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Old 12-22-2017, 07:34 AM   #11
Tara O'Hara
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Decisions, Decisions!! Well, sort of!!

Okay, so this part was supposed to come before the last installment! I am posting it to show you guys what I had to go through before I could plan anything!!

Now that we were firmly booked, I could get into my Cruise Planner online. The only problem was, at first, I had to wait to actually book anything because I had literally just gotten my reservation number!

I plugged in the number and the sail date to add to my online reservations and it didn’t work! First, the website told me I was being Tammy and had to wait or the agent to get out of my reservation. I not so patiently waited about 15 minutes and then tried again..........

This time, it came up with a message that my sail date did not match my reservation number! UH OH!!!! I quickly went to my email and checked my copy of the rese cation and, sure enough, it was booked for the next week!!!

I knew exactly what had happened because the agent I spoke with gave me prices for both weeks and Muffin and I were back and forth about which week to choose. The Oasis, like most ships that sail the Caribbean, alternates weekly between the Eastern and Western routes. So when we were deciding which way to go, we wanted to see what the price difference was.

The Eastern Caribbean is still much cheaper than the Western because of the uncertainty of some of its stops, so we briefly considered this route. However, in the long run, we would still save a ton of money either way, so we went with the Western route.

I can easily see with all of the back and forth how this got miscommunicated!! And honestly in the end it was my fault because I was so excited, I only half listened when the agent went over the details of the cruise!

Anyway, I called right back and got a different agent, so I had to explain the whole situation. She could not have been nicer and straightened the reservation out in about ten minutes. It cost 22 bucks more, which was fine with us!!
This time, I waited for the confirmation email to come through and checked it thoroughly. It was just fine so I then went online and plugged my reservation in and it worked!!

Now I could get into my cruise planner and see what was available for dining, entertainment and shore excursions!! The only problem was when I tried to book stuff, it told me I needed to make a payment first! Since I had paid the cruise in full, I had to once again call and check into this matter.

Of course, I again got a different agent. I tried to streamline the story as much as I could and the agent told me that my payment had been processed but wouldn’t show on my reservation until after the close of business. This was fine with me because I needed to take a break from the whole thing anyway!

Muffin and I decided we would check again this evening and see if we could book anything. At least we could see what was available and have an idea of how we wanted to plan things!

In the meantime, Muffin was able to get our flights and hotel stay switched without incident! We are heading down to Orlando on March 3rd and will still be spending the night at the airport Hyatt. We got new transfers to the cruise port for the same price we paid originally and we are set for travel arrangements.

Next: My favorite part of planning!!
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