Remember me telling you about my love for my travel agent Rory??...When I first met him he commented on "What an easy customer I was"...... How wrong he was! I think I was probably agreeing to anything he said because of his smoldering good looks, but now I think I have turned into a nightmare.....You know the one..... The indecisive first time traveller with a stressed out mother! Oops! I feel the love affair could be over.... When I first went to STA Travel in February I had a female travel agent who was Japanese, a lovely lady but I couldn't understand her, so the second time I went in I took a friend and we saw "My Rory" He kept telling me the other travel agent "Would be free soon" but I asked if I could stay with him...He was a bit uncomfortable about stealing his work mates commission but eventually agreed.
At first I wanted to go to Oz, New Zealand, South America, and Africa. I had him on the phone to all these different overland tours and he happily booked me on them. The third time I went in I took my mother who was stressing out, seen as though she has never left the country and is convinced I am going to be murdered. She bombarded to poor guy with millions of questions...Eventually he explained what "local charges" were and it blew my budget so I had to cancel the South America section.....More messing for him, cancelling tours, working out new prices and changing my flight from Rio de Janerio to Auckland. (I was becoming a pain)
The fourth time I went in my mum had to come because she had a massive credit limit on her credit card and although I had the money in the bank I wanted security of payment on a credit card. Again she asked lots of questions.... all the while I kept elbowing her and muttering "Just give him the card!" Until eventually she handed it over......
Everyone was happy until I read in one of my hundreds of travel books under the heading "When not to go" and I quote "March: Rains soak your safari and make roads im
passable" Not the best when you are in a truck on an overland tour! So yesterday I plucked up the courage to email him (because I was to chicken to speak to him directly) and told him that I wanted to change my tours, outbound dates and pretty much everything again! The poor guy... I'm sure he will end up putting me on that plane himself just to be sure that I have actually left the country!
oo! a safari sounds cool. i hate finding out new info that changes everything! don't worry, it's his job to make you happy!
ReplyDeleteps hello! :)
Hello! Glad you lke my blog!
ReplyDeleteApparently he is not back at work till wednesday, the poor guy doesn't know what awaits him....me! (and my mum) lol!
Everyone keeps saying he is there to make me happy....he should be after all the money I have spent! HeHe!
I am also jealous of the safari!
ReplyDeleteOverland tours are good only if it is difficult to do yourself ie safari, Macchu Picchu, Borneo -other than that you can save SOOOOOOOOOOOO (add another 1000 O's ) much money by doing it without em! (I speak from experience)
As for the laptop question - if its inexpensive and you can afford to lose it (ie: under 500 bucks) I say bring it. If not, borrow or steal 300 and buy one of those tiny ones. You cannot blog without one unless you wanna spend all day in internet cafes....also makes photos a breeze. Just back everything up on dvds and keep them in your pack....
Hope that helps!
PS - eff the books! They never know what they are talking about....:D
hehe! Very true about the books they just stress me out! Thanks for the tips by the way, lap top it is then! Enjoy your travels ;-)
ReplyDeleteWell big sis, I'm glad you like it! ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe travel agent really should have advised you before booking about the weather and the optimal route to take in order to avoid the worst of it. I'm about to set off on a similar trip myself, and have waited until August rather than June to head to Africa so that I avoid the worst of the rains.
ReplyDelete