geographically worked out to be a good stopping point for us as we need to get to Aberdeen, Scotland in a few days to fulfill an obligation we made through Trusted Housesitters to take care of a couple of cats for a lovely couple while they travel.
When traveling and everything goes smoothly as it has been, guess there always has to be a July 17th type of day! We booked the train to Newcastle and when we got on and went to our reserved seats (you cant actually pick your specific seats like when flying) we were more than a little surprised that we had 2 seats, but absolutely NO window! They were the last ones in the coach and the wall curved in a little so the inside seat leg room was smaller than normal. Not a good start, but figured we could deal with it (as we didnt really have a choice anyway) as the train was quite full. If that was all that happened on that day, it wouldnt have been too bad, but
so had decided on an apartment which we booked through We have used them before without a problem so were not concerned (and we did get a confirmation email). As time was after 3PM, we arranged to leave St. Albans about 11:30am with an arrival time of 3:23 in Newcastle. The connections worked out fine with a subway ride between the two trains. We walked to the apartment and when we got to the building it stated that you need to enter your apartment number in as a code to gain access. Unfortunately, we never got from the property or through booking.com about this. We figured it wouldnt be too much of a problem as had a phone number for the property and they knew our approximate arrival time. That wound out being a wrong assumption as we received a recording when we tried to call stating that the phone number you are calling is not receiving calls at this time. It seemed like a strange message right away as it didnt say the phone wasnt working. We tried a few times, receiving the same strange message. We then knew it was time to call customer
service for Booking.com They agreed that it was strange, apologized for the situation and said they would try calling them and get back to us. Well, surprise, surprise – they got the same message and they could hardly believe it. I was told they would send an email to them and get back to us with their response so to wait to hear from them. Remember, this means we were still outside the building and it was quite windy, getting cold and seemed like it might rain. We started this process about 3:45PM and to make a long story short, we didnt get into another place until 7PM! It took that long to wait the required time based on Booking.com rules to actually look for place for us. They up with 2 possibilities, but when we looked at them, they werent even close (both geographically or facility wise) to what we had booked. Finally, they said we could book what we had found (we did have time to search after all with the waiting we had to do). The downside was it was about $100 more. In the end, after we finished our stay in Newcastle,
we do have to give Booking.com their due as they provided us a full refund for the difference. We were definitely pleased with that and they did say that they would thoroughly check out that property manager as I told them not to advertise them to others!
The apartment that we did end up in was a little farther away from the center of town, but fortunately it was quite close to a bus stop so all was well. We didnt know that at the time so walked UP hill towing our luggage to find the place. As we got to the apartment so late on a Sunday night and with no time to stop at the grocery store to pick up food, we figured we would walk to a local pub we passed on our walk for dinner. Wrong again. It was quite close by, but when we got there, we were told that they didnt have a working sink so no food! The only other thing to do would be to head down the hill into town to find a restaurant there.
