I need help with this.

[J S Machine]

I have pretty much decided that the whole proposal thing is going to take place on the beach in destin. writing in the sand, picnic, whatever I can come up with. Problem is this: I have no experience with booking hotel rooms and I have been looking at some sites but no luck yet. I want to get a hotel room for thursday the 14th through Sunday the 17th. It will be a three night stay.

There are two things that I must have, and they are:

A hotel that is directly on the beach, not across the road or up the block...

An indoor pool....

A lot of these hotels have pools but they are all outdoor. It will be february when we stay so it will probably be too cold to get into an outdoor pool. I am surprised at the hotels with no indoor pools. I would like to get a 3 start hotel but a 2 or 2.5 would do as long as it meets the criteria I stated above.I have been using priceline.com, and I checked hotwire.com, but I am having no luck. I wish they had a more thorough search so that I could search for hotels within this type of criteria. I think it would be kinda good to do the "name your price thing" but I am not comfortable leaving my credit card information on something like that, especially when I don''t know what I will get (they pick the hotel for you when you use "name your own price")

Anybody have any hints?

 

[FrekeChild]

Travel agent.

You''re going to have a hell of a time finding a hotel with an indoor pool in Florida, being that it''s sunny and warmish about 8 months out of the year. When we went we stayed in a condo that was right on a tennis court (we''re big tennis people) but the resort was on the beach.

I looked with Orbitz and brought up where we stayed...this one was 169 a night or so, and they have a more expensive place in the same resort that is 195 a night?

http://www.orbitz.com/App/shared/pagedef/results/hotelDetails.jsp?z=c1da&r=1e3&z=c1dc&r=1e5&lastPage=interstitial

 

[J S Machine]

Yeah I know I got everything all a$$ backwards as far as the best time to do it lol.

I see the reason the indoor pools are so scarce.

I just wish their was a search feature where i could search for "beach side and for an indoor pool" ya know, without having to weed through all the features of the ones it does come back with..

i would like to keep it around 100 a night. I''m not crazy picky about the "greatness of the room", i mean i do want it to be clean though. I basically just want it to be beach side and have an indoor pool.

I have found some with indoor pools, but they are away from the beach. Staying in a hotel off of the beach when you go to the beach is kind of pointless to me

.

 

[Kayakqueen83]

well I can help you out with this!!! When I was a girl my family went to this nice resort every year for a business conference for my dad''s work. I LOVED the hotel... and one of the reasons was the indoor pool! It''s right on the beach in Sandestin. I''m not sure about the price of the rooms, but the fact that you will be there in February, the rooms may be cheaper.

Good Luck!

Here is the link to the resort!

http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/DESHIHF-Hilton-Sandestin-Beach-Golf-Resort-Spa-Florida/index.do

 

[FrekeChild]

Quick questions...

How old are you and your gf?
How long have you been together?

 

[FrekeChild]

That Hilton, while lovely, starts out at $159 a night and the total for your stay would be...$527.49.

Hmmmm...I''ll keep looking...

 

[J S Machine]

I am 23 and my GF is 19. We have been dating for about a year now.

The only thing that really seems to bother me about this whole search for a hotel is that most of the nicer ones require that you be 25 years old to book.

What in the world is the reason for this?????

I don''t think I have to say it but that ticks me off!

If I am going to spend the money to go down there, and take off of work I would at least like to have the best I can get, but this age restriction thing is killing all my plans lol.

 

[J S Machine]

Just got off the phone with Hilton.

I have to be 25 period.

All of the hotels on the beach that are anything in the way of nice require this.

I guess we are just gonn have to settle for a half @SS hotel.

that really and truly kind of makes me not even want to go.

 

[Kayakqueen83]

I''m sorry that the Hilton didn''t work out. Good luck on your search!

 

[Kayakqueen83]

Date: 1/9/2008 7:36:04 AM
Author: J S Machine
I am 23 and my GF is 19. We have been dating for about a year now.

The only thing that really seems to bother me about this whole search for a hotel is that most of the nicer ones require that you be 25 years old to book.

What in the world is the reason for this?????

I don''t think I have to say it but that ticks me off!

If I am going to spend the money to go down there, and take off of work I would at least like to have the best I can get, but this age restriction thing is killing all my plans lol.

Because it is a common Spring Break desination I''m sure they want to make sure they don''t have spring breakers in thier hotel. I''m sorry that you are having a difficult time. I understand them putting the age restriction on their hotel for liability sake, but I remember how frustrating it can be as well.

 

[FrekeChild]

I''m sorry JS. That really sucks. I know how you feel because until this past birthday I had to deal with rental cars and their restrictions on ages. I think it''s ageist and cr@p but there isn''t anything we can do about it.

You know if Lindsay Lohan or any of those younger starlets wanted to stay in their hotels they''d do it too. It''s bull____. Plain and simple. Well keep looking, and keep us informed of what''s going on.

Are you ever going to post some pictures of the ring you got?

 

[J S Machine]

Yeah I hate the way the spring breakers ruin it for all the people that have sense enough to act decent..

I would like to post some pictures, but I can''t get any of it that are any good. The best camera I have is 4 MP and even in macro mode it doesn''t focus enough. All you can see in the pic is one big blurry white spot

. I will get some done though, cause I want to be able to show you guys. Do any of you know if I could like take it to a photography shop or something and get them to snap a couple pics of it?? I don''t know why they wouldn''t..

 

[FrekeChild]

Well I don't even have a macro mode on my camera, what I've done is taken the picture so that it focuses on the piece of jewelry so you can get a clear idea of what it looks like, and it's usually about 3-4 feet away from it. I haven't posted any of those pics just yet because I need to go back and crop/resize them and I've been too lazy to go do that. My problem is that I have this one antique item that has Hebrew characters on the back of it, and I'm wondering if someone could help me figure out what the heck it says...

Anyway! Not to get off topic, but I hope you can post some pics. I've thought about going to Best Buy or something and borrowing a camera and snapping a few pictures while they aren't looking...jk. Well I really have thought that, but it's probably not such a good idea....

Could you borrow someone's camera? Or have them take pics of it? One thing I've learned from being on this site is that you can't have too many pictures of your jewelry especially for insurance/replacement purposes. Oh, and what are the specs on the ring? I couldn't find them anywhere...

 

[J S Machine]

Even if I hold my camera away like you say, the focus is not good enough to get a clear pic.

It is a 3 stone ring, white gold band/w platinum head. Altogether it is just over 1ct. - like .3, .3, and a .4 center stone. Can''t remember what the exact specs are but all stones are around E-F in color, and they are eye clean. I don''t remember the clarity, I just know (to answer the question) they are eye clean. Had it checked out by two jewelers and one appraised it for $3300, and the other for $3350. One of them said it looked better than anything in his case, and has since called me back asking if I wanted to sell it to him...lol. Still waiting on an appraisal.

I bought it from a private seller. I payed a fraction of the amount listed above, and both jewelers couldn''t believe the deal I got. I figure I did pretty good

.

I just called the last of the hotels on my list that are water front. It just isn''t going to happen. Even at the Holiday Inn you have to be 25. I am so frustrated right now, because I want this to be perfect and everything I try to line up gets shot down one way or another.

I just don''t see the purpose of driving 200 miles to the coast if every time i want to go to the beach I have to get in the car and drive to the beach still, after I''m there!