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We pride ourselves on two things — getting you the best deal for the things you need and providing excellent service.

This is my first dealing with Priceline.com, and I was excited to try them out.  I had tried previous companies in the past, like Hotwire, and been completely happy.  This time I was choosing Priceline because they had a little better price.  When it's about getting the best price, you shop clear to the bottom dollar.

I had used a service (ie Travelzoo.com) that sent me to Priceline.com.  At Travelzoo.com you choose your dates, city, number of people in your party, the whole works.

When I completed my reservation I realized after 2 phone calls that I had booked a room that the Hotel does not even list or advertise.  The reservation office didn't even know they had these rooms because there are so few of them.  Wow, I got suckered in.

I tried to call Priceline.com, but guess what?  There is no way to talk to anyone.  I tried with 2 different numbers.  I finally started emailing them.  They basically said sorry, there is nothing we can do, just call the hotel and they will fix it.  The hotel said you have to deal with Priceline.com we can't help you with this matter.

Wow, now that is great customer service.  You book it, we take your money, end of story.  Had I booked it straight through the hotel I would have gotten it taken care of in an instant.

Here is what you need to know about Priceline.com
1.  Customer service will not help you cancel a reservation.  As a matter of fact they will tell you over and over that it cannot be canceled even though you can see that it can be.  Keep looking and digging.
2.  They do not allow you to select how many people will be staying in a hotel room.  That's right, check it out yourself.  If the hotel includes breakfast there is no way to guarantee you will get the correct number of vouchers.  Let alone getting the right number of beds.
3.  Priceline.com has contracted with other companies like Travelzoo, ebates, kayak and so on, that allow you to choose how many people in your party.  What they don't do is guarantee that request be met.  Although you don't know that at the time of booking.
4.  You will never get to talk to anyone to discuss what happened or how it happened.  I have emailed them several times and each time I get a response from a different person sending out a canned message.
5.  They are only the middle man and they really don't care about customer service.  They don't operate the hotel, or rental cars or any of that.  You book and that's it. There is no customer service that they can offer.  I am not angry about this, just pointing out that you need to take care of yourself, please refer to #1.

Oh wait!  Make that 6 things:

6.  It's NOT cheaper.  That's right, I thought I was saving a ton of money and it turns out cutting out the middle man and going straight to the Hotel would have been cheaper.  I know this is not always the case, but it was this time. Why I didn't call ahead of time, I don't know.  BIG FAIL on my part.

So did they pride themselves in those two things?

Getting me the best deal – NOPE
Providing Excellent Customer Service – The canned emails, although similar and repetitive, were nicely written, but offered no solution only much confusion.

Here are 2 different emails I received from them.   They don't even know how to resolve it, because they are the middle man and they don't offer resolve.

Your confirmed hotel may be able to switch your bed type, based on availability. If you would like a
specific bed type, you may contact the hotel directly.
Any changes will be based on availability and are granted at the hotel'sdiscretion.

Followed by the next email that said this:

Please do not contact the hotel directly, as they cannot make
changes or cancellations to pre-paid reservations under any circumstances; it
must be completed online.

We apologize for any inconvenience; however, we are unable to
change your reservation in our system.

Needless to say we won't be using Priceline ever again.  We will be using Hotwire for sure, especially since I found the little trick to know what Hotel you are booking.

What are you waiting for??  Get yours today.

Loved this place and would go back in a heart beat, but read on for how to make it work best for you.  This place is busy, so be prepared.

Read  my previous posts to find out what all we did at the park and other ways to "discover" Magic Mountain.

First off I went directly to the site and looked for a room with breakfast included for the 4 of us.  With taxes and anything else added it came to $313 for 2 nights.  I did so much better than that.  Check out the whole thing HERE. I did call and have her offer me something a little better, but I did best with package deal.

Since this Hotel is near the park(actually it's the closest) I figured it would be run down and marginal.  I was so surprised to see that it was not only very nice looking, but it was very clean.  I was very, very surprised.  It makes going back to your hotel to rest a whole lot more fun.

Our breakfast was a cook to order, so I wasn't really sure what to expect there.  BIG TIP:  When we were there the place was busy, but not off the charts busy.  I am sure during the busy season this place is a zoo and you really, really need to plan accordingly.

This is a sit down breakfast.  There is a pastry/cereal/toast bar plus a fruit bar.  From there you wait for someone to come take your order for hot food which is eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, pancakes and waffles to name a few.  The kitchen cranks it out as fast as they can, but they do get behind. The servers are running like crazy.  DO NOT think you will eat in 15 minutes or less plan accordingly.  It will take some time especially if you have to wait for a table.

I really, really appreciated the shuttle service. I am sure that since they were not super busy that they accommodated us well.  You have to schedule what time you want to be taken to the park and what time you want picked up.  Spots fill up quickly, so book at departures to the park as soon as you arrive.

