see it. The bed from hell. Sitting against the wall was a queen sized pit of grandmas ratty afghans. And when I say pit I mean that little boy that followed us could play hide-n-seek in there. Nervously I walk in behind my husband and he is just standing there. Then I hear the words…. “no TV”, ….”no TV”, “where is the TV?”. I push him out of the way to see the bathroom. Well guess what I found…. BUGS! Little ones, big ones, all shape and size ones. I turn to DH and say let’s go. We open the door to the scary little boy standing at the railing smiling at us. We politely and cautiously smile and rush back to the check in desk to check out. Phone, phone, where is the phone? I finally find in a closet an old fashioned phone where you speak into wooden box and have a separate ear piece. I call the number from our confirmation and the phone is answered by a very polite woman. I explain that our room and the B&B is not as pictured and requested a full refund. I put the key back where we found it and never looked back. Except at the beautiful lake.

Seems like no matter how much searching and research you do on the internet, traveling is a gamble. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. After 10 years of marriage and 2.5 kids later we still talk about "The Shining" B&B.

We had a very similar experience in a historical B&B in the NC Mountains. The brochure made it out to be this beautiful mountain retreat but it was just downright creepy. Its been several years since our visit but we recently saw it featured on a TV special about haunted hotels! That explains it

 

[drakethib]

Never really had a nightmare.

I did book through Southwest vacations one time for POFQ. Booked a king bed and was given two doubles.

The CM's at the front desk kept telling me there was nothing they could do since we didn't book through Disney.

Took about an hour to finally get to a manager to make the switch for us.

Nothing horrifying, but these little aggravating things happen a bunch I would bet.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Oops I didnt realize we were to post on this thread. I emailed my story!

 

[miss missy]

Okay, one more thing about rental cars - do NOT forget to walk around the car BEFORE you rent it and when you RETURN it. I work in auto claims and we often get claims from the car rental companies for damages that our customers say they didn't cause. The contract shows no damage when the car was rented and if you don't take the time to do the walk-around on your return, any damage on the rental can be claimed. Just use your head - Amy is right - many auto policies will transfer coverages to a non-owned car which will save you money but make sure you take the extra few moments to do the walk around and verify what damage, if any, is already on the rental before it is in your name.

~ Stacy

Great advice!

 

[Stroller Boy]

Good luck with your story quest, Pete. Actually, the one horror story I had was booking through an AGENT!!! Cruise out of the Port of Tampa and she put us in a hotel in Clearwater the night before telling us it was just a quick cab ride to the dock. Yeah, right. Couldn't even get a cab that morning, had to find a towncar driver who'd do it, and get lost cause he didn't know where the port was.....odd.... Just made it in time, but we cursed out the travel agent for quite some time! Booked on-line since with NOOOO problems...weird how that works. Looking for an excuse to book something with you guys though as I know it would be a well managed trip! Pretty soon...

 

[missminniemouse]

Hi Pete:

The worst nightmare I've had to deal with was Delta Airlines. We booked our tickets online well in advance of our trip....like 10 or 11 months before we were to travel. Thankfully I kept checking online on an almost daily basis for any changes to our itinerary. Numerous changes were made without even one email notification to us of the changes. We were flying from Green Bay, WI to Orlando, FL.

The first change made (this is several months before the trip, probably 2 or 3 months out) was such that we were supposed to leave our interim stop before we ever arrived there. Any good computer system should have caught this error. I couldn't correct the error online and had to call Delta directly. They wanted to switch us to a much later flight than we originally had. Luckily I had checked their flight schedule before I got on the phone and knew they had a set of flights with similar times to our original ones, just going through a different hub airport. They switched us to the tickets going through the other hub.

The next change...which by the way, was only about a week after the first one...caused the same error, again! Now get this, I checked online and the original flights we had just changed from a few days before were back on the schedule. So, I call Delta again and switch back to our original flights.

The very NEXT DAY, I see that our schedule is changed yet again. Now the flights that were put back are gone again and we can't get any flights from Green Bay to Orlando without making 2 layovers. Before getting on the phone this time, I had checked with Northwest Airlines and knew I could still get tickets for our family of 4 at a decent price and with a good schedule for the way we like to travel. We like to leave home as early in the AM as possible so we have a good part of the day at our destination, and depart as late as possible on our return trip, to make the most of that day as well. At midnight, I was on the phone with Delta explaining this whole shambles of a situation to someone and demanding my money back for our tickets. Unbelievably, I did get a refund on the tickets, after speaking with 2 other people, and turned right around to book the tickets on Northwest.

