Wow, does this bring back

wonderful memories. Great

interview!

It has been sometime (since the 1990′s) that I have actually been to Virginia Beach, VA.  I had a meeting with a SEO Guru and couldn’t decided whether to leave at 4am drive down the day of, and drive right back. OR…. Leave a day early, stay overnight at a hotel and then come back. The key issue was my budget. I have been on a Financial Fast at my Church, using Michelle Singletary’s Book 21 Days Financial Fast. And I am suppose to be frugal and penny-wise.

Anyways, I really want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for my one day Boot Camp and decided to check and see what it would cost to stay one night.

I went on-line and somehow got an affiliate group that works with Hotels.com. The lady was so nice on the phone. But, I explained that I was on a tight budget but needed to be near – and I gave her the zipcode a certain location.

She then asked the key question, “How much are you willing to pay”?  I cleared my throat and said, “Well, um about 45 bucks.” Waiting to haer her laugh out loud, she instead said “let me see what i can come up with”.

She found this budget Ramada hotel – right across from the water for $36.  I said, “Your kidding, right”. My suspicious nature got the best of me and I calmly asked, “Are you sure I won’t get down there and then find out it $90 or somthing like that?”   She reassured me, took my credit card and gave me a confirmation email and number. The customer service person also told me I would have a refrigerator, microwave and coffeemaker too. Oh and also breakfast!

Wow, I hit the mother-load today.  Cool beans, yea I said it “cool beans”. So I hopped in my 2001 Pontiac Aztec, drove about the anti-nuclear demonstrations in DC that day, and went to Virginia Beach.

I have always enjoyed traveling via car. As a outside sales representative, worked and traveled via my car for many years. I love it. Using my GPS on my HTC2 touch phone (my 4th phone, another story, another time) got down to the water, found the hotel and met “Dre” at the front desk around 6pm. I liked Dre, young man, very pleasant and accommodating.  Everything was as I had been told. There was a minor hitch with my credit card. It seems that the Hotel.com IT server does not transmitt to the Ramada accuratetly. So what they did is just re-do the reservation. No problems, everything went smoothly. Then after going to my room, I mentioned to Dre that I hoped to take a few pictures while down here. Then he said – if you can get up around 6:20am – and go out on the balcony – they sunrise is gorgeous. And so I got a wakeup call for 6:15am – and here are my shots from my room’s balcony:

Ok – so I am going to check the Stratosphere Hotel first, they always seem to have good prices, the only problem is that they are so far down the strip. But they are walking distance to the convention center. The only inexpensive Hotel is the Imperial – it is centrally location and the “noisiest & loudest” hotel environment. Just make sure our room is not on the same floor as the Marque. But I am going off topic.

First I went to “Google” and did a search for

Stratosphere promotional discount codes 2010

This is the screenshot of what came up:

Here are the room rates, it starts off real good with a 30% discount :

$69.99 (30%off)=$48.29 (wed),  $164.99 (30% off) $113.84 (thursday)

$294.99 (30%off) =$203.54 (OUCH!),  $119.99 (30% off)  $82.79. Total with the 30% discount is $448.46 for 5days 4 Nights. Which is actually not bad at all. But I have a budget and most keep lookin.

Call one of my old haunts – TripRes.com - I use to use them when I travelled to Las Vegas. They had a great website that list all the deals. And what is different from them, than making a reservation directly at the hotel is you pay for the stay all at one time. With Hotels, you reserve and pay them at the hotel.

I would prefer to stay at a location where I can cook my own food, since I am watching my eating. And the customer service person recommended this hotel

]]> http://www.deenicegoestospain.com/deenice-goes-to-las-vegas-the-search-of-discount-airfares-begins/feed 0 http://www.deenicegoestospain.com/deenice-goes-to-las-vegas http://www.deenicegoestospain.com/deenice-goes-to-las-vegas#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:42:36 +0000 admin http://www.deenicegoestospain.com/?p=335

Click Here for My Las Vegas Updates 2012

Post from January 2, 2010

Nothing like planning a trip last minute. But I wasn’t sure I could go until now. So the best strategy I have today is to find a flight for 200 bucks and then see if there are hostels, yea I am trying that again, on the Las Vegas Strip that are reasonably priced. And I should be good to go. I put a call out to one of my tech ladies list serves to see if anyone is interested in sharing a room. But if not the hostel will work fine. I have missed the Computer Electronic Show the last 2 years and don’t want to miss it this year again.

There is a blog  called Hole In The Donut Travel that caters to my last-minute wooes. She has great tips of tavel. So I will be going thru it today to see what deals I might be able to get. Who Knows!

So Here I Go Again! – DeeniceGoesToLasVegas.com!

Update - Unfortunately,  did not get to go in 2010, BUT I did go in 2012

I did give it the ole college try. I made an unsuccessful attempt to change my flight to go to Amsterdam a day earlier. Scott, the Aussie whom I met this past week at the Pueblo Ingles immersion program. Gave me great tips of what to do in Holland. I got sooo excited that I couln´t wait. Then the chore came of making the revisions on my ticket. Oh No Not That!. Well, if you are a newbie and even a veteran – it aint that easy…

It was confusing enough  when Delta, KLM and Northwest were co-mingling together as far as booking flights. But  here is what happened:

• Called KLM yesterday and they told me because my flight was booked on Delta, they could not access my flight. This is even thought Delta, KLM and Northwest all work together. wierd
• KLM gave me 2 flights that leave today and told me to call Delta for the particulars and change
• Front Desk athe hotel I am staying at gave me Delta number in in Madrid. I also went on line and got a direct 404 number. this is because I could not use my intl calling card with a 800 number.
• Call a couple of B&B places in Amsterdam and had them at the ready to book as soon as I got the flight changes.
• Decided I would be willing to pay about $100 to transfer my flight a day but not more than that.
• On phone 3 times today with Delta – they would charge me $250 to change the flight by one day
• Delta would then charge me for the new flight up to $250.
• If they booked me on Iberia,  it would cause my ticket back to the states to cancel.

