Saturday, 10/8 - Palm Spring and enroute home

We left Twentynine Palms and headed to Palm Springs.  There is very little development around the north part of the park, but we drove through Yucca Valley, which seemed to have every chain restaurant, store and hotel.  I think it must be a bedroom community for Palm Springs (about 40 miles away).

The drive from Yucca Valley to Palm Springs was surprising in that it really dropped a lot (about 3,000 feet) - something you can't see on a map...  And when we got to the east of Palm Springs, we saw all of the windmills (4,000+) lined up through the valley.

The Palm Springs airport was nice (the Sonny Bono concourse) and the plane was only slightly late (the flight crew missed the hotel shuttle bus).  The flight to Phoenix was nice and short and we had dinner at the airport.  Then we found the flight was delayed by a couple of hours due to a mechanical problem.  We didn't get back to Indy until midnight and didn't get home until 2AM.  Long day.

It was a good trip, other than the rough start.  We ended up driving about 1500 miles, which doesn't seem like much over two weeks, but the last few days were hard (for me).  May have to slow down the driving on the next trip....


September 27

Tale of Woe....

I woke up to a message that our reservation in Monterey was canceled because my credit card was rejected.  When I finally figured out what happened, it was one of those deals where they tried to charge the credit card, the credit card then sent me a message asking if it was a valid charge, and when I didn't respond, the credit card was rejected.  As near as I can tell, the message asking if it was a valid charge and the rejection all occurred after 10PM when I was getting ready to leave (at 5AM).

So, I panicked and tried to rebook the room and screwed up the reservation.  (The website (Booking.com) asked if I wanted to rebook it, and I said yes and selected the room types, but asked for three rooms (two with one bed, one with two), instead of two.  And I didn't realize that although they asked if I wanted to rebook the room, the dates were switched to tonight for 1 night, instead of 4 nights from now for two nights).

And since we were within 7 days of the reservation, they were not refundable.  I tried to call the hotel after I realized what I had done (about 10 minutes after I made the reservation) and they said they couldn't do anything since we booked through Booking.com.   I tried to call Booking.com when I got to the airport and it was very frustrating - their phone system requires that you enter the reservation number and PIN number they give you on your confirmation email, but it took me a while to find the correct one.  Once I found it, I was disconnected three times before I got to talk to a person. 

She said she would try to resolve the issue and was pretty confident, but said it was dependent on the hotel.  So, trading messages during the day, there was no resolution, although the hotel would be glad to have us stay with them on the original dates with the original rooms for $400 more (since it was a late reservation) and would not commit to a refund of the incorrect reservation.

So, we ended up losing $600 as we rebooked at a different hotel (directly).  So, be forewarned when you book with one of the services, especially if it is with a small hotel.  And avoid the "Free Cancellation until 7 days before arrival" deals, since they will charge your credit card when you might not have a chance to correct any issues....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saturday, 10/1 - Highway 1 and Monterey

Image
We stopped at the Rookery again on our way north to Monterey. Then it was up Highway 1 to Monterey.  It was quite the drive, mostly cloudy, but definitely scenic.  There is not much development all the way to Big Sur, but there was a lot more traffic, especially from Big Sur north.  It was funny - all of us had been to Big Sur before, but we had very different memories of what it was.  Mary thought it was known for its surfing (most of it is pretty far from the ocean).  I remembered it as having a little more development than the rest of the coast, but not that much.  None of us remembered the redwood forest or the art galleries. And there didn't seem to be too much development (as one might expect over 40 years) - maybe it was off the road somewhere..... Anyway, we got near Monterey and took a little detour to Pacific Grove to check out a Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary (did you know that Pacific Grove is known as the Butterfly Town, USA??)  but, alas, the butterflies weren't ther
Read more

Monday, 10/3 - Pinnacles National Park and Kings Canyon National Park

Image
Today was a long drive from Monterey up to Castroville (the Artichoke Capital of the World) and over to Pinnacles National Park (east entry) and then on to Kings Canyon National Park. Again, there was a lot of development from Monterey to Castroville and then a lot of farms most of the way to Pinnacles, but then mostly ranch land.   We had heard that the park was very crowded on weekends, so we decided to go on Monday.  But the rangers said we were in the low season and it really wasn't very busy any day of the week now.  And it certainly wasn't crowded when we were there. The park is interesting in that there is no road that runs through it (the mountains make it difficult) and it is about a 100 mile trip to get from one side to the other.  So, we chose the east side which is more developed and did a hike around Bear Gulch. We hoped to see the Pinnacles, but this was as close as we got.  The park is one of the release sites for the California Condor and they have about 25 in t
Read more

Tuesday, 10/4 - KIngs Canyon National Park

Image
This one was going to be interesting.  I have to confess I had never heard of Kings Canyon National Park until planning this trip.  I read a little about it.  It is supposedly deeper than the Grand Canyon.  And it is mostly wilderness.  So, I assumed we would be driving along the Scenic Byway looking at the canyon from the top (like the Grand Canyon).  Nope... But first, one of the other attractions at Kings Canyon is Grants Grove, a grove of Sequoia trees, including the General Grant tree (2nd or 3rd largest in the world, depending on what you read).  And it was only about a mile from the Lodge.  So, we started there first (after breakfast at the lodge). Inside a fallen tree... Then we headed for the canyon.  First we went up on the highway, and then we went down into the canyon (from 7500 feet to 4500 feet). We were all stunned that this road was built at all.  It made the Going to the Sun highway look tame.   And when we got to the bottom, and drove along the river, the canyon opene
Read more