Vacation Planning

I've never planned a vacation before. I've definitely helped in the process, put my two cents in, but mostly I was along the ride. This is fine with me. I don't feel the need to plan and the last couple of times that I've gone on vacation my mom has been the planner (she loves it) my brother is also someone who enjoys planning vacations. My Aunt Pat is a travel agent so whenever we book a true vacation we seek her advice as well.

Part of me wonders what all these vacation planners sound like when they call and ask about certain details of their vacation. Working at the mountain I'm the person potential guests call. I should change my title from Lodging and Reservations specialist to Vacation Consultant because sometimes that's what I feel like. People call, they ask about a billion questions, where's this, where's that, is it nice, is it near a pool? You'd be surprised how much people love their pools. I wonder where these people go to use a pool in the winter time, my hunch is they aren't going to the community pool down the road. You're coming here to ski right?! Apparently not, but whatever.

Lets go over what really happens behind the scenes at the lodging office. When people call the first time they want the 'range' of prices. So I start with the most expensive and then the least expensive, this being the 'range' I'm waiting for the day that someone asks me for the mean median and mode. The idea is that they will be pleasantly surprised when they hear about the less expensive option. But once I start to quote people on different dates for the same units, or different bed configurations, tickets, no tickets, I can just feel the guest getting flustered. I'm sure they've written it all down but I also feel sometimes that they don't write it down in a way that makes ANY sense. It's as if they have this uncanny ability to put the least expensive price, add in tickets for free, add in a night for free, during a holiday where they have a pool in their unit. Then once they're satisfied and feel they've made the best decision, after all they are going to be staying at Pretentious Bore, they call us back to book. Keep in mind these same people took about two weeks to figure out their plan. When they originally called there was only a few units left, but enough to have a nice variety of choices, but now, two weeks later, the unit they really want is gone. Keep in mind their dates are only two week away at this point. I can hear the panic welling up inside them.

'What do you mean that you don't have any rooms at Pretentious Bore?'
'They've been booked for days.'
'Well when I called two weeks ago you had rooms, why don't you have any now'
 'Because other people booked them.'
'What about the Newest-therefore-nicest house?'
'Pretentious Bore is a property, and the Newest house is a building within the property, I have nothing in any building at Pretentious Bore.'

Before because there were choices (two weeks ago), there was no sense of urgency. They said 'Oh ok, well we'll think about it, we're going to look around a little bit more, I'll talk it over with my significant other and we'll get back to you'. What REALLY happened is they didn't think about it, they didn't look around any more, in fact that piece of paper that they wrote everything down on resurfaced when they were cleaning their desk, and that same second they called their spouse who said 'sure honey whatever you want, sounds good, just book it' (voice of reason), They called back and can't read their notes very well, and the prices they have written down aren't correct to begin with. At the end of conversation they book something they really don't want, at a price they don't like, for dates they can't come. They do this just so that they feel better about themselves. They feel that they're giving their kids the best ski vacation ever and pat themselves on the back because they booked the last room. Keep in mind this is a family of 6 and they're staying in a hotel room with two queen beds, they know it'll be crammed but for right now they feel good about it.