Places

So, as planned, we called Red Rock Station, Aliante Station, and Santa Fe Station this week to enquire about reserving a block of rooms for our out of town guests.

Santa Fe Station was great. Their sales manager, Marilyn, was familiar with our venue, The Grove, and said she had worked with them a lot. I told her how many rooms we wanted (30) and when, and she said she could reserve them for us. She quoted us a pretty decent price ($65 for Friday and Saturday, I think, and $35 for Thursday and Sunday, plus tax and a "hotel fee," more about which later). She said we were getting such a good price because they work with the Grove on a regular basis.

We also wanted to know if they could provide a shuttle for guests who didn't rent cars. (Because we're figuring that most of our guests are just going to come to Las Vegas for the wedding, and won't want to spend any time doing other stuff. Kidding.) Santa Fe Station doesn't have their own bus, but she recommended a company called Lucky Limousine. She said she likes to use them because they are reliable. She knows they'll be where they're supposed to be on time, and she doesn't need to keep checking up on them.

As it turns out, her thoughts about Lucky Limousine pretty much sums up the whole searching for rooms experience. I left a message at Red Rock Station, and they never called me back. So they're off the list. (Honestly, they were never really our first choice; they would have been the nicest, but also the most expensive. And the furthest away from the Grove.)

And Aliante Station took two days to return my call. Their sales manager said that we could only reserve a block of 20 rooms without being "reliable" for them. (We wanted 30, and also wanted to deal with someone who knows what words mean.) Their rooms were more expensive ($105 for the weekend days, plus a hotel fee and tax). They didn't have a shuttle available either, but offered to pass my contact information on to a transportation coordination company or something. She also said she would email me a proposal with all the pricing and other details.

I haven't received any email from her yet. Nothing from any transportation companies, either.

So we've decided to go with Santa Fe Station. They're older and maybe a little less fancy than the other two, but it'll give our guests a reasonably priced option for a place to sleep.

More importantly, they were able to answer my questions. They didn't ignore my messages, and they didn't promise to do things or send information that they just never got around to. Like Marilyn said about Lucky Limousine, you want people who are going to do what they say, without the need to follow up repeatedly. Not saying that things will run perfectly at Santa Fe Station, but I already have more confidence in them than I do in the other two places we tried. (And anything else is even more further afield.)

And really, if our guests don't want to stay at Santa Fe, they are welcome to make their own arrangements. Since we aren't "reliable" for any rooms that don't get booked.

And what's up with this whole "hotel fee" thing? It's just a scam for hotels to make their prices seem lower. If a room is $65 plus a $15 "hotel fee," then it's really $80. But then the hotels couldn't go around claiming that their rooms only cost $65. Whatever. I call bulls#!t.

(But still, even with the fees and tax, $87 a night for a room isn't too shabby.)

[Since writing the above, I did receive the email from Aliante Station. Still, they have the higher price, which is a consideration.]

Also last week, we booked our honeymoon stay at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. It's actually the first part of a two-part honeymoon; we originally planned on taking a honeymoon cruise around the Caribbean, and booked that some time ago, thanks to Norwegian Cruise Lines having a sale. But the ship doesn't set sail from Miami until October 17, a week after our wedding ceremony. And then my mom generously offered to pay for the cruise. So we decided, since we had a week to kill, needed to end up in Florida for the cruise, and love going to Disneyland, maybe we could spend that week at WDW. Since we also love animals, we wanted to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, but that was pretty expensive, so we figured we'd stay at one of the cheaper resorts.

And then Lura got a new job which finally pays her the sort of money she deserves to be earning. So we booked a room at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (with a savanna view, no less). So no matter how crazy things get planning this thing, we've got a heck of a honeymoon to look forward to. Which is fine, because it's really the only honeymoon we're planning on taking.

Much to Lura's amusement, I've already been studying the menus for WDW restaurants. That's so my thing, which is ironic, her being the chef in the family. But I love all the different restaurants at the Disney parks, with all their different themes and everything. There's a restaurant with animatronic dinosaurs, and a restaurant that serves barbecue pulled pork egg rolls, and so many others that reading about them just gets me that much more excited.

More about that stuff as we progress.

Later this week, we're off to North Carolina, which will be my first opportunity to meet the future mother- and step-father-in-law. Woo hoo!