Marisa & I had booked, nearly two months ago, a campsite in Yosemite for this weekend. We’d been looking forward to it greatly.
And then this Hantavirus “outbreak” is announced, and gets worse over the weekend – more deaths, more confirmed cases, more suspect areas of the park – and, well shit.
After much consternation, we decided it would be best to just cancel our reservation. Without knowing more, it’s hard to make an informed decision, and it’s unlikely we’ll know substantially more by this weekend.
The gnat in the proverbial ointment was that these campsites are expensive ($111 a night), and their management states that they won’t refund your deposit (first night’s stay) if you cancel. Not if it’s cancelled less than seven days in advance, anyway. “No exceptions.”, they emphasise.
‘course, that riles me the wrong way. So when I rang to cancel, I was expecting a fight. I was thus very surprised when the guy on the phone stated simply that the deposit would be refunded. I didn’t even have to ask. I thanked him, and that was that. Aside from the ten minutes on hold (plus a disconnection by their retarded robot), the call took all of a minute.
So colour me surprised and pleased. Now we’re able to look forward to when all this is resolved, and we can make a new reservation. They’ve earnt some brownie points, by handling this situation respectfully and sensibly. It’s sad that we’re so cynical as to expect anything less; that simply being pleasant and rational is considered extraordinary, but, there it is. The reality of accomodation reservations, both bad and [occasionally] good.
