I thought I was being ridiculously early making arrangements for our trip to see Kaitlin, Torben and the grandbabies this fall. But we’re going by train, we want a sleeping compartment, and when we went in Spring, 2011 we didn’t have much choice of dates because most of the rooms were already booked. We also paid a lot extra for reserving so late. So last night Andy and I went to the website and made our reservations. Whew! The room for coming back was already about 50% higher than the standard price, so we weren’t that early after all. It was nice to have it settled…we thought.
I figured making the hotel reservations could wait, but I do have that “working dog” instinct so figured I might as well get that out of the way too. Andy likes one particular hotel close to Kaitlin and Torben, but the rates were ridiculous—almost 40% more than the highest rate we had ever paid. So I thought about it, poked around the internet, made a couple of phone calls, and got a good rate if we stayed Thursday-Monday instead of Friday-Tuesday. Kaitlin had already said Thursday would be fine, so I made the reservation. By this time it was about 5 am so I figured I would put off changing the train reservations until today. Yeah, sure. Lots of luck with that.
I had never tried changing train reservations before so it took some time, but it will be a lot easier if I ever have to do it again—assuming (dream on, Jean!) that the system hasn’t completely changed by then. 😀
What about you? Have you ever been afflicted with the “working dog” instinct?
My tendency is to… put-it-off-til-the-last-minute. When it comes to making travel reservations, though, that can tend to be pricey or impossible, depending on what you’re wanting to do. Since we seldom use public transportation — I haven’t been on a plane in 10 years — our experience has generally been with lodging and camping reservations. For some popular destinations, such as inside major national parks, if you don’t make lodging reservations far in advance, you may not be able to get what you want unless there are cancellations.
All the time Jean, all the time. For instance, I booked my tickets to Chennai for February 13th on December 15th! Anytime that I have to do something, I cannot rest till I get it over with.
I usually book things earlier rather than later…this time, I haven’t booked my flights for April just yet because we have a system here that is titled “Grabaseat” which means I might be able to half one way down to New Plymouth. I have the daily emails arriving and already April is appearing on some destinations.
I seem to recall there are a couple of flights a day to my destination and it’s not on main line as such so I should be able to wrangle a seat anyway. If not I will have to bus there, long-long-long day.
I have the earlybird conference fee paid and I have accommodation booked, I just don’t have the transport dealt to 🙂
oops of course NZ population of travellers is not the same as America or India’s population of travellers 🙂
Mike,
I love it when we can be more spontaneous when we travel, but as you say, sometimes that just doesn’t work.
Rummuser,
I feel the same way about a lot of things. I want them done and out of the way.
Cathy,
It sounds as if you can save a lot of money this way. Kaitlin and Torben do that sometimes when they fly. Good luck on getting a good flight!