Much needed Easter holiday SAVED!...

After hunting high and low on the internet for some apartment accomodation in Wellington for Easter, I found a 1.5 room apartment through a well known outfit showing it available. Put through a booking request, got acknowledgement and a message that a confirmation would be sent as soon as possible. That was the 3rd of March...

Nothing...

More nothing...

Starting to worry...

So phoned up today, to be told that no apartments available, and that there wouldn't have been any available at the time of the request. Why, I asked, did their website show the apartments available then?

The answer (get this ): the apartments were available for a request, but not available to book.

Sorry???!!! What the heck does that mean?

Gave the person I was speaking to a restrained flea in the ear about their system, and the delay in response, and the fact that now our chances of getting anything else are pretty much nil...the apartment price was really reasonable and we didn't want to stay at a hotel as there were three of us (hubby and I and a friend) and we thought an apartment would be more comfortable with living areas rather than two separate hotel rooms (which was outside the budget anyway).

Absolutely furious, have never had this sort of problem booking over the internet before, and what makes it worse was one of the main reasons we were going down is we really wanted to see the Egyptian exhibition at Te Papa before it finished - and I was down in Wellywood last week and didn't go because I knew (well, at that time!) we were going at Easter.

Waahhhhhhhhh! [V]

How bloody annoying, I'm coming to the conclusion that customer services in generally, particularly over the phone, leaves a lot to be desired!

I can understand you being really p'eed off. But don't give up hope. You could try the Wellington tourist info centre - they might know who has got accommodation available. (Hamiton info centre were really helpful to me when I wanted to get accommodation for the fieldays).

Have a look at this - might do the trick? www.wotif.com/hotel/View?hotel=9239&page=1&viewType=weekends

Are there any fellow LSB'ers down their with some room in their barn? You could take your own tyres to sleep on!

Ah MM, such a sense of humour [:0] we could do that at home!!!!

Looks like the same outfit as we tried to book through has a two bedroom apartment for not too much more, much as I hate to patronise a place with such lousy customer service, needs must...so all might not be lost yet.

Thanks belindah that might be our backup!

Stay in a backpackers. There's a really nice one right in the centre of Wellington. Can't remember the name but it's painted with a zebra stripe pattern.

A

Ummmm...we did stay there a couple of years back and got really ripped off - long story - and won't go back. I used to stay at backpackers all the time but as I've got older I don't sleep as deeply and got highly sick of being woken up throughout the night by slamming doors etc - and wanted a nice relaxing long weekend!

Never mind, we missed out on the other apartment too, so are reassessing the whole holiday, might go somewhere else...

I've also used www.ratestogo.co.nz/ very successfully. You can get really cheap deals on expensive hotel rooms. Hotels use it to sell off rooms that haven't been booked yet so you can only book 20 days ahead (today you can book up to the 5th April so you'll have to wait for a few days before you can try your luck for Easter).

I think that Wellington always has accommodation available over the weekend because so much of its accommodation is for business/government over the working week. So although its Easter you may well find something.

hire or borrow a boat with bunks and anchor off Te Papa?

What about Andrea's great truck/horse float/stock truck/campervan? []

Thanks guys, if it were just hubby and I all those options would be okay, but with a single friend with us who has recently broken up with her boyfriend we are trying to (a) give her some space but (b) not make her feel like a fifth wheel, hence our need for an apartment with shared living areas rather than hotel rooms etc.

Will keep looking...

hmm... what age and how pretty is the single friend? if shes around my age why not ship her off to me I could think of a few things to do together with a pretty single female

*ducks and runs before all the wimmin find the range with whatever they are holding at the moment*

[:0] For shame, Kiwi303! [}]

Don't you know that rebound relationships never work

Maybe Kiwi303 wouldn't complain about the short term "distraction" it might provide!!:D