Cancelled

So after being moved to Galveston from New Orleans, our cruise has actually been cancelled now. All the excitement for our warm Caribbean vacation has been cancelled as well. The company I booked the cruise through is currently "working on getting me a refund" and Northwest Airlines wants to charge me 1/3 of my original fare to cancel my reservation. No wonder they filed chapter 11. Union-busting, imperialists jack holes.

I tried my best not to get mad at the customer rep reading off of her script at whatever hour of the night it was in her part of India, but I was so frustrated that everyone else was so helpful and/or tried to help me to the best of their ability in the wake of this amazing disaster, and there was this smug woman telling me that flights are running to New Orleans and I could go there tomorrow if I wanted. She had no smug answer for me when I asked where I could stay if the hotel I booked was still partially submerged. And after I asked to be assured that my money would at least go to hurricane relief, she told me she could not guarantee that because it was a billing issue. The last straw for me was when I asked, "So the airline is just going to profit off of one of the worst natural disasters in this country's history?" and the woman flatly said I guess so. I had to hang up....lest I unleash my anger upon this woman who had no options to exercise herself where my airfare was concerned.

Well, I still have my reservations at the soon to be Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino but currently bankrupt and still hemorrhaging cash Aladdin for the first week in December. Maybe Vegas is trying to tell me something??? I've got to call the Aladdin one way or the other....maybe I can call to see about lengthening the stay. That way I can just switch my ticket to Vegas instead of New Orleans and not give Northwest my money for nothing....interesting. Let's look into that.

It's been almost three years since my first stay at the then fairly new Aladdin, and I can remember the bankruptcy talk even back then. It just goes to show that merely opening a large resort on the strip doesn't guarantee a windfall for the owners. Bad planning and poor management decisions put the resort in a hole from the very start, and with the interest on their debt accumulating faster than the profits from the small casino and surreptitiously configured shopping mall, there was really no rosy outlook for the young resort.

Planet Hollywood's plans portray a much better design, and a flashier facade that is more inviting, contemporary, and rather gaudy. This all sounds very Vegasy right away, but more and more it's beginning to sound more Times Square than Vegas Strip to me. It will be interesting to watch how the transformation of this resort plays out.