9 days til my 1st trip to Italy and then this happens...worse case scenario

Kelly, IF... and that is a big IF, you don't hear back from Hotel Ideale, try Hotel Pallotta. The website is: pallottaassisi.it I had a wonderful room and the staff very cordial. They even did my laundry for me while I was out touring around. Nice views of Assisi from the top floor lounge area.

Don't miss out on Assisi. We loved Hotel Hermitage
in September.

One of the keys to successful traveling in Europe is flexibility. When I read your headline I assumed a death in the family, serious illness, airline canceled or rescheduled so you miss connecting flights, etc. Don't wait for a response. You have their response. They are closed. Find a new hotel. Losing a hotel is not that big a deal. There are dozen of hotels especially this time of year. Get out the guidebook, check Trip Adviser, or any of the many hotel locating services and you will have a new hotel in less than an hour. In the grand scheme of travel this is a minor problem. Relax.

And hang on to that "we are sorry we are closed" e-mail just in case. If their system is so confused that they made a reservations for a time they are closed, you want to be sure your credit card does not get charged for your "no show".

Kelly, I have to agree with Frank in that this is not really a "worst case scenario" and it seems like a bit of an exaggeration to apply that term. Looking on the "bright side", five out of six of your Hotels all re-confirmed your visit almost immediately, so you won't have any problems with those. As someone else noted, at this time of year you (hopefully) won't have any trouble at all finding alternate lodgings. In addition to Trip Advisor and the net, the italy Guidebook lists 12 Hotels (including one Hostel) along with four Agriturismi. Hope you have a wonderful time in Italy!

While I too envisioned broken legs or a house swept off its foundations by a tornado, I do understand how frustrating it can be to have a hotel reservation slip through the cracks after putting all the effort into researching and reserving (and I put in a LOT) so vent away Kelly, then take a deep breath and email a few other hotels for their availability. At this time of year, you should be ok. In our case, the B&B hostess felt really bad about the mix-up and directed us to a friend of hers who had an apartment for rent. The price was great and we really liked the place, so no harm, no foul. Did give me a few heart palpitations until it all got sorted out though! And this is a great lesson in why one should ALWAYS reconfirm hotels a few weeks in advance (I usually reconfirm a month in advance myself). That way you have a bit of recovery time. Good luck Kelly!

This is a good reminder about confirming reservations. With small hotels that are family owned and operated, they have to close down at some point in the slow season. Back in June they didn't know what their schedule would be. While fustrating to travelers, it's probably not at all uncommon. As someone else said, keep the emails just in case your card is charged but I doubt that will happen. Just find another place for those 2 nights.

This is just a thought, but another possibility is that the proprietors' English is not great and / or they misunderstood the date mentioned in the confirmation e-mail. If, say, your reservation was for December 1st and was booked by someone who understood a request for 12/1 by an American was that date, but the second message someone read it as 12th of January, you might get the kind of message you did. That thought comes to me only because the formal "sorry madam" message sounds just like someone responding who isn't aware of any previous e-mail exchange.

Always make sure that you use the European format for your dates, even more, spell out the month, 17 November 2010 for example. 10/3/11 could be November 3 or March 10 depending on where you are. Flexibility is definitely important, especially for Italy, you just need to go with the flow when things like this happen.

Dear Kelly, From the heart, I sincerely hope that you can adjust your expectations regarding the Italian lifestyle. Lodging may get messed up, directions may be incorrect and trains may be late ( better to say that the trains WILL be late!). Obsessing about the details will make for a miserable travel experience. Try to relax and go with the flow- easier said then done, but give it a try in Italy. Have a great trip.

Kelly, "The final work week prior to vacation is the craziest, busiest, zaniest." I find that too! There always seems to be a thousand "small details" to take care of, and not enough time. Actually leaving on the trip is a huge relief. Cheers!

