Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2006-04-21 00:54:08 - Graham Ellis
I want two single rooms, en suite, in the centre of Oban, for the nights of 30th April and 1st May. Easy enough? Well, you would think so.
The first hotel site didn't tell me whether of not they had singles. But I didn't bother to take that any further it wasn't easy to find exactly where they were in the town either, and I don't think that Dad and I will want the included five course meal each evening either.
The second hotel site's booking page caught me out by having a default year of 2005, and then when I tried to book for this month insisted I should complete my stay by 30th March 2006.
The third site insisted that we wanted to share a room - kept knocking the "2" I entered back down to 1.
The Palace Hotel looked better, and I clicked through to reserve. "2 Rooms, Palace hotel, Ness Bank, INVERNESS" it came back. Err no - I want Oban. Clicked the back button. Sure enough, the Oban hotel description page links to the booking page for the Inverness hotel of the same name. Ach - what's a hundred miles of so between friends?
I take my hat off (or would if I was wearing one) to the "Falls of Lora Hotel" for a nice website that showed off the hotel, and the rooms, and gave me the details I wanted. No faffing about with on line booking - they've got an enquiry page and as I wanted to get this sown up tonight, I've phoned and booked. The phone answered in one ring, the lady I spoke to went through what she had (and hadn't) got for the nights, and I'm a happily booked camper. Oh - if you know that part of Scotland, you'll know we're not in the centre of Oban. Much better the experience of a caring hotel in a lovely spot that forcing our way through a system to stay in the town.