Needless to say, Delta airlines hasn't even been a consideration for us in trips since this mess. We're very limited as to the airlines we can fly out of Green Bay. We've even driven to Milwaukee (which is a little over a 2 hour drive for us) and stayed overnight there before our trip to catch an early flight from there when the prices have been much better than those out of Green Bay. Now the only airline with direct flights out of Milwaukee is Midwest Airlines as Northwest dropped their direct flights to Orlando from Milwaukee over a year ago.

Yes, the vast majority of our travel over the past years has been to Orlando and to Walt Disney World. We're DVC members and really appreciate the extra effort that Disney puts into everything they do.

We had a small problem with Disney regarding our trip this past January. We were scheduled to stay for 4 nights at the Animal Kingdom Villas and 5 nights at Old Key West. Apparently, they wouldn't have all of their Animal Kingdom Villas finished in time for our trip and they called us the end of December looking for "volunteers" to switch to Saratoga Springs. My daughter was not thrilled that we wouldn't get to stay at the Animal Kingdom Villas, but Disney did make the deal sweet enough for us. Without us even asking for anything, we were offered park tickets and free dining for the days we would switch to Saratoga Springs. I informed them that the park tickets wouldn't do us any good since we are Annual Passholders. I also asked if we could switch and make our whole stay at Old Key West instead of splitting the trip between Old Key West and Saratoga Springs. After a few minutes, I received a call back that it would be fine for us to stay the entire time at Old Key West. So, what we got for making the change in resorts was free dining for the entire 9 nights of our trip! Plus, we were able to get booked on the Sunrise Safari, which is normally available only to concierge level guests at Animal Kingdom Lodge. This made our daughter a little happier about the change. Yes, it was different than we had planned, but we were offered an alternative that was acceptable to us....who can pass up free food! Plus, we then didn't have to pack up our stuff in the middle of our trip to change resorts, thus giving us more time to play in the parks. Disney made things right for us well in advance of our trip, before a real problem really arose. It just made me appreciate Disney's service all the more. As luck would have it, because of these changes we added an ADR to the Garden Grill to our itinerary. We were chosen as the "family of the day" and received a special appetizer, glow cubes in our drinks, a special photo op with all of the characters at the same time, and a special "fast pass" that we could use at any attraction of our choosing. So, the change brought us a little bit of extra magic as well.

Pete, I hope you're having a wonderful vacation in California. I look forward to hearing all about it on the podcast when you return.

 

[fizz13]

Hi Pete,
finally I have something I can actually contribute shouldn't really be smiling though with this story.
i was making plans for my Decmeber 2007 trip and it was the first time I have attempted Disney Wolrd on my own with them, my children were 8, 6 and 3. I scouted around trying to find the best prices for flights and hotels, and came across a fabulous deal on expedia.co.uk over here for Pop Century, standard room 12th to 18th December, so I paid the full money in advance (in March 2007) and considered it done.
Fast forward to the first week of December and i decided that i would quite like to add Magical Express to my booking. Knowing that it will now be in the disney system I phone disney directly to try and book ME. Well imagine my suprise when there is no booking at all for those dates!! having dealt with disney before i realise that this could be a CM making a mistake, she assures me no booking exists!!
I frantically phone Expedia who say thats impossible as it is confirmed in our system, i tell them that it definately is not. They say they will speak to Pop directly to find out and confirm and put me on hold. 30 minutes later they come back and say we will have to try tomorrow as the disney systems are down at the moment. I call back the following day and do the procedure over, another 20 minutes on hold to be told "yes you were right but unfortunately there are now no rooms available at Pop for your dates!" They did not apologise and offered no solution as to how to sort this out. I was eventually offered either a refund (which would not have been refunded to me on time and i needed to have a hotel room the following week, the trip was on a very tight budget for a single mum of 3) or to see what else was available. Now here is where my blood really boiled. they could only offer All Star Movies but in a preferred room and I would have to pay the difference!! I know i shouldn't have taken it and gone elsewhere but as i said i did not have any money left to make a frsh booking without the refund so I took it. I was bitterly dissapointed at not having my first choice even though I booked 9 months ahead and i have never had an apology or compensation. i will never use Expedia again!!

 

[scarlett873]

I have an Expedia story as well! Not the hotel experience that Pete's looking for, but it was a nightmare for me at the time!

When DH and I had gotten engaged, we had planned to get married in Las Vegas. We'd both been married before and didn't need/want the big froo-froo wedding. While researching packages for Vegas one day, I decided to check Disney packages, just for the heck of it. Well imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon such a good deal that I just couldn't pass it up!

The package I was looking at said that it included roundtrip air, 6 nights accommodations at the ASMu, a rental car, and two 7 day park hopper plus tickets. I read and re-read it...making sure that everything was included and according to the page on expedia, it was. The package quoted $1500.

