{"id":100,"date":"2015-10-13T17:43:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T17:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/?p=100"},"modified":"2016-02-20T19:26:23","modified_gmt":"2016-02-20T19:26:23","slug":"hotel-v-vrbo-in-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2015\/10\/13\/hotel-v-vrbo-in-new-york-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Hotel v. VRBO in New York City"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_3524\"<\/a>Thankfully, as of the writing of this post, I have (finally!) secured our accommodations for our trip to New York on October 22. \u00a0Everything else – plane tickets, check; tickets to a show, check; reservation for dinner before the show, check – was done BEFORE we even had a place to stay. \u00a0<\/p>\n

There are so many hotels and rooms for rent that it shouldn’t have taken so long, right?\u00a0Well, a\u00a0few things contributed to our late reservation, chief among them was procrastination on my part. \u00a0But, a few other factors contributed, such as trying to keep the cost down (finding a place for under $300\/night that isn’t a dump is not an easy feat) and staying in an area that we wanted. \u00a0Despite my love for the upper east side, I really wanted to stay closer to the Village and Chelsea since a few of the items on our itinerary are in those areas. [The new Whitney<\/a>, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts gallery<\/a>, and my friend, Susan.]<\/p>\n

Lucky girl that I am (really, it’s more about taking action than luck), I have been to New York on four previous occasions. \u00a0The first three times I visited the City, I stayed with a friend. \u00a0The last time I went, which was my husband’s first time in the City, we stayed at a hotel. \u00a0If you know me or you’ve followed my blog (at this point, I think my mother-in-law is the only visitor . . . love her!), then you would know that, for the most part, I book our travel through vrbo.com. \u00a0One of my “rules” on booking through vrbo is that the renter must have some reviews. \u00a0If it’s a new place, I’m not willing to be the guinea pig to test it out. \u00a0I’ve seen too many bad reviews of homes and apartments\u00a0indicating that the place is different from the pictures posted by the owner, that it was dirty or the owner was sub-par. \u00a0Thus, rule numero uno: not a good idea to stay somewhere that hasn’t been reviewed.<\/p>\n

This leads me to my travail for this trip. \u00a0When I start researching a trip, I go on vrbo and start a “favorites” for my particular trip to save any places that I like. \u00a0If you wait too long, like I did, those places get rented, leaving me with some great looking places that were’t reviewed; hence, no reservation. \u00a0Then, I took my turn at looking through all the hotel websites: hotels.com, expedia,com, tripadvisor.com, etc. \u00a0In New York, hotels are tr\u00e8s\u00a0cher and if you find a cheap one, you really are getting what you paid for.<\/p>\n

Another issue I started to run into that was new for me was this “book now” option in vrbo. \u00a0You can “book now,” but not really. \u00a0It’s a bit deceiving in my opinion. \u00a0If the owner doesn’t contact you in 48 hours (a lifetime by today’s standards), then your “book now” becomes “book again.” \u00a0This happened to me where I thought I had a place booked that looked great and was in the perfect location. \u00a0Since the owner never confirmed, I was dumped and had to look for a new place – two days later and after numerous other places had already been rented in the meantime. Ouch! Morale of the story: early book gets the room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thankfully, as of the writing of this post, I have (finally!) secured our accommodations for our trip to New York on October 22. \u00a0Everything else – plane tickets, check; tickets to a show, check; reservation for dinner before the show, check – was done BEFORE we even had a place to stay. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[45,12,32,21],"tags":[33,35,34],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hz1R-1C","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":224,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/02\/prague-with-an-open-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":100,"position":0},"title":"Prague with an open mind","date":"October 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"When travelers visit Europe it is so easy to get caught up in trying to see everything. 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This particular post started off as a redux of our \u201crecent\u201d trip to Ireland that we took in May\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ADVENTURES"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.navigationmaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/DSCF0384-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":120,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/17\/just-write-it-down\/","url_meta":{"origin":100,"position":3},"title":"Just Write it Down","date":"February 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Every since I can remember I have wanted to write a book. \u00a0 I guess that's not an uncommon\u00a0goal for us humans. In my daytime career, I read and write a great deal, but it does not satisfy my creative needs. I imagine it\u2019s a bit like trying to scratch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":234,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/31\/how-flexible-are-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":100,"position":4},"title":"How Flexible Are You?","date":"October 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for me to believe that our Prague - Vienna trip is over. (It\u2019s equally hard for me to believe it has taken me over two weeks to finish this post!!) As I\u2019ve mentioned in the past, one of my favorite parts of going on a trip is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ADVENTURES"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.navigationmaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3376-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":103,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/18\/the-next-big-trip-ireland\/","url_meta":{"origin":100,"position":5},"title":"The Next Big Trip: Ireland!","date":"November 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Ireland is a place I've always wanted to visit. \u00a0Partly because I have always been told that I have an Irish heritage - along with half of America! \u00a0(More about that later . . . ) For me, one of the best parts of a trip is the planning stage.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ADVENTURES"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}