Those travel sites / RacerX Road Trip!

[RacerX]

Hey guys,

I gotta take my mom on a road trip (she doesn't want to take a trip by herself but needs to get out of the house, so I gotta ). But my car has a lot of miles...my plan is to fly from LA to Reno, rent a Buick Lucerne, pick Mom up in Lake Tahoe and drive her to like Napa, San Francisco, and then down the coast, Bug Sur, Carmel, San Simeon, then Palm Springs and back to LA, drop the car off and then stick her on a plane back to Reno. This is gonna be about 1 week in late October / early November. The flights will be on Southwest, so that's cheap enough (will go through that airline).

I checked on car rentals through the companies straight, and it's fairly expensive, and not all of em will do 1 way car rentals. Then I checked some 3rd party site and it's half off! (Like $36 a day). It may have been Expedia or Travelocity or one of those. Do you guys recommend that? Do you need a credit card / how does payment work?

Mom also wants to stay in suites rather than cheap motels (cuz we both snore ) so I need help in finding those. Normally I'd check the coupons at places like www.roomsaver.com but Mom wants a "nice" trip.

Also! She wants to see a classical music / Philharmonic, probably in San Francisco, so can any of you Bay Area guys help with suggestions on that, probably Sat or Sunday before Halloween.

Also need cool suggestions of stuff to see & do along this route...She is in a wheelchair so keep that in mind. (No cliff diving or bungee jumping ).

Also #3 : She wants to take her accordion along, but the last time we did that on a road trip it got stolen in fucking LeMans fucking France, so we are kinda freaked out about that possibility.

Thanks for all the help! I want to make this a fun vacation for my Mom - she is not in the best of health, etc etc.

[Tashtego]

Walking around Monterey is nice. Carmel is very hilly. Big Basin is a cool redwood spot that feels like an old disney movie setting from the 50's to me. It has as some navigable trails and a small visitor center with some displays. It's nice to just drive through as well. Point Lobos just south of Carmel has nice cliff views and lots of seals and sea lions.

[skorb]

yeah I'm always on the lookout for an opportunity to smash a car window and grab yet another accordion.
can't have too many free accordions.

[kings31]

Make a stop in pismo beach

You can drive on the beach. Also splash cafe has great clam chowder. (my home town by the way) what day are you going though. if in town stay here it is nice . http://www.sandcastleinn.com/

[Firebird V]

sounds like a good trip.

[emperor_black]

Ron, I've used expedia a LOT of times and they are very good. yeah, you gotta pay by credit card. or, if you choose, not to, just set up your itenerary first and then call them up and pay by phone.

About the hotels, they are rated by no. of stars. So, if you want a nice suite, you can just pick more no. of stars. their prices are the best so far I've seen.

Good luck.

[guitarsjb]

For the hotels DO NOT use hotels.com, expedia etc UNTIL you call them directly first. Those places get 25% of what you pay, and the hotel gets the rest. Call the hotel first, tell them you were looking online etc, and give them a chance to beat the online places, most usually will. For suites you have several to choose from such as: AmeriSuites, Residence Inn (by Marriott), Comfort Suites (relatively new product, new properties mostly), Baymont Inn and Suites, Wingate, etc. Hope you guys have a great trip!

[Spivonious]

The travel sites are great if you're booking the whole trip on them (hotel, car, airfare) because they throw in discounts for booking together. I stayed in London for 3 nights for free because of the discounted airfare I got from Expedia.

Of course, booking ahead anywhere is cheaper than walking in and asking for a room, but the rates I get are always at least 25% less than the posted room rate. My wife and I stayed in a room in Liverpool for 75 pounds a night and the posted rate was over 300.

www.tripadvisor.com is a great site to go to to read reviews. Also, try www.kayak.com to search for hotels and rental cars. It basically searches all of the travel sites at once.

$36 a day seems about normal for around here, but CA is expensive I guess.

Oh and check out www.priceline.com. They let you choose your city, area, and star-rating and then you enter a price and they match you up. I've never been brave enough to use it (since you don't know what you're getting until after it's booked) but apparently you can great extremely low rates on there.

Oh, and there's no way they get 25%, unless the hotel's own website is getting 25% too. I've checked and the rates are always the same or lower on Expedia/Orbitz/etc.

[emperor_black]

For the hotels DO NOT use hotels.com, expedia etc UNTIL you call them directly first. Those places get 25% of what you pay, and the hotel gets the rest. Call the hotel first, tell them you were looking online etc, and give them a chance to beat the online places, most usually will. For suites you have several to choose from such as: AmeriSuites, Residence Inn (by Marriott), Comfort Suites (relatively new product, new properties mostly), Baymont Inn and Suites, Wingate, etc. Hope you guys have a great trip!

Actually, Jeri is right. For my previous trip to las vegas, I booked a hotel using expedia and they charged me $150 for two nights. that's $75 per day. When I checked out after my two days, the hotel receptionist handed me a receipt for $120 something. Actually they are not supposed to. When I called the hotel, asking about the difference they say that they cant do anything about it cause expedia is the one who pays them and I have to call expedia. When I called expedia, they apologised and gave me $50 off coupon toward my next trip with them. But if I had not re-checked my receipts (which normally most people dont), I would have lost the $30.

in Summary, expedia charges more than what the hotels usually would. its obvious. They need to make money too. But who has got the time to call each and every hotel and find out what the lowest fare is? Also, when expedia says the hotel is a 2 or 3 star hotel, you can be assured that it indeed is. That is more important to me than the $30.

For a trip to Florida that we made two years ago, my wife booked a hotel based on some other source (other than expedia) and the room they gave us was just horrible. I had to fight with them and threaten that I will never stay with that chain again when they upgraded my room to a much much nicer one. The thing about these expedia stuff is that customers can come back and write good/bad reviews about these hotels and that matters a LOT. If a few customers give a bad rating, expedia will down-grade their 'stars'. But if you call the hotels directly and if you are unsatisfied, too bad. Who are you going to complain to??? Now, you have at least expedia to complain to.

[guitarsjb]

Also some good points emperor..the names I gave Ron are all "newer" and hopefully better properties that take pride in themselves. Although we know they all aren't. I'm a hotel manager, and if any of my guests have a problem I hope they tell me, cause I'll make it right (again, not everyone does this LOL). At least with expedia or someone you have someone to go to bat for ya, although a couple of times I agreed the guest should be refunded, and hotels.com (now the same company as expedia) refused to refund the guests money. And you're right, you should have never gotten a reciept..but it happens all the time.

Oh, and Ron, on the rental car, is there an airport near you? Me and my husband wanted to rent a car once to go on vacation, and none of the local offices would let us take the car out of state or even 1 way, but the same company's branch at the airport didn't care at all. Just a thought.

[MetalMedal II]

Don't forget hotwire.com. I use that and orbitz for car rentals, hotels, and sometimes flights.

I think it's hotwire that won't tell you what company you're renting the car from or what exact hotel until you prepay with a CC, but they'll guarantee it's a reputable one and at least an 1-5 star hotel whoch you specifiy. Last time I used it it was way cheaper than Orbitz.