I called DH and told him about the deal and he said that if I could find a place to get married for no more than about $500 for the two of us in Orlando, then we'd do it. Say no more!! I researched, found a few alternatives, and went back and booked the package from expedia.

Now i'm all giddy and floating on cloud nine when I happen to check my e-mail a few days later. Lo and behold, my confirmation says that the admission tickets were NOT included. Stupid, stupid, stupid me. I should have known better! I was a travel agent for 4 years prior to that...we always told our clients that if a package seemed too goo to be true, it probably is. So I call DH and spill the story, all the while sobbing hysterically. We had paid for the package and our wedding. There was no going back now...

We were on such a tight budget at the time, that when we found out that park tickets weren't included, I thought I would die. We could not afford to purchase them...I was having visions of being so close to the theme parks, but not able to enjoy them on our honeymoon. I was sad...

I called expedia and tried to get somewhere with them. I knew that the page had told me that our tickets were indeed included. I knew that for a fact! I read it about fifty times to myself, and then another 25 times to my DH just for confirmation that I wasn't imagining things. I got nowhere with expedia. So I turned it over to my DH.

Would you believe, that after working his way up the chain of command at expedia, he got a VP of something at expedia to personally pony up the $$$ for our park tickets? If I hadn't been there with him to hear the conversation, I wouldn't have believed it myself! He kept telling her some story about imagining her little girl who wants this bicycle from the store. This bicycle had a pretty pink basket on it and that's what she was drawn to...you buy the bike, take it home, and a few days later, the store's knocking on your door telling you that you have to surrender the pretty pink basket, but you can keep the bike. The whole reason her little girl wanted that bike was because of the basket and now it's being taken away...I swear on my grandmother's grave that this is true. That was the analogy that he gave her...and it worked. She whipped out a credit card...i'm sure it was a company card anyway...and added the admission tickets to our package! Went back to look at our reservation a few minutes later and saw for myself that the tickets had been added! I was shocked...

I've always said that my DH could sell anyone anything, whether they needed it or not! Needless to say, everything was perfect when we checked in at the ASMu. Had no trouble with flights or the rental car. Our passes were put onto our room keys...the gal who checked us in kept trying to upgrade us into one of the preferred buildings so that we could have a king bed, but I wanted to be in the broadway section. Had my heart set on it! So she found us a great location in the broadway area and we had a magical wedding day and honeymoon!

I'm now very gun-shy about booking anything online unless it is directly with the tour operator. (i.e. Disney, Princess Cruise Lines, etc) Last summer, when we decided on taking a cruise, I was too afraid to book with anyone other than the cruise lines. Paid a little more at the time, but felt better knowing that if anything were screwed up, it would be Princess's fault! I've used priceline and hotels.com a few times when the room didn't really matter. We've gotten pretty lucky with all of them so far! Scored a room at one of the W Hotels in Chicago and at the Yankee Trader Resort in Ft Lauderdale. So far, so good!

As a former travel agent, it's really difficult for me to relinquish control over my vacation plans to an unknown agent. Especially when I know more than the agent who is trying to get my business! If the agency is highly recommended and I feel comfortable with them, I will fully support them with my business. Expedia...nope...even though the fixed the problem, I lost faith in them. Won't use them again...

 

[WebmasterPete]

I want to thank everyone for their comments and their help. You guys gave me A LOT of good stuff to work with.

I'm actually doing my first live radio interview (EVER) tonight at 1:30AM eastern time for two stations in Canada (CJAD in Montreal and CFRB in Toronto). I'll be on for 30 minutes on the "Holder Tonight" show. I'll admit, I'm a little nervous - but hey it's good exposure for the site. In the next few weeks, I have interviews on radio stations in Columbus, Kansas City and Montreal.

Thanks again everyone - always good to know that if I screw up on the radio, I have a wonderful group of friends back here for support!!!

Pete

 

[wilde_oscar]

http://www.peteranthonyholder.com/

he is really good on the over night

http://www.cfrb.com/player/player

1:30am eh? I'll see if I can figure out how to record it for posterior... er I mean posterity.


if you wanna sounds like a local, eh... say, "ya know, eh" a lot.

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

I'll admit, I'm a little nervous - but hey it's good exposure for the site. In the next few weeks, I have interviews on radio stations in Columbus, Kansas City and Montreal.

Thanks again everyone - always good to know that if I screw up on the radio, I have a wonderful group of friends back here for support!!!

Pete

Good Luck Pete -- We know you'll do us proud!!!

 

[DVCsince02]

Pete you did a great job in the interview! You didn't sound nervous at all.

When will the winners of the gift certificates be announced?