Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Wordless Wednesday - Lazy River

Photo
Kira was just about to fall asleep when Haley snapped this pic of us. She loved going down the lazy river unless she was splashed by someone lol.


Coco Keys DISASTER!

I started work this past Monday and before I started I wanted to take the kids on a quick trip for two reason, one I knew after I started I would have neither the time or the energy and two school will be starting in 13 days. Time was running out and last weekend was the time. I planned, and shopped and booked a two night stay at the indoor water park Coco Keys inside the Holiday Inn Convention Center. The rooms only came with 4 tickets a day so I found some coupon codes and bought another 9 tickets for the three days at the water park that we needed. Ordered them online, printed them out and we were good to go! Or so I thought.

We left home about 10am and got to the hotel around noon-had to make a pit stop at wally-world to buy swim dipes as I only had three left and I KNEW we'd need more than that. I was told on the phone that we couldn't check in until 3pm so I fully expected that we wouldn't be able to unload the car until after we played in the water park for a few hours. When we went to get our bracelets they actually checked us in early so we didn't have unload everything while we were a bunch of drowned rats and tired from all the play-or in my case lugging around a 28lb baby all day lol!

When I made the reservations I was assured that there would be two double beds and a pull out couch for us, along w/the pack-n-play it would have been plenty of spots for the kids and I to sleep. Toby had to work all weekend so he was going to come up to Omaha after each day and eat dinner w/us and play in the water after. We also have the dog to take care of and my hubby being one who does not appreciate neither confined space with lots of people or items used by other people such as pillows, beds, towels etc it worked out great for him lol.

So we get up to the room which seemed like a mile from the water park w/all the twisty hotel hallways and find there are only two double beds and a desk, no couch. I call the desk and they offer to bring up a roll away which made things crowded for the two that would have to share that. Strike ONE Coco Keys!

We played in the park until Toby got off work at 7pm. He still had some things to do so we ended up having dinner w/o him that evening. We went and had buffet dinner in the hotel and it was fantastic! They had prime rib along w/any other fav food except Mexican, they had crab rangoon, mini egg rolls, chicken tenders, pasta, macaroni and potato salad and much more. The only bad part was the $18.75 price PER plate. They did have a deal that four kids 12 and under ate for free w/each adult served. So I ended up only paying for Haley and I, not too bad. Toby didn't get to the hotel until 9pm so it was too late to enjoy the park but we did get to swim in the regular hotel pool for an hour before that closed. Since he got there so late, Toby decided to stay the night which surprised me, but I went with it. Wasn't a great night for me as Jake and Toby took up the bed and I ended up on the edge of the bed squished up against the pack-n-play.

The next morning we got up Toby headed out to take care of the dog and check on his jobs but was able to be back my 11am so the kids only missed an hour in the park BUT got to hang out with their dad. They all had a blast, Kira loved the lazy river and ended up falling asleep in my lap every time we went on it. Loryn, Kaly, Paige and Haley loved the slides that required climbing up 4 stories of stairs while carrying a heavy double inner tube or single tube. I was not a fan of the stairs or lugging the tube but didn't find out about that until Sunday :). Jake liked the lazy river and crossing the pool on some floating lilly pad things. He got good by the end of his stay!

That night Jake decided to leave with Toby because he didn't sleep well either. That made me sad and very upset with the hotel, if they had given us what the promised we would have had more room and I know he would have stayed and enjoyed himself. STRIKE TWO Coco Keys!

The girls and I decided to go back to the buffet for dinner while Toby and Jake ate at a restaurant somewhere between Omaha and home. They had a much needed boy's night. When we got to the buffet the prime rib they served me was so rare it was bleeding, BLEEDING! So gross. I chose not to complain though because they ended up only charging me for my plate and not Haley's that night. I really couldn't beat spending $25 w/tip to feed us all a sit down, non fast food dinner.

That night Kira was so exhausted she couldn't unwind, she screamed for over an hour that night before she fell asleep and then for 2 hours from about 3am to 5am. To say that I was tired was an understatement. That morning Toby called to say that Jake didn't want to come back, so he ran around w/Toby and they both went home and cleaned the house and did laundry! My husband last did laundry two years ago and when he did it was only his work clothes, so this was HUGE!

We packed up all our stuff and loaded it back in the car and was able to get a nice shady spot to park, with everyone checking out we had plenty to choose from. We then checked out of the room and headed over to the park. I told the girls that we would stay until we got hungry for lunch and then we'd leave and pick up something on the way home. I was more than ready to leave at noon but the girls hung in until 2pm. I know they had to have been starving but were having so much fun they stuck it out. I could have curled up and went to sleep, after 7 hours of sleep in 2 days and then climbing them stairs 8 times to ride the tube slides w/both Loryn and Kaly in turn. Sleep is all I wanted to do.

We got home around 3:30pm and since I had to work the next day I finished unpacking and worked on the mountain of laundry that we brought home.

Fast forward to Monday when I check our bank account and see that I have $112 in bank fees. That account is used ONLY for household items and was the account used for the trip. I knew down to the penny what was in there and what was spent and there is no way I went over. Turns out Coco Keys double billed me for the E-tickets. No problem I will just call Coco Keys and get it taken care of. Three days and three calls with messages left and NO CALLS back. I was ticked off!

I call Wednesday evening after work and speak with M, the rudest manager on duty on the face of the earth. I swear this lady should consider a career change as customer service skills are completely lacking in her personality. She cut me off every time I tried to speak, which did nothing for my anger but only increased it then she said she would "see IF" they could do anything about it. Ummm excuse me? You had better make damn sure that something IS DONE not "see IF" it can be done! So she emails her boss who then does the unthinkable and fwds her email to me to respond to my concern. She was even rude and made it seem like I was making the whole mess up in the email! I wrote ol' E a nice little email back letting him know exactly what I thought of M and her attitude as well as her behavior.

To make a long story even longer it's been nearly two weeks and this is STILL going on! I did end up getting a refund of $45 LESS than what the duplicate was for. I ask E why this is and his response was that I used 3 of the 9 tickets that I purchased. Uh huh, so? They charged me for EIGHTEEN, what does my using 3 of the actual 9 that I purchased matter one bit? I mean come on, how can a business be run by such incompetent people?

Do I recommend Coco Keys? Sure, only if you can afford to spend twice as much as you planned on spending, enjoy spending time from your day chasing down your money and trying to get people to respond to your inquiries/complaints. Then get to have the lovely time of being made to feel like their mistakes are all your fault. HA silly me, I should have went to Wolf's Lodge where they don't have this problem!