Getting sorted

On Saturday I rang up the hotel we fancied in Kendal to see if they had an accessible room. They had. They admitted the shower was one over the bath but I was welcome to use the wet room in the fitness part of the hotel for my shower. Personally I think I can manage without a shower for a couple of days. For a couple of days I’m content provided I can get into the hotel & into the bedroom. A longer holiday is a different matter.

Meanwhile the Fox has taken over tying to sort out the Italian holiday, to my relief. He tried tackling Saga to be told to ring back midweek. They could phone the hotel that day. Since then, he read my last blog & has come to the same conclusion as I have. Saga is just giving us the run around. So he’s sent an e-mail direct to the hotel to see if there’s an accessible room available & to book it.

Whilst he was on-line he looked at a few customer reviews of the hotel. On the whole they were very complimentary. The one adverse criticism is “The big mistake is to book through Saga”. It sounds as though other people have had a similar experience to us.

Saga was refusing to organise the flight or transfers anyway. That being so we might as well go fully independent.  We can’t see why they couldn’t organise the flight. For this hotel they only booked flights to Verona from Gatwick. We preferred to go from Manchester as it’s so much nearer & more convenient for us, living in the north of England as we do. Saga does fly from Manchester to Verona for another hotel at that time of year so why couldn’t they book a seat for us, even though we were going to a different one of their hotels? Incomprehensible to me.

As for the transfers, as I can’t get on the average coach - it has to have a ramp/lift/be a low loader for my wheelchair – we always have to organise the transfers unless we’re going with an accessible travel organisation. Our usual solution is to hire the car we want for getting around on holiday from the airport. We did use the airport bus at Nice where it was wonderfully accessible, but that was very much the exception to the rule.

 So now we await the answer from the hotel. I just hope it works out well. I feel a lot happier about the prospects for not having to use Saga.

Meanwhile I’m hoping to enjoy the gloriously sunny, if freezing cold, day ahead & look forward to a couple of stress-free days in Kendal later in the week.