** spoiler omitted **
Yeah I personally will never use a third party site after all the trouble I've seen with them. At least don't use it for a last minute reservation.
And that is the nekkid truth.
I actually just had a couple that used a third party and booked for the wrong night. Not the third party's fault in that case just people not paying attention to dates. However had they called me I would of knew what they wanted. They were lucky I had a room. (I literally have just one more left.)
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I think the guest was pretty nice to just say yeah cancel the reservation. The problem is online booking sites, if they work, are just too convenient for the layman to use, and Orthos did remark about sometimes hotels being block booked by those booking sites so the average person can’t even book on that said hotel online.
I also had issues with using a third party for buying the flights to States (Cheapoair), but the problem is without those third party sites(which give discounted rates in addition), how do you order from sites direct?
Case test:
Cheapo Air, trying to fly to Arizona on 1st June 2019, returning on 21st June 2019. Cheapoair lines up a whole round trip, 1624.08 for an adult. Matter settled.
I go to American Airlines website and try to book myself a flight to phoenix and am asked to put which state, which airport. For a non American, all I know is I want to get to Arizona, how am I supposed to know which airport it is? At least cheapoair wins for user friendliness since in a few clicks I can see a nice flight bringing me to Arizona.
It also cost me $1637. (Couldn’t compare flight for flight since the flights offered were different, but arrival time for Cheapoair was 19:58, while for America Airlines it was 18:05). Both flights left at 8.10 am in the morning.
Only time my hotel is blocked is if we are sold out. So it might say you have a room on the 3rd party sites but you will get here and be SOL. our hotel has its own app you can get a room in and if you sign up for the rewards program you easily save more money in the long run then the average 10-20 dollars the 3rd party sites offer.
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If we even know what hotels exist in the area. Cheapoair even offers hotel booking services so you get one nice neat package without having to do individual bookings with the hotel. It's the convenience that is making people use third party sites, you see.
Maybe a better idea would be to use a third party side to compare prices and determine which hotel is best etc, then use the hotel website to actually do the booking(if its possible).
And most of the time it's a one off thing so rewards aren't really attractive. Do I look like I'll be visiting my brother every month?
Well as long as you do all the booking well ahead of when you need to check in and maybe call and confirm things at least once and maybe again if your going to be coming in late or something changes then it should be OK.
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It is unlikely we will call the hotel directly or contact in any other way then email because overseas calls are expensive. I say(when they work well) that third party websites have their places, for the time short fk who doesn't have the time to do research on the hotels/flights in the region. That fk just wants things done with minimal hassle and doesn't want to deal with possibly 2 different airlines and a hotel instead of dealing with one third party site.
Also I remember calling in American Airlines because I couldn't select a seat for my flight. They weren't easy to get over the phone, even though by then I was on American timezone.
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[whining]Cancer sucks![/whining]
~pulls out a box of duct tape~ Alrighty. You can now tape my mouth shut. After all, silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.
Its not really whining its more of a fact.
I used a fun house dungeon one time with ball pits full of snakes and a fun house of mirrors with dopple gangers.
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I don't know why, but I want to run an encounter where the PCs open a door and see a large room full of random bits of furniture. On the far side of the room is a child perched on top of a dresser. As he/she sees the PCs, they call out "Help! Save me!! But be careful!!! " The PCs have to make Acrobatics checks to jump around, and if they fail they touch the floor and take a s*~%-ton of fire damage from the lava.
To make things worse, one out of every five pieces of furniture have animate object cast on them and will buck like a bronco once the PCs get on them.
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Yes, the third party sites are convenient. And most of the time there are no problems. But when there are issues, they tend to be pretty tough to fix. As for Orthos' point about sites taking all the rooms, it's certainly possible but it never happened at any of the hotels I have worked at (5 hotels in 3 states). It would pretty much have to be something special that that particular hotel worked out with the site. It isn't an industry standard. And why would it be? We want to sell as many rooms as possible, sure, but we want to sell them for as much as we can. Why would we set it up so that people can't book through us and pay us $150 for a room, but instead have to book through a third party and pay us $125 for that same room? It just doesn't work that way.
If you had 100 rooms and a company tells you we'll pay $100 for all of them rather then the hotel waiting for people to book them and pay $125 per room, wouldn't that sound attractive?
I mean you're instantly guaranteed $10,000 income instead of having to wait and see who turns up and possibly not having any.
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[whining]Cancer sucks![/whining]
** spoiler omitted **
~pulls out a box of duct tape~ Alrighty. You can now tape my mouth shut. After all, silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.
Did they schedule when the next check up to the surgery might be? And yes better to get it over and done with so your mom can recover.
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I don't know why, but I want to run an encounter where the PCs open a door and see a large room full of random bits of furniture. On the far side of the room is a child perched on top of a dresser. As he/she sees the PCs, they call out "Help! Save me!! But be careful!!! " The PCs have to make Acrobatics checks to jump around, and if they fail they touch the floor and take a s~@%-ton of fire damage from the lava.
