What I did on my summer vacation — part 3
August 11, 2022 | Family,Summer,Traveling
Dream vacation, nightmare travel planning
A few days later — less than two weeks after I contacted her — I had my reservations for the train, hotels, and rental car. I was getting excited! She was still working on several things — insurance, rides from airport to hotel, hotel to train station, and train station to airport. She was able to get the Victoria hotel that initially told her they were full. So, we were rolling right along. I asked for info about getting TSA PreCheck, which we got, so I gave her our numbers for the travel reservations.
There was trouble booking one of the cars, and I learned that my card had been deactivated. The company switched it from a MasterCard to a Visa, and I had somehow missed that. So, I called the company, and they sent me a new card, which I got in a couple of days. I asked her if she wanted me to send copies of the new card, and she said, “I don’t think there is anything left to pay for at this time. Do you?” (📌) I sent her a copy of my new card, anyway, for booking some other unrelated travel, which had a whole other set of mistakes, but that’s another story.
🚩🚩🚩Then came time for her to charge my card for the rest of the big trip. And guess what? She hadn’t updated her system with my new card, so the automated system she uses tried to charge the old card, and it was declined. I got an email and a voicemail at 7:21 a.m., telling me, “We have a problem.” She said I needed to call back ASAP because she didn’t know how long it would be before the system would automatically cancel everything. No need for coffee that morning to get my heart pumping. I called her back and asked her why she wasn’t using my new card for this. She didn’t think she had it. I reminded her I had provided her with all the required information and it was up to her to fix this problem. She did.
Then my daughter’s summer schedule changed, and she wanted to join us for a week, so I asked about that. The agent gave me a few options for flights, and I made it clear that I was willing to spend more on plane tickets to get my daughter to the Seattle airport at a decent time of day. One of the options had her arriving at about 3 p.m. So what did she book? The one that had the plane arriving at night. Because of delays, I got to pick up my daughter 📌at the airport in the middle of the night.📌 I think her flight finally got in at 1 a.m.
Before that happened, though, my son and I took off from TLH to LAX. We got there as planned with no delays. We only had to wait a few minutes before our car arrived to pick us up. We got to the hotel before check-in, but she had a room ready for us. I was messed up by the time change, and I didn’t even realize we were early. The hotel and service there was great. In the morning, the bellman got us a car to the train station. Checking in there went smoothly, and we even got free drinks and snacks in the Amtrak lounge. (I didn’t know about that.) Red Cap service took us to the platform where we would board. (I didn’t know about Red Cap service until then.) We got settled on the train, and it took off. Because we had a bedroom, we also had an attendant. (I didn’t know about that either.) The travel was nice. I got a little claustrophobic when I first got on the train, but I was able to work through it. The food was great. Our attendant, Cesar, was superb. I made sure to tell him that (and tip him).
Our train’s arrival at the King Street Station was delayed, so instead of getting there at 7:51 p.m., we got there at 8:25 p.m., the time our ride was scheduled to pick us up to take us to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to get our rental car. We exchanged phone calls, and she said she would be there soon to get us. After getting our luggage (two big checked bags each and two carry-on bags each, as well as a backpack and bag), we loaded all that into the car that picked us up and unloaded it all again at the Delta departures sign where the driver dropped us off. We walked inside, and I kept looking for a car-rental desk. We walked the length of the airport – with all our bags – to get to a shuttle. I was exhausted by this time. I called the driver and asked why she didn’t drop us off at the car-rental area. “We aren’t allowed in there,” she said. Sigh. She also told me to double-check my car bill, because I had been booked and paid for 5 people. At this point, I don’t even know why the agent did that. I haven’t found anything about it in my receipts and emails. Only thing I can figure is she was booking something for 5 people in that other trip and got confused with the numbers. (She messed up several other things numbers-wise, so maybe that’s just her MO).
Back at the airport, we found a place to sit to wait for the next shuttle. When it got there, we loaded all our luggage and then unloaded it all again when we got to the car-rental place. We wheeled all our luggage up to the desk, and I got the contract for the car. Did I already say I was exhausted? We lugged all our luggage to an elevator and into a parking lot. It was not immediately clear where our car was. I asked someone working there how the numbers worked. We eventually found our car and then loaded all our luggage into the car and took off to find the hotel. It was about a 20-minute drive, and we checked in around midnight.
NOTE: The Seattle airport was not user-friendly for us. There was the whole shuttle thing and drivers “not being allowed in there.” And when we left for home, we had a helluva time finding TSA PreCheck, which they tucked away in a corner waaaaaaay at the other end of the building. I might be wrong, but I would think a travel agent might know some of this and be able to mitigate or at least warn clients about it. (I had asked for airport assistance, but she didn’t note that on my reservation, so we didn’t get it.)
We got all our luggage up to our room on the 11th floor in the hotel. Imagine my surprise when I opened the curtains, looked out the window and saw … the King Street train station RIGHT NEXT DOOR. We could have walked about two minutes with all our luggage from the train station to our hotel, checked in, gotten a decent night’s sleep, and worried about the rental car in the morning. This is so egregious that it felt intentional. I mean, nobody can screw up that badly, can they?
Oh-huh-ho. But of course they can.
More later …
