I’m a planner and it’s typically hard for me to break out of that mindset when on a “spur of the moment” type trip … so in my infinite wisdom, I thought it best to not book a hotel room until we were close to New Orleans. We basically sat outside of the restaurant where we had dinner and looked up a few places online.
Well … you know how when you google a hotel you’re given that option on the right where you have the option to look for prices at the chain’s website or at a third party site – I accidentally booked the wrong night, but didn’t realize that I had made this mistake until we had driven an hour from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, dropped the car with valet AND carted our stuff up two flights to the receptionist’s desk. The lady how attended us looked at me like I was crazy … “um, you’re reservation isn’t until Jan 10th and we’re actually all booked up for tonight – there’s a football game tomorrow.”
All was not lost! Instead of giving me a hard time about this reservation SNAFU, the overnight clerk worked with me. She called over to a Hilton that was just around the corner which thankfully had three rooms left for the night (it’s 12:40 am at this point). They moved the reservation to the Hilton New Orleans St. Charles and got us sorted with a better room at the same (super cheap) rate that I had for my Jan 10th reservation. I guess it really does pay to be a Hilton Rewards Gold member.
After a great night’s sleep and a late rise, we headed up to the lounge for a cup of coffee and a bit of a chat – calling various family members to relay our interesting evening and see how they had fared after the holiday. After about an hour and two cups of coffee, we left our comfy retreat and headed out to Cafe Fleur De Lis for brunch and a little bit of planning. 😉
