Travel woes

Travel is not always easy. Flights are delayed, traffic keeps you on the expressway for hours longer than expected, bad weather pops up, a destination may not be in the GPS, hotels are not in your price range, etc.

I usually rave about how wonderful Priceline is, after trying to book a hotel for a night near the coast for a quick overnight trip to the beach, I had problems. Request after request was being denied. No hotels were in our price range off of a hotels.com, Yahoo travel, or site like Expedia. I tried a bunch. All I wanted was a cheap hotel for one night somewhat near the beach. So, after trying all of my usual methods, I ended up trying a 1 star request on Priceline. Big mistake. We were booked at the America's Best Value Inn in Wilmington, NC. Before going, we looked up reviews, and they were terrible. Reports of rude staff, dirty rooms, bugs, shady characters in the parking lot, and so on. We decided to check it out since with Priceline you can't cancel a reservation and it's almost impossible to get your money back. After tenatively peering inside the rooms, unpleasant smells, dirty/very worn out rooms, dirty beds/sheets/pillows, and the topper of them all, two HUGE dead roaches in the bathroom.

We checked out again very quickly, did another Priceline request, and got a 2 star hotel at a Baymont Inn. While there was a dirty napkin on my bed, several hairs on the sheets that suggested they were not cleaned, and a very bad smell in Luke's room, we had to settle there. It definitely is a step up, but yuck. Come on Priceline/motels! Get with it! Clean rooms should be the bare minimum requirement.

I, of course, called Priceline and told them of this experience, and even though the lady sounded nice and sympathetic, said she would forward on my story and get a resolution to me in 5 business days. Who knows what this resolution may be. Probably not my money back and the image of those massive bugs out of my head like I would prefer. I will keep you updated on my resolution, and thankfully this was only for one night. It just sucks that this is our one day off this weekend and was supposed to be a nice, fun beach trip. Hopefully when we actually go to Wrightsville Beach tomorrow, it will be worth it. I am looking forward to reading in the sand and looking at the ocean.

Working at NC State in Raleigh next week.

Florida...Week 2

I went to the beach today! It was kind of cloudy and really windy, but finally I saw the ocean that's been 5 miles away all week. Driving around Singer Island was really pretty.

Last night I went to the Hardrock Seminole Casino (where Anna Nicole Smith died) and lost $30 to the slots. The slots were not my friend. And, like Michigan, no free drinks while gambling. What the hell? Only Vegas has the right idea.

My dad is down here this week for business too, so I'll probably go out with him in Fort Lauderdale.

Now my cold needs to go away so I can thoroughly enjoy the rest of the week in Florida.