I thank you all for your input. I have accepted the Italian way and will do my best to be flexible. The weirdest thing is that right after I shot a few emails to various Assisi hotels, I received an email of confirmation from Hotel Ideale. So, they probably thought I was trying to get a room booked when I really just wanted to make sure they were going to honor my reservation that I had made in June. Of course there was no explanation of why they sent me the denial email. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that I won't be knocking on the doors of an abandoned hotel when I do arrive. And of course thank you for putting up with my moment of panic. Like I said in my post, I was a wee bit dramatic, because I was fresh from reading the email of denial. And to scramble at the last minute is difficult for me as I am crazy busy at work, having to take work home, and maybe do work in my sleep. It's funny how it works out that way. The final work week prior to vacation is the craziest, busiest, zaniest.

When re-confirming a reservation I send a reply using the original e-mail confirmation. I say something like: "This is to reconfirm my reservation for,....." That makes it simple and easy for them to know who I am and that I am just re-confirming. I do this just a few days before my date to arrive. With Venere.com, this seems unnecessary, since they will just charge my credit card for one night if I don't arrive.

Kelly, I can sympathise with your panic at the last minute. This sort of thing can throw you for a loop. My worst case scenario happened a few years ago when I broke BOTH my feet one week before leaving for a long dreamed of trip to Germany. I tripped somehow, and cracked small bones in both my feet...I told my doctor," It's all paid for! I'm going anyway!" and he fixed me up and off I went with my walking cast on one foot, the other one taped up, a cane, and a prescription. It was good in one way - I only had to take one shoe! Good luck, and have a great time!

Here is another weird thing........No other Assisi hotels emailed me back. So thank goodness Hotel Ideale decided to be open for my dates. And I have made them reconfirm my reconfirmation a few times, with emails stating, "are you sure you will be open?". And I apologize for being melodramatic with my post subject. I know it is not a worse case scenario. I feel so bad whining when the above poster went to Europe with broken feet.

I think we all understand. When you spend thousands of dollars and often many months planning, you just want it to go off perfectly without a hitch. I've found that things seem to always work out even if it sometimes feels like something is working against you. With Italy i think it's even further exacerbated because of that "roll with the flow" culture, if you will. If a shopowner has to go to the post office or supermarket, the shop can be closed. Opening times seem to be more suggestions than rules, etc. These are things I - and I'm sure many others - absolutely love about Italy. I'm a pretty uptight, organized-down-to-the-minute type of person and Italy makes me relax, and I love that. You will probably have late trains or other similar headaches on your trip, but it will all be fine in the end, because you'll be in Italy!! it's the off-season, you will be able to find a place to stay, even if you show up at the hotel and it's bolted shut. Enjoy!

Kelly, reading thru the thread it sounds like you got things straightened out, plus have relaxed your attitude a bit. All good! I'd like to chime in to add that you should expect some things to pop up, and your willingness to roll with the flow is going to give you a much better trip. People will tell you "that's Italy" and I'm not going to argue, but things can happen on any trip. To give 2 examples, on my first trip to Europe I was meeting a friend arriving on a different flight about an hour after mine. Said friend had made the reservations and knew where the hotel was, etc. As a novice traveler I was looking forward to learning the ropes with someone who had done it before. You guessed it; friend missed the flight from the USA! On another trip we had reserved a nite train and had the tickets printed out, all ready to go. Train pulls into the station and walking beside it we discovered that the car in which we had a reservation was not in the train! I managed to make it work in both cases, and have some stories to laugh about now. If your hotel in Assisi was shut down you could make it work, too. Knock on doors of other hotels and you'd find a room, they'd call around to help you, worst case you go to a larger town (like Perugia nearby) and stay there.

Kelly, don't worry about "freaking"-it's your first trip and something like that can throw you for a loop so easily. You'll forget all about it once you get to Italy! Just do like the Italians do and take life slow and easy, stop to smell the roses, eat the pasta and gelato, and drink the vino. you won't regret Italy!