Orbitz, Spirit Air, and Giving Back Our Morritt's Grand Exchange

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

When I got home from the golf course 8/15, DW was playing around with Orbitz for our Grand Cayman exchange, and I went ahead and finished it up, booking four roundtrip airfares from Orlando to Grand Cayman.

Ka-ching.

Then I did four roundtrips from here to Orlando.

Ka-ching.

And a rental car for our Florida week after our Grand Cayman week.

Ka-ching.

The beginning of the slippery slope was yesterday morning when I checked our credit card account online. I saw that Orbitz had taken their chunk but Spirit Air had not.

Way too many hours with call centers in India and with Spirit Air, I gave up any hope that we had plane reservations. Orbitz had sent us all the official-looking confirmations, with official-looking numbers, and an official-looking itinerary, but had never confirmed the reservations with Spirit Air.

Orbitz blamed Spirit Air and Spirit Air blamed Orbitz.

Checking for real reservations today, I found that ka-ching has become ka-ching, ka-ching.

Just for the heck of it I searched RCI for FL/Resorts on the Beach for that date, January 5, a date that some of you know I know has not been available for many months. Lo and behold, there was one of the lesser resorts on Fort Myers Beach. While I was fidgeting around trying to decide, that unit disappeared. A few minutes later it was back.

I took that as an omen, that Grand Cayman was not intended for us, likely because they have not completed the causeway to there from Key West. So I gave RCI back our 2-bedroom Morritt's Grand and accepted a 1-bedroom at the lesser resort on FMB, using the same week and another $164. And I was tickled to be able to do it!

So now we don't have to worry about our passports getting done in time.

Another ka-ching, ka-ching.

An irony is that it is a resort that an owner not long ago felt offended when I referred to it as a lesser resort.

Just guessing at ratings, is it not often that you give up a 9-plus for a 5-or-so, and you are happy to be able to do it.

Now we'll get to see Conch Man and Rapmarks, and get some use out of my golf clubs. We'll miss my birthday by a couple of days, so no sombrero grande at Iguana Mia's.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Jim did you look at Cayman air? They may not come up on all search engines yet.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Yeah.

Cayman Air was coming up about $1500 for four.

So we just said the heck with it. It's done. I gave Morritt's back and took the FMB resort instead.

We cannot cancel here to Orlando and back plane reservations, either, so we are just gonna stick with that and get a rental car.

[Laurie Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Laurie]

Jim, I thought we'd fly on Spirit Air to Grand Cayman too, from FL too, 2 weeks later than yours. A couple of days ago, with resort still standing, I decided to go book flights... only to learn that Spirit Air was sold out on those dates, both ways! Made me also wonder (for the second time this month) whether this trip was to be.

It all worked out OK in our case because instead of going round trip from FL to Cayman and back to FL, and having to deal with a connection on a different ticket to get home, turned out I could book on AA to go open jaw FL-GCM-NC, for not much difference in price, and a whole lot less hassle.

If you feel relief, then you made the right decision for yourself. Sometimes hassle of arrangements + cost to get there isn't worth it. I've cancelled a confirmation or 2 when flights were too high, and once I cancelled and rebooked the same resort 2 weeks earlier to save many hundreds of $$ in airfare.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

There's been a lot of posts about Spirit Air problems. The final Orbitz guy said that when we try to rebook not to use Spirit, that a lot of Orbitz customers were coming away with nothing.

All the Spirit rep that I talked to has to say is, "That's a risk you take when you use a travel agent," not that I have ever considered Orbitz to be that.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

I flew spirit to Grand Cayman last year. It was very painful. It took longer to check into the airport and get on the plane that it did to fly there. And, it cost more to go there from Fort Lauderdale than it would cost to go from Fort Lauderdale to California. I love Grand Cayman, but they don't make it easy to get there.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

DW and I put in 2 days trying to make it work.

We were stuck with the four roundtrip air reservations we made from here to Orlando, so our choices were limited to finding a way to get to Grand Cayman from Orlando/Tampa/? or cancelling Morritt's and booking a Florida resort for that week. The first, easiest, and most obvious would be to book and Orlando resort.

When the FMB resort appeared, I was astonished, since I hadn't seen anything there for seven or eight months. I called a Guide and it had disappeared. When it reappeared, I had to act fast, and put it on Hold. Once I did that, the Guide could see it in our account, and confirm it.

We agree that they don't make it easy to get to GC. Hawaii is much further, but easier, though not an easy easy.

At least we'll be on a beach for two weeks. And, it will be beaches where we can watch the sunset, which I assume you can't at Morritt's. The seafood docks are right across the bridge from FMB, so we can grill some local shrimp on the barbee, and toast to another day every night.

Plus we can see Rapmarks and Conch Man (and Conch Woman), and play golf. Maybe we can get some tatoos.

I got an email about an hour ago that our passports are done and in the mail.

Isn't that the way it always is?