For those of you that don't know, I am the cheerleadering sponsor at Pisgah. I have been for a few years. Anyway, we have always gone to UCA Nationals in Orlando in February. Well, this year we decided to go to NCA Nationals in Dallas, which happened to be the first week in January, no biggie.
We left on a Thursday, we were suppose to return on the following Monday evening. We finally returned the next THURSDAY afternoon!!! Yep, you read that right, THREE extra days!!! Now, I love vacations and I will lengthen a vacation any time, but not without hubby and the sweet girl.
I have a LONG story about what all happened, but I won't go into all of that, because-really-do you care? Anyway here is the short version:
We arrived in Dallas at 11:30 Thursday evening with 18 kids and 5 adults, we were EXHAUSTED!!! We had flown from Memphis to Atlanta and then on to Dallas. We get to the hotel (the Sheraton) and are waiting in line (the other sponsor and myself) and this gentleman (using that term VERY loosely) comes up to us and says are y'all with the group of 800 that are checking in? I said well actually it is 23 and yes, we are. He then asks us if he can skip us in line, what?! Are you kidding me, we tell him no, politely and tell him there is a second line that may be moving faster. He gets pissed, asked us where we were from, we say Memphis, he responds obviously not from Texas. He then walks behind a post and calls us B***hes. Yep, welcome to Dallas!
All goes well from here, the squad does great, they place 2nd in cheer, 5th in dance, and 3rd in performance. That is until Sunday night...snow and ice are coming through and our flights have been CANCELLED
until Thursday morning! I head downstairs to see if we can extend our reservations because we can't get home, not because we want to extend our vacation. I was told no by both the reservation manager and a supervisor. When I tried to explain the situation again to her, she replied "We didn't make you stranded" I asked if she could help me find a hotel then, and would they be able to provide me with transportation since we had none and the only jackets our kids had were their cheer warm-ups (the temp was suppose to be 55-60 the whole time we were there)-her reply "we don't offer that service" ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! I was livid at this point. I find a hotel that can pick us up and has room for us. The next morning, I speak to the hotel manager and tell him what happened. He was embarrassed and says they could've let us stay one additional night, yes they were booked, and they would have been able to provide transportation. They will be getting a letter to their home office from ME!!! The manager bought us all lunch in a very nice restaurant and had the chef make one of our kids a birthday cake (which happened to be on that day).
until Thursday morning! I head downstairs to see if we can extend our reservations because we can't get home, not because we want to extend our vacation. I was told no by both the reservation manager and a supervisor. When I tried to explain the situation again to her, she replied "We didn't make you stranded" I asked if she could help me find a hotel then, and would they be able to provide me with transportation since we had none and the only jackets our kids had were their cheer warm-ups (the temp was suppose to be 55-60 the whole time we were there)-her reply "we don't offer that service" ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! I was livid at this point. I find a hotel that can pick us up and has room for us. The next morning, I speak to the hotel manager and tell him what happened. He was embarrassed and says they could've let us stay one additional night, yes they were booked, and they would have been able to provide transportation. They will be getting a letter to their home office from ME!!! The manager bought us all lunch in a very nice restaurant and had the chef make one of our kids a birthday cake (which happened to be on that day).We get to the new hotel (The Hotel Lawerence) in Dallas. It was built in 1925, but is in good condition. They were EXTREMELY nice to us and the kids. The kids think they see a ghost that night. The next morning they do research and find out the hotel is on the list of haunted hotels in Texas and was featured on Ghost Lab. They spent the rest of the time talking to EVERY employee they could find to ask about it and trying to find ghost. Oh the stories they will have!
We finally made it home Thursday, in time for the kids to change into cheer uniforms, get to school for the game and for the 8th graders to be recognized for 8th grade night. All in all it was an adventure, not one I care to be on again in the near future, but it was fun.
Oh, we also took them to the mall where they could browse, Gucci, Coach, Tiffany's, and True Religion. They loved it! And we went to The World Aquarium in Dallas-AMAZING!!!
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