Monthly Archives: March 2023

I Should Have Kept Track Of Hours!

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I just spent gobs of time researching hotels for one city. I mean hours. And hours. I set up a spreadsheet so I can compare the hotels, and what they will cost (as I mentioned earlier, I compare the hotel site to Expedia to United … United only won once). It’s crazy making. And how to choose?

Well, for one thing, I do a search on the address and look at street views. Sometimes that tells me it just looks like a shopping area (yawn). Sometimes I see a lovely cobblestone alley. Sometimes I see a garbage can (that’s fun). Then I look at the normal, overhead, map view to see what is close by. I do a search on restaurants. (We don’t rent a car so we love being able to walk to tasty spots.)

Then I search on reviews. Of course one has to read between the lines sometimes. If someone says the staff weren’t very friendly I wonder if they think the staff is there to entertain or work. I always assume the staff isn’t there to be my bff. Go figure. Some reviewers comment on the rooms being too small. Heh. We Americans can be real jerks about room size. I’ve learned (and embarrassed myself once when we got to our tiny little hotel room in Paris). Rooms are small. Deal with it. You aren’t visiting the room. You are visiting the city. (Side note: my favorite ones are the folks who complain about no TV when they are visiting a National Park here in the good ole’ USA. Are these people unable to go a week without a TV? Argh!)

Anyway, I printed out my spreadsheet for the current city I’m working on. Now I have to make a decision.

Such a stressful life I lead.

I suppose this picture could hint at where I’m looking right now. Or maybe not.

Changing Plans

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Let’s see — we altered our flight going to our destination by one day (earlier) a few weeks ago. That wasn’t TOO stressful for me, since I knew it meant an extra day.

But these past few days? Kinda stressful: I reserved a hotel and after looking at the area (thank you Google maps!) I canceled it because it looked like the business district and the hotel itself seemed very cold. I was about to reserve another hotel (in another city) and rethought that, thankfully, before I actually made the reservation.

Today we talked about changing more plans, and I’m pretty sure we will alter things in a somewhat major way. This means I have to cancel a flight (because we are flying elsewhere) and cancel yet another hotel, and I need to move our “hey, we have a washer/dryer combo” VRBO place up by three or four days if the owners will allow for that.

This is why I always make sure I only make reservations that I can cancel. We have been known to make plans and then change our minds.

I think, though, that I will stop making any reservations at all until we are absolutely certain we know what we are doing. Okay, we are never absolutely certain, I suppose. Still, I’m not good with these changes and my stomach is now in knots!

BUT I will now share a wee bit of information regarding our first destinations: our first flights are to Frankfurt and then Paris (It was cheaper to do that than fly directly to Paris), where we spend only a couple of days. Kind of funny that when I changed my flight I received a credit for something like $4. Yeah. Really.

The trip still feels a bit like a dream. I won’t believe it’s happening until we are on the first flight, I’m sure.

It’s Loads of Fun But …

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Oh man, do I spend gobs of time on the internet as I try to figure out trains and lodging. It gets a bit crazy.

For lodging I look at Expedia, Booking.com, United (since we fly United), and eventually get to the lodging companies’ own sites as well. I compare prices. I compare cancellation dates. And I try hard to figure out bed sizes. United States bed sizes aren’t the same as other countries’ bed sizes. A double might be small. But it also might be two twins pushed together. Maybe. You just never know! I check VRBO. I write to the people renting a place to ask. And then I wait and hope things are still available when I finally hear back.

And maybe some of you can answer this: when a site says the bed could be “one double or two twins” does that mean you don’t know until you walk into the room, or does that mean it’s the kind where they push two twins together to make the double? Pondering ….

Because we do carry-on only , I love to find places that have a washing machine on occasion. Most of my clothes are hand washable, but Dan’s shirts and jeans take too long to air dry. (I don’t usually travel with jeans because they weigh too much and dry too slowly.)

I’m currently looking for one of those VRBO places with a washer and dryer. I thought I’d located the perfect place, but then saw that their cancellation policy was a bit on the risky side. (It was two months before our arrival.) What with having had to cancel out of things during the worst times of Covid, I’m no longer into risking hundreds of dollars. (Thankfully places during Covid were allowing cancellations right and left. That has since changed.)

I also had to read descriptions and then reviews of places carefully. One looked so good until I read that the flights of stairs (a third floor climb) were so skinny you couldn’t walk up straight up, but had to kind of walk sideways. Um. No thanks. I have to make sure, too, that we aren’t so far on the outskirts that we’d constantly have to call a cab to get anywhere. (We are hoping to use all public transportation and not rent a car.)

So today I looked and looked and didn’t make a single reservation.

Still I find it fun. It’s almost as if I traveled to one of the cities we’ll be visiting. Funny how that happens!