Oh wait. Now I remember. I don't think it ever is.
There is a saying - which I can't recall at the moment - something similar to 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder', but different. I apparently knew the saying at one time because I remember once, after we'd returned from one of our vacations, a friend asked how our trip had been. I told her to give me a couple weeks of distance from it and ask me again.
After which time, the trip had been great. Seems this same theory applies to trip planning. A few days ago I was so excited about trip planning I couldn't go to sleep at night. I stayed on my computer for hours, days, researching information.
At the time, my point was a general search of hotels and attractions and such to be able to draw up a idea of what the trip might cost. So, not extremely in depth.
With the decision to proceed made, now we get down to the serious stuff. I start with finding the hotel room.
If we're going someplace where the attractions are scattered out, or something we'd have to drive to anyway, then I'll pick a hotel on the outskirts of town, or maybe even on into a nearby town to get more value for my money. You can find nice hotels for less cost a little further away from the attractions.
On the other hand, if the place we're going is the attraction, for instance Niagara Falls, then I consider the hotel room as part of the attraction.
Why would you make the trip to Niagara Falls and not stay in a fallsview room? That would be like going to Las Vegas and not staying in one of the famous casino/hotels.
Which is what triggered my memory in regards to the trip planning not being as fun as I'd thought.
We went to Vegas in April 2007. I already had in mind that we'd want to stay at the Excalibur hotel/casino on account of the boys liking all the Midevil stuff. But I never stay anywhere without having first checked the reviews out at Hotels.com, so I looked it up, and, although there were good reviews, for some reason the bad ones stayed with me more.
At any rate, I was scared that we were going to end up spending our week in a shoddy, old, out dated, smoke-stinking room. I still wanted us to stay there, for the boys, but in order to lessen the what I was afraid would be the horror of it, only booked us there for a couple of nights, and then the remainder of our time in Vegas at the Treasure Island.
Turned out our room at Excalibur was gorgeous. It was large, and clean, with a big flat screen tv, large closet, big spa-like bathroom. We had a wonderful view of the New York New York and MGM across the streets. We loved it, and could have easily spent the whole week there without complaint.
But now, I am right back there again. In researching the hotel in Niagara Falls, I compared the options, and settled on the Embassy Suites Fallsview Hotel. The place looks great, the rooms have 2 queen beds and a sleeper sofa in the sitting room, which my boys like because they don't like to share a bed, and free breakfast.
Then I started reading reviews. Now I'm not an overly picky person, and I can generally overlook some complaints that were posted by obviously overly picky, critical people. But some issues kept coming up over and over again, and some of the things the people weren't complaining about but just mentioning that didn't seem to bother them, but I think would bother me. Or even if it was something I could deal with, I'm afraid my sister and/or her husband might be upset or aggrivated.
So now I'm second-guessing my first choice. Checking out other hotels, or considering spending part of the week at the Embassy, and the rest somewhere else.
Then I remember Vegas and tell myself I'm just doing that same thing again, and I'm sure the hotel will be fine.
But then again, what if I'm wrong?
Go here to view my Las Vegas/Hoover Dam/Grand Canyon vacation Photo Album.
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