How did you screw up

Somewhere in the Caribbean we bought a ship tour. Walked out to the designated pole number. My husband told me, everybody lined up at another pole. No, I didn't believe him till somebody called out our tour number. Since then, I listen to him :o

In Hawaii, I somehow managed to book two tours (one through the ship and one privately) for the same day. I didn't realize it until we got back on board from an all day tour and looked at the excursion tickets for the next day - just to realize they weren't for the next day at all. Luckily we were in port for two days and the ship was kind enough to move our booking to the next day. Ooopsy!

I thought we got back a day earlier than we really did. Which became an issue because I had a rental car and a few nights at Disney booked for after the cruise. I was able to reschedule the car and cancel the first night at Disney, but we missed the special event that we were invited to participate in, which was in front of Cinderella's Castle. It was a vow renewal that Disney was doing on Valentine's Day, which just so happened to be my 10th anniversary. I was so bummed :(

We live in Buffalo, NY and for some reason I got it in my head to take four of my kids, then ranging in age from 6-14, on a cruise on Elation out of Galveston. I booked our flights and hotel for a day too early, meaning two days before the cruise. My mom and my aunt decided to come along and they booked their flights from FLL and BUF on the correct day, but 8 hours apart. So I swallowed the fact that I was going to have to pay for hotel and food for an extra day and off we went. I drove the kids from HOU to Galveston the day we arrived. The next day I left them sitting in the hotel room TWICE as I drove all the way back to HOU and picked up my mom, brought her to Galveston, and then drove all the way back to HOU (circling a hundred times at the airport because my aunt didn't have a cell phone) to get my aunt. Ughhhhhh

First cruise in 2008 - Alaska southbound with a 5 day land portion first. Booked 3 different airlines to get from Texas to Alaska. Which of course meant picking up our bags at each airport, then checking them in at the next airline. Only good thing was that I did make sure we had plenty of time between flights so we got everywhere with time to spare. That was a loooong day.

We always book our own flights. And, we find it less expensive, too.

I'm a bigger control freak than DH, and enjoy booking travel arrangements, so I research and book it all. It works for us 99% of the time. And then...

We'd booked UnCruise on what I thought was the Juneau-Ketchikan itinerary, since we'd taken Ketchikan-Juneau 2 years before. I booked flights from home to Seattle with overnights in both directions, on UA. Then I booked our Alaska Air flights- SEA to Sitka and Ketchikan to SEA. I also booked and paid for a ferry from Sitka to Juneau ($79 for the 2 of us).

When the cruise line asked about our flight arrangements and I told them when we'd be arriving in Juneau and leaving Ketchikan, they asked if I realized we were sailing from Ketchikan to Juneau. Oops. :eek: (Yes, I DID have a detailed itinerary months beforehand. I just hadn't read it.) That was about 2 weeks before the cruise. DH, who handled it very calmly, asked if we could just cancel the cruise and book another one. Not two weeks out unless we wanted to lose a lot of $$!

AA (which I'd used to book the Alaska flights) screwed us badly on reticketing; it cost $650 to change our flights to Seattle to Ketchikan, and Juneau to Seattle. No good ferry options from Sitka to Ketchikan on the day we needed it, so I also booked a flight from Sitka to Ketchikan ($350 for the 2 of us). Fortunately the hotel reservation in Juneau was cancellable with no penalty and I was able to get the one we'd used before in Ketchikan.

My biggest fear was that flights might be unavailable, but I'm still steamed at AA (and at myself for making a $1,000 mistake).

I've had a few close calls, where I've printed out the itinerary and realized I had a hotel for the wrong night or some other detail that was fixed easily and for free, but this was my worst.

In case some of you haven't heard of it there is a web site called Tripit . You email them your confirmation letters and within seconds it is on your itinerary. You can view on your computer or there is an app for your phone. It keeps track of all the info... times, confirmation info. you name it. You can edit it if needed. It is really handy. It would have helped with being late with your excursions and such as you can just check your phone... (if you use one)

In case some of you haven't heard of it there is a web site called Tripit . You email them your confirmation letters and within seconds it is on your itinerary. You can view on your computer or there is an app for your phone. It keeps track of all the info... times, confirmation info. you name it. You can edit it if needed. It is really handy. It would have helped with being late with your excursions and such as you can just check your phone... (if you use one)

And when you don't have internet when you're on the ship, that helps how?

And when you don't have internet when you're on the ship, that helps how?

I LOVE Tripit. The itinerary is available on your smartphone app even if you're off-line.

My final check is to print out the Tripit itinerary and review it. Since it downloads automatically from e-mailed confirmations from airlines and chain hotels, there's less chance of my entering wrong information. It includes confirmation numbers, addresses, phone numbers, etc. You can manually enter cruise ports, excursions, bed and breakfasts, etc. This is now my "go-to" document when we travel. I messed up on the Alaska cruise only because I used the info from the cruise line's site for Juneau to Ketchikan (the route I thought we were taking) instead of looking at the actual document they sent us (which correctly showed Ketchikan to Juneau).

Sometimes you can't protect people from themselves. :rolleyes:

My major screw up was staying out to 4:30am and not eating before I went to bed. I'm Hypoglycemic and had a major blood sugar drop the next morning, spent most of the day in bed recovering. I know better, but somehow forgot to eat again, just plain dumb. So I lost a day of my cruise.

After returning from a Southern carib cruise to San Juan. We had a fairly early flight.

Got off the ship Ok caught a cab and got to the airport ok. We then proceeded to check in. Long line. 45 minutes it our turn.

I set our luggage up on the scale and the lady says where is your orange sticker.. I said what sticker, She said the agriculture sticker is required for check in.

The inspection station are at the front doors.

Well by the time we got the sticker and got back in line we missed our flight. We were able to catch a later flight (8 hours later)

Lesson learned, Always get the ag inspection At San Juan airport before doing anything else.

Thought it was weird that hotels.com was reminding me of my pre-cruise hotel in nyc a month early....nope.....somehow I booked the wrong month and had to scramble to get something else...I call it adhd speed reading....your brain sees what it expects to!....lol

Booked our hotel in Italy as soon as we booked our cruise. Later we decided to book our airline tickets and decided we should add an additional day and night in Italy. Forgot all about adding an additional night in Italy until a week prior to the cruise when I got around to the final confirmation and printing all the e-mails on tours, hotel, etc and noticed the hotel date didn't match the date we booked for our driver to pick us up at FCO airport. The hotel booked us, but when we got there they told us they were full and put us in their "overflow" hotel which was horrible. Didn't ruin the trip, but it was a nasty reminder that if you make changes along the way, go back to the original check-list. I had already checked off "Book Hotel" and never looked back. Oh and one year when we drove to the port, in our haste to head home, and with a large family group, we grabbed an additional black piece of luggage just like my Dad's. When we got to their house to drop them off (in the next state), we realized that we had my Dad's bag....and someone else's bag. We had to call Royal Caribbean and tell them what we had done and ship the bag back to them. We felt horrible.