a morphing reservation, where is Chatty Kathy, & damage control

This is the Facebook page where the link to
 the block of rooms is shared.  I am not a big
Facebook user.  Now that I was looking for
some exciting visual to go with this post, I see
 posts from people back in My who decided to
 go to the competition months after the block of
rooms had been opened.  Sometimes dancers
qualify late in the game.  That makes my head spin.
  Anyway, people were writing in on the Facebook
 page saying there was a shortage of rooms.  They
 kept opening extra blocks of rooms, but then those
 filled.  I am so glad I did not see this when I was
 in my damage control mode.  I would have panicked.
  Well, I guess I kind of did and where
 we ended up is evidence of that. 

Vancouver was approaching.  Quickly.  Coach ended up pouring over the tourism books I checked out of the library selecting touristy things to do.  There were notes, a spreadsheet, input from his patients who had been there, etc.  

About 3 weeks before we flew to Canada, I finally called the hotel to scale back the dates of the 2nd room.  In Coach’s research, he surmised that staying downtown made the most sense.  The hotel was about $141 a night within the block.  We had adjoining rooms from the 1st till the 10th, or did we?  

I called the hotel to adjust the dates for the second room since Coach arrived the 4th not the 1st.  The girls and I would manage the Irish dancing tasks best if we could do so minus the boy contingent.  Dancing on the 3rd, boys arriving on the 4th- ready to tour, or eat, or sometimes both.  

More exciting pics:  the link to our hotel.  I was
going to post a photo of our reservation
 confirmation.  That would have been super
 simple to refer to from time to time, instead of
blindly calling up and saying:  'Yo, we are
 good to stay till the 10th, right?'  Anyway my
 reservation confirmation is just not colorful
 and my name and credit card info is kind
of on there, so you are stuck with this.

Imagine my surprise when the hotel man told me that our reservation ended on the 7th, NOT THE 10TH.  Oh.  Shit.  

Well, this is pretty!  This is a glimpse into my
day to day to do list.  And now you understand
why I mess things up sometimes.  The star and
arrow point to the simple word 'Vancouver' from
May 21st.  I was still reminding myself to look into
 other rooms, but I think it started to get lost in
 translation and I no longer knew what to do about
Vancouver.  The other underlined area is the
 name Luigi.  As in - crook of a contractor that
we are contemplating taking to court.  Any lawyers
 out there want to offer some legal advice?

Our flights, booked weeks after our hotel, were as follows:  girls July 1st-10th, boys July 4th -10th.  Somewhere in that relaxing time after I booked rooms and we finalized flights, our hotel dates morphed in my mind to match our flights.  That was just not the case.  The flight dilemma I will not share because it was a demonstration in frustration as we searched for an affordable flight in a sea of no freaking affordable options.  

My to-do list reminded me to research a different hotel, but Coach said 'let's stay there', and I lost my focus.  My fault.  Damage control kicked in.  

First I begged the hotel dude to give me an extension to my existing reservation.  Where was Chatty Kathy hotel lady who-wanted-my-life-story when I needed her?  The guy apologized, but the block of rooms was closed and the best he could do was offer me rooms at the regular rate:  $415/night.  That was for one room and we needed two.  Ouch.  I glowered and hung up.

Now we had to come up with a plan B.  Quickly!