So, we now know the date for daughter Karlyn’s graduation.
It’s Wednesday, June 17th. Evelyn and I had reservations to go camping from Sunday the 14th thru Thursday, the 18th.
OK, so we’ll just shorten our stay by one night. No problem, right?
Wrong.
I called the campground directly this morning to see if I could cut a day off of our stay. The campground doesn’t handle reservations. They use ReserveAmerica for that purpose. The pleasant lady gave me their phone number. I called.
As with every other business enterprise in existence, all of their representatives were busy (I’ll never understand why, when a company knows they’re going to have a certain level of traffic, they don’t hire enough people to handle it in a reasonable fashion). My call would be “answered in the order it was received.” After two more “all of our representatives are currently assisting other customers” announcements and who knows how many suggestions that I get the heck off the phone altogether and use their website, they started informing me of how many people were ahead of me. (Four.)
With the phone on speaker I chose to use my time wisely and check email. Apparently those four customers had seriously detailed issues to discuss, because it was ten or fifteen minutes later before there were THREE customers ahead of me.
Nearly 40 minutes (and several checked emails) later, there was only one person ahead of me. Hooray and hallelujah. The problem now was that I really needed to visit the bathroom, so I took the phone to Evelyn so I didn’t miss my place in line. As soon as she took the phone from me, the music stopped. I looked at it only to discover that the battery had died!! AAAaaarrgghhh!!!
OK, maybe requesting reservation detail changes could be done easier online. I signed on to ReserveAmerica’s website (after having to create a new password, since mine, it seems, expired), found the “Change” link and clicked it. What I’m about to tell you is absolutely true, I swear. Apparently you can change the type of camper you’ll be bringing, the number of people expected, etc., but there is NOWHERE TO CHANGE THE DATE OF YOUR RESERVATION!! I clicked this. I clicked that. Nothing.
It’s times like this that I yearn for the days when you could call your destination directly, talk to the person at the desk, and have them fill out a new form for you. When campgrounds outsource their processes, the whole thing becomes incredibly complicated.
I’m back on the phone. Thirty minutes have passed. They’ve just started telling me how many people are ahead of me (four). I’m watching the battery charge icon and the time. Now that it’s gotten to 30 minutes, I’m switching the phones out.
If I ever succeed in making this reservation change, I’ll NEED time away to settle down again.