Saturday, November 28, 2009

hotels

Anyone with 3 or more children knows the drill...
You don't tell them how many children you have unless they ask...
When they ask, you answer as vaguely as possible - "oh, a few... but one is just a teeny tiny baby..."
When pressed, you mumble & hope they hear a lower number...

When they tell you they can't accommodate your family, you say, "Thanks anyway!" & hang up.
If you get to the hotel & they haven't asked, your husband takes 2 children in when he checks in. You stay in the car with the remainder. He'll drop off a couple & you send a couple a few minutes later... in shifts, without making eye contact with anyone at the front desk, you sneak walk up to your room & make everyone get on their swimsuits & head down to the pool so you're not packed like sardines for one minute longer than necessary.
i was reminded, reading McMama's recent posts, how hard it is for us to ever get a hotel room (unless we get 2 - & my littles are just now getting to an age where i would contemplate that... even though the potential cost makes me cringe).
Recently, we had a very different experience.

We *rarely* ever stay in hotel rooms... or do any "holiday-ing" that doesn't involve mooching off of our parents... hey, our parents live in 2 of the nicest places in Canada, so we have to take them up on their awesome hospitality... i'd love to see what their food budgets explode to after a week having us at their house, but i digress...

This last time we were at my parent's house, Neil announced to me one day that if i wanted to, we could leave a day early & cut up our drive home, stopping at some "hot pools" in Crazy Creek. i jumped at the chance. He made me phone to make a reservation... (chicken)

i looked at what they could accommodate & prayed their largest suite would be available.

It wasn't...

i booked the biggest one they had available, & held my breath...

"Ok, & that was for how many?"
"Myself, my husband & our children..."
"Yes, how many total?"

"five... & then the baby..."
"SIX?"

"yes..."

"Six total, including the 2 adults?"
"um.. no, six children and 2 adults... but they're really good & quite small for their ages...."

yeh... i was desperate....

"That'll be no problem. i bet you'll be travelling & not have sleeping bags, we'll make sure to add some foamies & sleeping bags in your room when you arrive... we don't normally do that, but i think we can make an exception... "

i choked.

"Wow, thank you so much!"

Turns out the lady taking our reservation came from a family with 5 kids & thought she had the best childhood evahhh... Who knew?

When we got there, it was empty - we had the hot pools all to ourselves. The kids had a blast - we slept like logs & left the suite spotless when we left.

Sometimes, you get surprises... & every so often, they're pleasant.










Unlike regular pools, here, the little pool was FREEZING & the big pools were warm. i love how Sloanie tricks the other girls into jumping. Hilarious. The second one is Molls who is swimming like a little fishy now :)


7 comments:

mamalena said...

Wow...can you put your camera under water? looks like you had lots of fun.

BTW....we LOVE having you come....and we are RICH...so groceries mean nothing to us...haha. It's nice that we have an excuse once in a while to buy Chocolate cocoa puffs *for Neil*...haha. Come often and stay as long as you can! Going to Grandparen'ts house is just "THE RIGHT THING TO DO" at this stage of your family, but it IS fun to have a little "just us" outing too isn't it?

Lisa said...

Oh that's so awesome! Sometimes people surprise us :) But ya, I totally know what you mean about going to hotels. Its really annoying!

Cute pics and videos :)

Lori-Dawn said...

I LOVE it!!! And I sooo agree with your mom, at this stage in life, holidays are just automatically spent with family!! cousins and grandparents! However, it IS fun to do the hotel thing every now and then with the kids! We haven't yet...lol but I'm sure we will SOMEtime...hehe
I LOVED the video of the kids! Looked like you all had a blast! Where was that at??? Looks like a place we'd enjoy!

Jen said...

I will have to remember this post in 10 years when I'm booking hotels :)
We went to the Crazy Creek Falls last year but not the hop pools - looks fun!

jessica jespersen said...

looks like fun p!!--j

Melissa said...

What a totally awesome lady at the hotel, to do that for you! You should give everyone the name of the place you stayed, along with her personal phone number... ha ha!

I loved the videos. That first one with Sloanie tricking the other girls... LOL! I'm still chuckling.

:)

Lesley said...

In Europe it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a room if you have more than 2 kids. The rule is 2 adults, 2 kids. Any more and you must get 2 rooms. Hostels and hotels with 'family rooms' are the way to go for sure! My friends has twins and was once refused a room on the basis that the hotel had a 1 cot per room rule. She offered to have them both in 1 cot (they were tiny) and the manager said that there was a 1 baby per cot rule too! They ended up paying for 2 rooms but staying all in one. What a waste! Lx

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