Twenty-five years ago, my parents honeymooned in the Caribbean at a little hotel called the Island Beachcomber. It wasn't a fancy place, but it was right on the ocean, and they remember it fondly. So for Christmas, my dad decided to use the airline miles they'd accumulated on their credit card to fly us all to the same spot on July 15, styaing through the 25th. The highlight of the trip, of course, was that he made reservations in the same hotel they stayed in on their honeymoon.

Today, I got an e-mail (Dad never checks his e-mail, so whenever we make reservations somewhere, we use mine) from this hotel apologizing, saying, "We have booked the entire hotel to various volley ball teams for a tournament, July 15-20, 2004...We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

This really has me stoked. Isn't the whole idea of a reservation to be able to know with certainty what you're doing and when? If it's treated that loosely, how can you make plans in advance? We've got the plane tickets, tours lined up, the works. If there were a hurricane or something, *that* I could understand, but we have just been kicked out of our room so a bunch of "volley ball" players can have it? Like four of them or one of the teams couldn't have stayed somewhere else? It seems totally unprofessional, not to mention it completely ruins the whole "second honeymoon" feeling for my folks.

Maybe it's just me, but I like places at which if you make reservations six months in advance, you get the best room in the house, or a front-row-center seat.

La"This rant brought to you by..."Zorra