So, it just was way too much dough. But I had to try and see what the experience would be. A least I can share this with orther travel maidens so they won´t have to go thru the same trouble i had to .

So what now you ask -hittin the streets of Madrid, going to try and go to the Prada Museum today.

Will let you know what happens later.

adios

Have been on the phone last night with KLM/Northwest even though I made my reservsations in the US with Delta, the actual flight from Madrid to Amsterdam tomororw is thru KLM/Northwest. However, since Delta made the reservastion for me, the KLM/Northwest her in Spain could not get into the system to see if I could change my ticket.

I would like to go to Amsterdam a day earlier and stay over night. Otherwise I owuld like a 14 hour layover from 11:30 pm to 1:30 pm the next day. And would be sleeping at the airport. That´s no fun.  I attempted to call Delta last night, but only have a 800 number. Hmmm, can´t use an 800 number on my International Card. So went to sleep, last night and got up this morning and got on the internet for Delta. They have an on line chat line, and the customer service chat person for Delta gave me the following number:  404-765-5000, also the local Spain number 900-808-743. OK now we have something.  I am concerned how much it will cost me to change this ticket. If it is over 100 euros, I probably won´t do it. But then again, you only live once.

It´s 12:09 10/24/09 let´s see what happens. Thank you, Thank you very much! (Richie saying, will explain later)

You can imagine my surprise when I jumped  on the Hotel Europa internet service. And Up pops Google in all Spanish.

Tip:

• When traveling abroad – remember that the keyboards and websites will NOT necessarily be in English. So have a small translation dictionary handy.
• Certain symbols are access differently. As an example, I am at a hotel in Madrid, Spain. The keyboard I am typing on is a Logitech keyboard. Problem occurred when I tried to type the @ sign(which you need when typing your email name etc). It does not work with the shift key and the number 2. On the lower right-hand side of the keyboard there is an ALT key with the letters ¨Gr¨ use this key for the ¨@¨ sign.  On this particular board the ¨/ ¨ mark is on the number key panel. Some keys you will automatically remember. But my brief and new experience is to expect small surprises.

My First meet Up when I arrive in Spain

Today finally came, had car pick me up this morning. Decided to take my netbook (HP, of course) with me because I really didn´t feel like dragging the larger laptop all over the place.  And also, I can easily carry it in my purse, for better ease of use, and least likely to be stolen.

Met my travelling buddy – Denise W. at the airport in Atlanta, GA and then we were off.  Denise recently had major surgery on her ankle and is on crutches. But that does not slow her down one bit.

Denise and Malc

Here is a picuture of Denise W. and Malc. Today was a very busy day. We had to get acclumated to the new surroundings.  Here are a couple tips for Newbie travelers that might save you some frustrations on your first journey.

1. Make Sure you know all cost concerning using you cellphone, not just calls but the internet, GPS, text messaging. they can cost a lot. My service is with Sprin, the simply everything plan. However that does not work in other counties.  Will be speaking with Sprint customer service this evening to find out what the costs will be. In the meantime I purchased 700 minutes for 5 euros and used the hotel phone to call Mom, and Sprint.

2.Even after you call your bank to let them know you will be using your ATM card out of the country. Call them again to make sure they made the transfer. Denise W. had a surprise today when she went to get her Euros from an ATM machine and it was declined. She has contacted her bank several days ago and request the use of the card in Spain. It was not a pretty sight. So this afternoon she had to call them on her dime, (many dimes). The time involved took 30 minutes call from Madrid, Spain to her bank in the US. They finally got it right. But it was a stressful and scary situation. BTW her cell phone charges 1 buck per minute.

3. All phone cards are not alike. We purchased a phone card early in the day, however, it did not work. So we took them back and got our 5 euros back. I found a convenience outdoor stand near the hotel and bought another card…5 euros again. Thank God this one work. So I called my Mom (alias Mommy) then called Sprint. I just recently got a HTC2 phone so needed some help.

The weather today was about 78-80 degrees in the daytime, but dropped a lot at night. Tomorrow, we have to get up and go to Soria to start the program.

Adios, talk to you tomorrow!

Just spoke with Denise, and her G1 phone on T-Mobile told her to deactivate the internet after crossing overseas. Otherwise, she would be hit will a huge $$ internet bill.

I’m getting excited. Called my nomad guru Rita Golden Gelman yesterday to share my enthusiasm. She said, if you start feeling a little anxious about your first trip it is very normal. That made me feel good.

KNOW Airline fees:

I will tell you what is not normal – the airport baggage fees. I called Delta tonight just to double check the rules. Here goes:

The First bag is free up to 50 pounds. If the first bag weighs 51 – 70 pounds you pay $150 for that bag going, and another $150 coming back. (geez wiz) If your first bag is under 50 pounds, the second bag is $50 up to 50 pounds.  You can bring one overhead bag (weight 40 pounds max) and a ladies purse.

As Tim Gunn on Project Runway says, ‘Make it Work!”