Friday, 8 August 2008

Holidays 2008 Part Two

We booked our Christmas hotel online the other day. We had to book online or else go and book in Filey or Pickering because Scarborough is the only town in the area which has no proper travel agent. By "proper" I mean an independent one and not one of those tacky high street chains who are only bothered about their commission and how many insurance packages, excursions, transfers etc they can get you to fork out for.

Last year Scarborough had a really good independent agent who we had booked with for years and never had a problem with. Then the owner retired and closed the shop so our main September holiday hotel was booked with a well-known high street chain. We had nothing but problems with this travel agent chain and at one point we contacted our tour operator about them because we weren't happy with the rubbish they were coming out with. We also complained to the manager of the travel agent who did not even have the manners to answer our concerns. Thankfully we booked our flights online with the airline so we didn't have to deal with a high street travel agent apart from booking the hotel.

Our Christmas hotel is the same one we stayed in last year, as it was very nice with a minibar (great for storing your beer in), nice rooms, a nice location and freshly-cooked eggs at breakfast (soft boiled as well - very rare in Belgium!) I always had the scrambled eggs with my buffet breakfast, they were gorgeous and tasted really buttery. The only downside to the hotel is the depressing classical music they insist on playing in the lounge and breakfast room.

2 comments:

Arthur Clewley said...

No often that Brugge gets called by its flemish name louise. I went there in december once for a brief stop, just time enough for mussels and chips and cloudy beer. very nice..

Like The Roman said...

Mussels and chips?! Eurgggh!