No manual required, ripped off, chilly
Yesterday I got to witness some more gym follies, courtesy of some dopey guy that didn’t know how to use the tricep extension machine. Each machine at the gym has instructions attached to it in plain view.
The unhappy looking girl to the left is demonstrating how to use the machine properly. Well now imagine a guy seated in the machine with his arms straight and fully extended holding onto the handles. He was then keeping his arms straight as he raised the handles up and down with the lightest weight the machine had. I am not quite sure what body part that would work the hardest but it certainly isn’t the triceps.
I ALMOST walked over to let him know he wasn’t even close to doing the movement correctly but I decided to stick to my long time gym edict. “Never offer help/tips at the gym unless the person asks for it or if what they are doing is so stupid it puts either themselves or others in physical danger”
So today I planned to book the bus shuttle I found several months ago from JFK to downtown Manhattan. I was thrilled when I found I could do so for only $22 per person round trip. Well after today, I am not so thrilled.
So first I tried to book our arrangements via their website. During the process I realized that this was not personalized service, they would drop you off at one of three bus terminals. The closest to our hotel was the Port Authority which was .6 miles from the hotel. Lugging our bags that far would be a pain in the ass but doable.
Well when I tried to book the return trip from the Port Authority to the airport the web site kept saying “no transportation available.” Ok, well I guess I will just call them. On the phone there was no problem booking a reservation, until I happened to ask to confirm the price was the same as the web site. The price was not the same, in fact it was more than double what the web site quotes.
In amazement I asked the woman why in the world would it cost that much more to book on the phone the same travel arrangements? She mumbled something about the web site being a “special rate”. Uh huh, sure, a special rate that you can’t actually get. I asked the woman to cancel the reservation and I would make other arrangements.
So I call Ali and tell her about the bullshit. She said she wouldn’t have liked having to walk that far with our luggage anyway. She suggested I call the hotel and find out their recommendations. Fair enough, so I called.
I get transferred to their transportation desk. The guy I talked to recommended a web site to me where I could make reservations for a shared van that would pick us up and take us right to and from the hotel. Ok sounds cool.
I was less than thrilled when I got on the site and saw the price for Ali and I to book the arrangements would be a little over $100, so much for a good deal. Oh well I called Ali back and told her we could get dropped off right at the hotel but it was going to be expensive. She said it was no big deal and to book it, so I did.
About 5 minutes after committing to the non-refundable reservation I decided to do some more digging around and found the direct web site for the service we were supposed to be using. I swallowed hard when I punched in the info to get a rate quote and saw a number about half of what I just committed to. ARGH, that pisses me off!
Evidently the transport guy directed me to a middleman site where they add another layer of profit taking on top of the rate. Well this certainly has put my antenna up to be on the prowl for similar additional bullshit during our trip up to NYC. I hate when I get duped like this. It reminds me of the bullshit we went through with Travelocity during the trip last year where we wound up paying a much higher room rate booking through them then if we called the hotel directly.
Wow it looks like sweatshirts and jeans will be the outfits of choice in Ireland, their “summer” temps would be considered chilly for a Naples winter day. Look here.