We had scheduled a pick up, but some other people waiting had not.  Had we not scheduled it, those people would have never gotten picked up.  The nice thing is since the Hotel is so close they can turn around and come back for the next group within 5 minutes.

I am not sure in the busy season how many trips they become willing to take.  They claim one trip every 1/2 hour, but they were doing more.  At $15 a day for parking this was a great benefit to our hotel.  No other hotels in the area do this.  Not only do you save the $15, but you don't have to walk all the way from the parking lot or back to your car at the end of the day. Drop off and Pick up are right there by the entrance.

The grounds at the Columbia Gorge Hotel are beyond romantic, as they are the settings to many weddings.  From the pictures you can see why.  What I never knew is hidden on the hillside is this beautiful waterfall.  The bridge gives you a view from above.  Worth the stop to just look if you have time.

One of our gifts from the Hotel was a wine tour.  They had 6 places that we could to a tasting.  We didn't make it to all of them, but the drive was so pretty and the grounds of the Wineries we did stop at were  beautiful and surreal. Definitely a place I could hang out at and drink a glass of wine.

We ended our romantic day with an incredible find.  The Stonehedge Garden Restaurant.  I found this online with high recommendations. (go to the website and click on events and you can print a coupon for 10% off) What we experienced far out exceeded our expectations.  The road that leads up is a gravel road, with plenty of potholes, and it's next to a rock quarry.  You kind of think you are not heading anywhere even remotely romantic.  You follow this road to the top where a beautiful home and gardens await.

Walking around before you dine is a must.  The only disappointment in this stop was that it was not warm enough to sit outside, but our waitress took care of us and sat us at the window overlooking the gardens.  Wow!!

The food was amazing.  They offered 4 specials on top of the well rounded menu.  We noticed that there was a signature dessert that needed to be ordered ahead.  We asked and were told it was a must.  Bread pudding without raisins topped with Creme Brulee, topped with a rum sauce that is then lit on fire, brought to your table them topped with a caramel sauce.  Spectacular!!

The day could not have been any better.  It was a leisurely day taking in all Hood River had to offer for the Romantics.

1.  Do some investigative work. If you look through all the hotels in the area you can find some matching descriptions.  The one that set mine off was 100% smoke free.  Look through the list of amenities and you can kind of figure it out.  Need more of an explanation?

2.  Book a package and it will show you what you are booking.

I did number 2 and it was the one I actually booked.  I booked a car/hotel package.  Not only did it show us the hotel, but it was the best price we had found.  Even adding the car it ended up costing us less.

You will need to do some math because it breaks it down per person.  That's fine, it was costing us $71 per person to have the motel with no breakfast and no car.  I got motel, breakfast and a car for $80 a person.  Break that down, for $9 more a person or $36 total, we are getting a rental car for 3 days and breakfast for four for 2 days.  Sweet!!

I looked at rental cars, even through Hotwire and it was cheaper to do the package.

Are you a little curious what we are booking??

We really wanted to do Kingda Ka, but it's so far away.  Our window is so small that we decided staying on the West Coast was our best option.

We decided to hit Six Flags Magic Mountain.  We really do love this park.  Our only hang up is that it's kind of got a lot of gang activity, but they are watching it closely and we won't be there during the night hours. By staying on the West Coast and having such a short flight we will be able to hit the park the day we fly in and the day we fly out.

Before we booked the trip we did what we always do and that is check the school calendar for the school districts in the area.  They all go through the week that we are there.  We might run into some bus loads of kids coming in for end of year, but nothing like it could be.

We just booked our airfare, and we had lots of miles.  Not quite enough to get it all for FREE, but the four of us are flying for $150, not too bad.

I know it's a crazy idea, and it's just days before my surgery, but the kids have really wanted to go.  My daughter has been asking for a vacation this summer and we just were sure if it was possible and today I decided to throw caution to the wind and book it.

Linked to
Thrifty Tuesday
Works for me Wednesday

My hope is to stay at the Columbia River Gorge Hotel  or Bonneville Hot Springs.  Let's see if I can pull this off with a very small price tag.  We have chose this location for 2 reasons. 1) It's only a little over an hour away and 2)I have always wanted to spend some time in Hood River.  It's an up and coming food, wine and beer mecca and I want to experience it, all of it.  Often times the best places for people to vacation are right in your backyard, but we all choose to fly to someplace better.  Well, not this time.

Day 2 – I worked on it a lot yesterday and we finally came up with The Villas at Columbia River Gorge Hotel.  My husband has always wanted to stay there and it does look amazing.  The price for one night was around $250, but we managed to get it for $169 a night.

This is the crazy part, let me share with you how we got this deal.  We found it online at Hotels.com or priceline.com.  Even though we had seen it there we called the Hotel directly and asked about the price.  The guy said yes, he could do that price and he could also upgrade us to a better room, but it didn't stop there he also threw in wine tasting for both of us that evening.

