Daddy is going to be gone this week for a business trip, and Claire is very sad.
Technically, he’s leaving today (Monday), and we’ll pick him up on Friday…so in reality, we won’t see him Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. That’s only three days. Technically. He’ll call us every day, so that will lessen the blow…but still. She’s very sad.
Every time I hear myself explain how long Daddy will be gone, and how it’s a week, but not really…it’s only three days, I remember a client I had when I was an Adventure Vacation Travel Consultant.
In a former life, I sold adventure vacation packages. I worked with outfitters and clients and acted as a liaison for their travel experience. It was a super-fun job until that fateful day in September of 2001. On that day, and the days that followed, I had clients stranded all over the world (literally), and it was a hectic, frightful time that led to a downturn in the travel industry that never truly, fully recovered.
But, this isn’t about that…this is about one of my wonderful clients. *cough* He’d been a pain from day one. Nothing was going to be right about his trip; I could tell. This man was going to a developing country and was expecting to go directly from his first class seat on the plane to the resort as if by magic. The resort he was going to was top notch, but getting there would be an adventure for him. (Hello!? It’s Adventure Vacation Travel! What do you expect??)
I was trying to explain to him that because the resort was so remote, he had to jump through some hoops to get there. There was no way around this. He had to take this flight, and then transfer, and then take this flight and then transfer. Then, from that little tiny airport (which was actually more like a dirt runway), he’d have to take local transportation to the resort. We referred to the “local transportation” as a “taxi,” but it probably wasn’t yellow. Or even a car. And, I could only hope that there weren’t peasants with their chickens riding on crates… 
Actually, I’m pretty sure it was a standard vehicle, and it was reliable. Plus, we’d arranged all of this for him. Everyone else who had done this trip was pleased with the experience, so I wasn’t too worried. (Well, I wasn’t worried about my client. I was more worried about the poor taxi driver…) 
The notes I had about this trip indicated that the resort was an hour and a half from the airstrip, and this was mainly due to the roads…not the actual distance.
As I was explaining the transfers to the man, I got to the part about the “hour and a half taxi ride” and he FLIPPED OUT.
He started yelling. He was huffing and puffing about how it was ridiculous for him to be expected to ride in a taxi for an hour and a half to get to the resort, especially after making so many transfers. “Surely that’s wrong!” he shouted into the phone at me.
“That’s what it is, and don’t call me Shirley,” I thought in my head. Out loud, I said, “Well, let me check…” and I found the documentation. “Yes, here, if you look on the page I sent you…under ‘ground transportation’ it mentions the taxi transfer. It says, ‘The resort is a scenic 90-minute drive from the airport…’”
“Well, that’s much better than what you said!” he yelled, sounding relieved.
“What?” I said, confused.
“You said it was an hour and a half! I can’t do that! But, 90-minutes is much easier for me to handle,” he said.
And, he was serious.
He honestly didn’t realize that 90 minutes WAS an hour and a half.
So, I kept that little piece of information to myself…
His taxi ride, was indeed, the 90-minute adventure he was anticipating, rather than a hideous hour-and-a-half-long journey. And, he had a great time.
I can only hope that Claire handles Daddy’s week-long business trip with as much ease. I mean, it really is only three days.
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