Mad, mad, mad world of hotel reservations

It's nice that I actually got all my errands done today and squeezed in some geocaches too. The weather was okay too. Although hot, it wasn't too humid.

The geocaches I did were Not always a skating rink and Pondside Cache, both of which were in the borough of Harrington Park. I was FTF on both of those but as I found out later, it was only by about 10 minutes. It's hilarious the way a whole bunch of us go for geocaches as soon as they show up in the listings. The cache owner commented that he (or she) was "sitting here cracking up picturing some 'its a mad, mad, mad, mad world' type dash to the caches". In reality though, I wasn't rushing out to do those caches. It only looked that way because the two caches were published just before the time when I would normally go for lunch anyway.

It's a good thing I called Ramada Newark to confirm my reservation. Apparently, my reservation had mysteriously switched from the group rate back to the regular rate. (I was quoted a rate of $119 instead of $79.) So the reservations clerk had to transfer me to a supervisor who could fix the problem. Or at least, I hope she fixed the problem. I would not be surprised if I'm asked to pay the regular rate again at check-in time 3 weeks hence. Prove me wrong, Ramada Newark!

I also checked my reservation at the Connecticut Grand Hotel. That was actually a bit confusing because their phone system, even though I called the hotel's local number, kept transferring me to their central reservations line, where they did not have my reservations info in the system. (Why the hotel would have separate databases depending on how the reservation was made is beyond me.) Finally, I pushed the correct button to get to the hotel's front desk and I could barely hear the hotel clerk because they have a crackly phone line. But other than that, everything seems to be in order. We'll see at check-in.

( Friday Five )