Thursday,
August 5, 1999
I am Not Happy(TM).
I'm going to NASFic (the North American Science Fiction and Fantasy convention) this August in Anaheim. Like a properly wired girl, I signed on to their email update list and have been checking the webpage regularly for stuff. Back in June, they sent out a notice that the Anaheim Marriott, the con hotel, was 75% full and that anyone who wanted to reserve a room there should get their act in gear.
I took the warning seriously, and went to the wep page to download a Room Reservation Form. Now, congoers were making their reservations directly with the hotel, so the form listed three ways of doing this -- you could 1) call the hotel direct to make a reservation, 2) fill out the form and fax it to the hotel, and 3) fill out the form and mail it to the hotel. Since I live in Stockholm and the hotel was already 3/4ths full, I thought the wiser course would be to fill out the form (so that there was a paper trail) and send it to the hotel by fax.
Which is what I did. On June 30 (I kept the fax confirmation sheet, thank Allah). Life proceeds as it does, and I went on vacation. Then on Tuesday, I get an email from a friend of mine saying that she knew someone who needed to release a reservation at the Marriott and would I be interested in it? At first I thought, "Ha -- I have my bases covered! I made my reservation in June!"
And then, a little self-preservation gnome (I've been cultivating them since I turned 30 -- they've made quite a difference in my life) spoke up in my ear and said, "You haven't gotten a confirmation from the hotel yet, have you? Do you really want to turn this down until you're SURE you have a room?" I agreed with the gnome, and as Stockholm is 9 hours ahead of Anaheim and it was only lunchtime there, I hopped on the phone and called the hotel to confirm that they received my fax.
As you can probably guess from the tone of this post so far, they hadn't. The reservations pixie (a sweet guy named Steve, I think) went through all the faxes for June 30 and the days bracketing it, and couldn't find my fax. And when I said, "But I sent it to 714-703-3193," he said, "Huh -- because that's not our fax number. Anything faxed to the hotel would be sent to the number 714-750-9100."
Ooooookay. I thank him for his help and hang up. So the number on the reservation form was wrong. Well, that's something of a big boo-boo, but I've been on concoms myself so I know that mistakes can be made (although this is kind of a major one). Then I take another look at my fax confirmation sheet -- now, I sent this fax myself, so I KNOW I dialed in 714-703-3193. But the receiving number on the other end was 714-748-2477. Wha?
Curiouser and curiouser, as Dodgson would have said. In any case, the net result is that I don't have a room reserved at the Marriott. After checking back with Amy and saying YES I want her room, I figure it's time to get in contact with the NASFic concom -- if anyone else faxed their reservation forms to this number, it was possible that the hotel and concom were going to have a small but unpleasant mob on their hands come August 26. So I send them an email detailing the situation, suggesting that they check it out on their end and see what's going on. Note: I did NOT get nasty, vituperative, or venomous. I explained it simply, adding that I had already taken care of my own room situation. I also posted something similar in the cons group on SFFNet, figuring to save people some grief before the big day.
No response from the concom. But hey, they're extremely busy by now -- I figure if I hear anything from them, it won't be until next week at the earliest. Then today rolls around, and the latest Conucopia update lands in my email inbox. Now, it's only been two days, true, but this ain't like a print update -- the powers that be can change anything they want in the update until it's time to hit the Return button and send everything out over the ether. Maybe they've mentioned something about the snafu, enough to warn the punters who used a fax to make their room reservations.
There was a mention, all right:
The Marriott, our main hotel, is full. All reservations that have been made should have been acknowledged by the hotel. In case of any questions, please call the hotel at 714-750-8000. Overflow rooms are available in the Quality Hotel (714-750-3131 or 800-231-6215, see below) if you had not already reserved a room, and still wish to.
Um. . .that's it? No mention of the fact that they listed the wrong fax number? What about people who just skim this section or skip it entirely, figuring that they've faxed their reservation so everything is cool on the hotel front? Not everybody knows that you're supposed to get confirmation from the hotel if you make a reservation -- boy, are they going to be surprised come August 26.
This update also included a section about the web page -- you think maybe they could've posted a slightly more detailed warning there? Something along the lines of "Hey, folks, we cocked up the fax number on the PDF room reservation form -- if you faxed your room reservation, call the Marriott or Quality Inn now." Now, I have full sympathy for an overworked concom. Putting together a convention, particularly one of this size, is NOT an easy task, and it's all done on volunteer backs with volunteer sweat. But you think they'd warn people and save themselves (and the congoers) a lot of aggravation later this month. Okay, so people would bitch about the screwup now, but they're going to bitch a whole lot more on the 26th when they find out that not only do they not have a room at the Marriott, not only do they have to cart their stuff over to the Quality Inn, but they'll have to pay more for a triple or quad (it's only ten dollars more, I believe, but ten dollars spread over three or four days can make or break a fannish budget).
So I thought about it for a bit. Then I sent my SFFNet warning post to rec.arts.sf.fandom and alt.fandom.cons. I don't like doing worldwide stuff like this, since it tends to make a concom look bad, but they really dropped the ball here. It'll be interesting to see what happens at the bitch panel.