Only works at low levels before spider climb, fly and air walk come into the picture.
One of my favorites out of ELH was having a beholder hanging out in the bottom of a poison spike trap so if the adventurers tried to fly over he would hit them with his anti magic eye. Then they fall on the traps then have to deal with a beholder. the other part to it was the walk way on the other side of the trap was illusioned and was actually hiding a black dragon waiting for you to teleport across. This was probably one of the most effective traps I ever used on a high level party. To be fair it was more of a trap/monster combo however.
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Anti-magic field in the room. Or some kind of effect that does an Dispel Magic on each character every turn, specifically looking for those kinds of spells.I don't know why, but I want to run an encounter where the PCs open a door and see a large room full of random bits of furniture. On the far side of the room is a child perched on top of a dresser. As he/she sees the PCs, they call out "Help! Save me!! But be careful!!! " The PCs have to make Acrobatics checks to jump around, and if they fail they touch the floor and take a s~@%-ton of fire damage from the lava.Only works at low levels before spider climb, fly and air walk come into the picture.
Reminds me of the time when I had my familiar retrieve something across an acid pit with pillars through it. There was supposed to be an acrobatics sequence, but I told my GM my mephit flies over to get it. Sure enough there was a dispel magic on anyone who tried to fly across, but the only buff my familiar had was mage armor, which I put back on after with a pearl of power. Hey, I'm not stoopid.
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Hell yeah. And there is a cumulative 1% chance each round that "Mom" will come in and yell at everyone, doing sonic damage each round.I don't know why, but I want to run an encounter where the PCs open a door and see a large room full of random bits of furniture. On the far side of the room is a child perched on top of a dresser. As he/she sees the PCs, they call out "Help! Save me!! But be careful!!! " The PCs have to make Acrobatics checks to jump around, and if they fail they touch the floor and take a s*~%-ton of fire damage from the lava.To make things worse, one out of every five pieces of furniture have animate object cast on them and will buck like a bronco once the PCs get on them.
I love this!
** spoiler omitted **[whining]Cancer sucks![/whining]
** spoiler omitted **
~pulls out a box of duct tape~ Alrighty. You can now tape my mouth shut. After all, silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.
We go in Monday to have her blood checked out. Everything is up in the air until then.
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I love this!Hell yeah. And there is a cumulative 1% chance each round that "Mom" will come in and yell at everyone, doing sonic damage each round.I don't know why, but I want to run an encounter where the PCs open a door and see a large room full of random bits of furniture. On the far side of the room is a child perched on top of a dresser. As he/she sees the PCs, they call out "Help! Save me!! But be careful!!! " The PCs have to make Acrobatics checks to jump around, and if they fail they touch the floor and take a s*~%-ton of fire damage from the lava.To make things worse, one out of every five pieces of furniture have animate object cast on them and will buck like a bronco once the PCs get on them.
Oh, it gets worse. The child is a spoiled brat who was put there by her tutor who then promptly left. The big question then becomes, how long until the PCs put her back in there?
Of course, that is fun if this is a one shot. If it isn't... She is the heir to the kingdom that the PCs live in and her father is dying. The kingdom needs her to keep things together before an invasion arrives. To add injury to insult, someone wants her dead, so the PCs have to dodge assassins too while dealing with a spoiled brat.
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Not sure your mephit could carry a kid.Reminds me of the time when I had my familiar retrieve something across an acid pit with pillars through it. There was supposed to be an acrobatics sequence, but I told my GM my mephit flies over to get it. Sure enough there was a dispel magic on anyone who tried to fly across, but the only buff my familiar had was mage armor, which I put back on after with a pearl of power. Hey, I'm not stoopid.Anti-magic field in the room. Or some kind of effect that does an Dispel Magic on each character every turn, specifically looking for those kinds of spells.I don't know why, but I want to run an encounter where the PCs open a door and see a large room full of random bits of furniture. On the far side of the room is a child perched on top of a dresser. As he/she sees the PCs, they call out "Help! Save me!! But be careful!!! " The PCs have to make Acrobatics checks to jump around, and if they fail they touch the floor and take a s~@%-ton of fire damage from the lava.Only works at low levels before spider climb, fly and air walk come into the picture.
Not without magic(like ant haul). But that's what animal companions are for. Granted getting them to do it might take a while...
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I had a ranger once try to convince me his hawk could tie a rope to a hard point across a chasm since the ranger had use rope.
*Spoiler*
I didn't go for it
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Ha! I play with the General and the kids.
GM Yesterday: Okie dokie, you're adventuring through a cave system/crashed space ship (traveling through a flooded tunnel to get there) with an undead monster in it that's immune to all your magic, but you just got a bunch of money to spend, what do you buy?
The General: I get some masterwork stilts!
Crookshanks: Oh! I'm getting a mithral waffle maker!
Tiny T-Rex: One thousand fortune cookies!
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1000 fortune cookies was the correct answer.
