Jan, Mike and I went to St Jacobs last Thursday and Friday. Our plan was to arrive for around noon Thursday and go to the farmer’s market and then the little outlet mall. Unfortunately we hit a pretty big glitch when we parked at the hotel and went in to get our parking pass. The garçon at the desk said that we booked four rooms. I said I booked two as there were three of us. He said I booked two and then two more a few days ago. I said that I only logged into my account and had my reservation info emailed to me again. I showed him my reservation email which had two rooms and three people. He said it didn’t matter what the email showed because his system showed four rooms and that’s what I’d be charged for. I said I was going to cancel my credit card then and he said it didn’t matter because he already put all four rooms through and he already had the money. Seriously??? We argued for about ten minutes and he said I would have to call their head quarters. He wrote down their number and handed it to me. On the back of the paper, there was another guest’s name, address, email and account number. Lovely. I phoned and she said that the system shows the two rooms I booked plus the hotel put a third room on my card. She asked to speak with the person I was dealing with and he refused to speak with her. She ended up phoning him and spoke to him for over half an hour. Once back on the phone with her, she said this case has been escalated to the highest level possible and she would ensure those extra charges wouldn’t be on my card. She also said the person I was dealing with directly was extremely unprofessional and was very against me not paying for all four rooms. Wow. I did not expect this at all. I’ve been going to this hotel for years now and never had an issue. The whole process took around two hours. We ended up wandering around the market for a couple hours, then drove into town to have dinner at the Stone Crock. As usual, the food was delicious and we left with very full bellies. We walked off a bit of it when we strolled around the outlet mall. A couple of the stores we typically peruse were closed down, which was a little disappointing. We still had a great time though as we were all quite full of energy and rather giddy. One really neat thing is that my little mother had never touched a horse before, despite having a great love for them. Well, first time for everything:
It was so nice to see!!!! They were so gentle and docile towards us. It was a great moment!
After a good night’s sleep, we had brekkie then drove into town. We hit almost all the stores, which are considerably less in number than just ten years ago. To be honest, it’s a bit disappointing. So many of the shops we loved are gone and many of the ones there have the same things as the one a couple doors down. Again though, we still had a great time and it was a wonderful trip. We’ll just take the hotel incident as a learning experience and not let it mar the memories of the trip.
I worked at the Hamilton office today to help out with the Wellness Fair they have every couple years. We have ours in St. Catharines the opposite years. It’s a nice break on one’s lunch to come see about the various resources and service in the region. I met so many great people and gathered a fair bit of info from the many “vendors”. They had a bit of a super hero theme going and I got to meet Batman and Spidie:
I met two very nice ladies who were promoting the registered charities we could donate to through payroll deductions. One of them was the MS Society. I let her know that I enjoy giving my motivational and entertaining presentation to any type of group that wants to learn a bit about MS, depression, adapting to or overcoming life’s obstacles and living life to the absolute fullest. She said they often need guest speakers so I’m hoping to hear from her in the future. While chatting with her, she made me this awesome bracelet:
Love it! And of course, it’s orange to match my plane.
Today’s symptoms: After three rather cruddy nights, last night was decent. I felt okish today. My pain pills really helped. Lots of nerve pain today. It seems to be getting worse in my right side, both area-wise and intensity. I see the neurologist in London again in a couple weeks, so I’ll mention these symptoms to her. It’s certainly starting to look like an MS flare-up.
Lizzy McFly 