Traveling to a Conference for the First Time
Coming up in October, I will be traveling to a conference. This will be the first time I’ve done such a thing, and the first time I’ve traveled by myself since 2011. Well, I guess that instance can’t be considered “by myself” since I was technically traveling with coworkers. So let me rephrase - this is the first time I’ll be traveling by myself since, well, high school then. I did a trip from Kansas to Arizona on a combination of Amtrak and Greyhound, coming home from visiting my grandmother. Oh, and a solo plane trip to and from California, also in high school, visiting my then-sister-in-law’s family. Otherwise, all other travel I’ve done since then has been with my family.
The conference is EE Conf 2018. I’m pretty excited. I hope to learn quite a bit and do some networking with folks within the circle of ExpressionEngine development. My flight and hotel are all booked, so the only thing I’ll need to worry about is getting to and from the airport, since apparently free shuttles aren’t a thing at either of the hotels I’m staying at. Yeah, plural, hotels.
Originally I had all four nights booked at one hotel, but because the group rate block seemed to be all filled up for the last night (a Friday), I had to do a separate night for the final sleep of my stay, not in the group rate, which I was fine with, I just wanted a place to sleep before my flight home on that Saturday. The oops came into play when I received a reminder email today about my stay on 9/26. Uh… what? A bit worried, I checked my original confirmation email for that final evening, and sure enough, it was for 9/26, not 10/26. I’m not quite sure how that happened when I had given the reservation rep my original confirmation number for the first three nights so she could base the fourth night off of that. But regardless of how it happened, the fact is I didn’t double check my confirmation email for the final night and just presumed it was all good, so that’s on me. Lesson learned!
I called up the reservation line and hope they still have rooms left for 10/26. They don’t. Rats! The gal with reservations tries checking for rooms at other nearby places under their umbrella, but the cheapest she can find is $399. Sorry, but no, that’s a bit too rich for my blood.
While on the phone with her I happened to be checking another chain that is very close to where my original hotel is at, and it has rooms and is also cheaper than what she was finding. So I thanked her for trying but asked that the 9/26 date be canceled, and I would just book online with the other place instead for the night I needed. That’s all squared away now, and yes, I triple checked the date so I won’t be stuck without a bed that last night! LOL
While it’s a little annoying that I will have to checkout that Friday morning, and hope that one of the two hotels will hold my suitcase on hand until check-in time later in the afternoon, and then check-in after getting back from the conference on Friday, at least I have a place to stay, and I can just walk from one to the other in probably under five minutes.
Anyway, so transportation… without free shuttles, that leaves taxi, Uber or Lyft, or a paid shuttle. I’ll have to look into the options and figure out what to do. I am sort of hoping there are other conference attendees that would be arriving around the same time as I am, and would be open to ride-sharing to the hotel. I’m on the fence about whether to do Uber or Lyft on my own. It’s about half the cost than a cab would be, and the chances of something going sideways with the driver is probably slim anyway. I have plenty of time to figure out what I’ll be doing though. Four weeks away. I can hardly wait!