I really thought the days of calling the Hotel to ask for a better price were long gone.  I guess it never hurts to ask, then beg, then plead a little.

I know what you are thinking, $169 is not a budget vacation, but it is our 20th so we do have this splurge.

We are only staying there one night.  We are going to spend the next day in downtown Hood River because there are lots of shops, eateries ( I like to eat), breweries and wineries.  I want to take it all in.  Don't worry, when I get back I will give you all the details of the places to go and things to see.  Plus the place we are looking to stay is a little cheaper, but not much. Hood River must be the place to be.

Hood River also has the Fruit Loop, tons of hiking in the Gorge, and a mecca for wind surfers and kite boarders. Most times we just pass through on the freeway, stopping for lunch or making a day trip nearby for a great hike, but we have never stayed and enjoyed Hood River.

We all know the economy is bad everywhere, but at the same time we can take advantage of this.  I have heard that things in Hawaii are really cheap right now.  I have a shirt tale relative just tell me they booked a place through VRVO.com.  They had used it once before loved it and are now using the service again.

It's worth checking out.  We are taking advantage of the deals, but helping them at the same time since they rely so heavily on Tourism.  It's a Win-Win.

First off we stayed at the Peppermill.  This motel is not on the strip but is a huge casino resort all it's own.  The place was beautiful as were all the rooms and the lounges and the restaurants.  We had gone online and booked a room in the Peppermill Tower.  We wanted something in the Tuscany Tower, but it was much more expensive.  Well on the way down we decided that since 2 of us were having issues and needed lots of rest we should upgrade at least one of the rooms so we had a nice comfortable place to hang out if we needed.  When we got to the motel we pursued that option and found that the upgrade to the Tuscany Towers at the desk was significantly less than what we had found online.  And because we were in the Tuscany Towers we also got a Passport book to use throughout our stay.  It's a book with coupons it, and every time you use a coupon you get a stamp and the stamps equal free money to play at the slots.  The coupons were buy 1 get one free for meals. In the end we saved money on restaurants that we would have eaten at anyways and we earned $80 in free slots.   So the upgrade overall was well worth it.  We were glad we had made that decision and we loved our rooms.

We have had a great experience with Vacations to Go. We have been in contact with them a number of times and they are always courteous and very helpful. Be sure to check them out for your next vacation.

We just found out that our flights have been changed somewhat and we couldn't be happier. This is a great flying tip. We were flying out of San Francisco into Mexico, and after we scheduled that we were told that it often times gets fogged in and you can't get out. Well, they changed it to LAX for some reason, so we are good to go.

Off to find my summer clothes and start to think about what else I might need in that suitcase.

We decided for dinner that we would try a restaurant that I had found online. It's called Red Gables and it's just a few short miles from the park entrance. It was not a chain and the food was amazing. They have a 2 pork chop special, which my husband and I got and split. My daughter got the crab cake dinner. (We are from Oregon and I try those everywhere we go, and those are by far the best crab cakes I have ever had. Lots a crab and just a little breading.) My son got the 4 cheese pasta. Each meal came with salad and 2 sides. Which means we ended up with 3 salads and 6 side dishes. We had so much food. We even ordered scallops (amazing) as an appetizer and the kids had drinks and we had beers with our meal. I know, it's definitely a wine meal, but I was craving a beer. My daughter said it was the best restaurant that she had ever been too. The whole meal cost us $90. We got amazing quality food and we got superb service on which we chose to leave a great tip.

Ok, I know what you are thinking. That was by no means a bargain meal. I agree 100%. But we chose to cut corners in other ways. We had a fridge in our room. We started by bringing cereal that would last us the whole time. So when we got there we bought milk, I had packed spoons and we ate out of the cups in the room. So breakfast was cheap and it's what we all enjoy eating for breakfast. For lunch (because we didn't want more bad expensive food from and around the park) we chose to go to the grocery store and we bought cheese, crackers, fruits, plus we already had nuts, bars and dessert that we had brought along. So everyday we would leave the park go to our room and eat a snack that would hold us until we left for a great dinner.

The second night that we ventured out we went to Lymans Harbor and ate a very good meal there too. It too was not a chain, they pride themselves in their perch, which was great. It is across the harbor from Cedar Point. So again just minutes from the entrance and plenty of places to sit, quick service, good service and out the door feeling great.

The funny thing was both nights we would go back and pass the TGIFridays and there would be a line out the door, people would be grumpy and they would end up paying just about what we paid. Only our experience was pleasant.

The last night we were there we decided to go easy on the budget and we ordered Pizza. The Red Gables has a pizza place next door so we thought we would give it a try. That meal cost us $15. HINT: You can go into the nice side of Red Gables and order a great meal and they will let the kids order a pizza from the other side if nothing on the menu is to their liking. LOVE THIS PLACE!!