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** spoiler omitted **Yeah I personally will never use a third party site after all the trouble I've seen with them. At least don't use it for a last minute reservation.
And that is the nekkid truth.
This. I'm not sure what company these people were using but I use Hotwire and they have a disclaimer about trying to get reservations at the last second that would have prevented all that.
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I've never had a Hotwire reservation they might not have a contract with our company.
Also provided people actually read disclaimers but then its really their fault if they don't which still won't keep them from blaming us.
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Aiymi and I went to Hellboy tonight. It's by no means the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's not good. It's not like the original Del Toro and Perlman movies were fantastic, but they were entertaining and Perlman brought a charisma and voice to the role. Harbour felt a bit like he was trying to not mimic it while doing so.
Perlman's a damn near impossible act to follow. Del Toro? Even worse. We may have to accept the fact that anything they touch cant really be followed up on.
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I discovered this song and now I want a cockroach-based variant Worm That Walks as a villain.
I believe there was one in white wolf in Hunter the reckoning, there may be a similar cockroach spirit in werewolf the apocalypse too. Let me look around.
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** spoiler omitted **
hm. a bit suspicious of hotels myself, but it sounds like this one is on the 3rd party.
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Playing in a PBTA (Powered By The Apocalypse) game run by a friend over Google Hangouts later. Stormborne, about people pulled into another world via a mysterious power known only as the Storm. Really enjoying it so far. Only myself and one other in our group (of usually about 7) are playing in it, the GM wanted a more streamline and story orientated game. He's made about 4 custom/modified systems since I've known him. He's always had great hopes to do something more with them, but every time we finish a game using one, he just comes up with another instead. :P
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I'd totally go with the mithril waffle maker.
Because you could set up a pop-up waffle stand, like one of the crazy ploys in Scooby Doo, to distract the monster, then trap him, pull off his mask, and (gasp) it's old man Gygax from the feed store!
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Tonight is the big annual student art show at school for which I've already put in 13 hours of overtime this week. But tomorrow is a day off, so I actually get to sleep in. Maybe even until after 6.
But Monday only the students get a holiday; I have to give parent-teacher conferences.
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Long weekend ahead, 4 days off. One good thing about living in a Catholic country, we all observe Good Friday and Easter Monday as holiday days. Let the good times roll!
Yippee!
We do too, even though this is, in theory, a PRODESTUNT COOUNTRAY FOR A PRODESTUNT PEOPUL, except when it isn't.
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We go in Monday to have her blood checked out. Everything is up in the air until then.** spoiler omitted **[whining]Cancer sucks![/whining]
** spoiler omitted **
~pulls out a box of duct tape~ Alrighty. You can now tape my mouth shut. After all, silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.
Again. You're not whining.
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I just had a fun experience with Expedia. On 3/29 I tried to book a room at a bed and breakfast in Wisconsin for 6/29. At about 9pm that night I got a call from the owner of the B&B asking if I was showing up or not.
Now, it's possible I screwed up. But I looked at that calendar more than once to make sure I had the dates right. And of course, since Expedia believed my reservation was for that day, the site wouldn't let me cancel the reservation, and nowhere on the site could I find a phone number.
The owner of the B&B was great though, and she cancelled through Expedia on her end, and I just booked the correct night with her.
Usually I don't book through the 3rd party sites. I usually use them to see what places are available in the area, then book directly with that place.
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I love this!Hell yeah. And there is a cumulative 1% chance each round that "Mom" will come in and yell at everyone, doing sonic damage each round.I don't know why, but I want to run an encounter where the PCs open a door and see a large room full of random bits of furniture. On the far side of the room is a child perched on top of a dresser. As he/she sees the PCs, they call out "Help! Save me!! But be careful!!! " The PCs have to make Acrobatics checks to jump around, and if they fail they touch the floor and take a s*~%-ton of fire damage from the lava.To make things worse, one out of every five pieces of furniture have animate object cast on them and will buck like a bronco once the PCs get on them.
Yes. Absolutely love this.
And I'm thinking about using this as another creepy twist in Reign of Winter involving a certain hut with a doll sitting in the middle of it.
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That's more than enough room!
Amusingly enough, I put the car in this morning and there were 2-3" to spare.
It's the usual "measuring in 3 dimensions" thing: I measured from the base of the box spring to the edge of the door. The boxspring is leaning slightly towards the back of the garage. So since the bumper-to-bumper measurement is actually from about 18" off the ground, the tilt of the boxspring gave me a bit of extra space.
So, cars are out of the way, solar guys said they're not coming back for a while because they're waiting for parts to come in, and roofing guy can use the driveway.
I think we're good...
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I'd totally go with the mithril waffle maker.
Because you could set up a pop-up waffle stand, like one of the crazy ploys in Scooby Doo, to distract the monster, then trap him, pull off his mask, and (gasp) it's old man Gygax from the feed store!
he would have gotten away with it too if not for those darn adventurers!
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