My parents found decent cheap hotels for the trip, but for the last night we're going to splurge a little more and go on our own to
Lotte City Hotel. Lotte is a food/snack company, and one of their main products is Koala's March, which you can see more commonly in the US now. They're little crackers with chocolate (or other flavor) fillings, with different koalas printed on the front. The breakfast includes koala shaped pancakes. Their high end room is the
Koala room, which has koalas everywhere. Pretty much thought it'd be funny for one night. Anyway, US-based booking sites like Hotels.com don't even list this room as an option, just one of the basic ones. I've been fighting with the Lotte reservation pages awhile on their website-the official English version causes display errors. The calendar wasn't even populating the dates/prices. I use Google Chrome's auto translate feature and my limited Japanese and made it to the final stages recently. "Continue as a guest", where you enter your name and such... but it was also looking for the way your name is pronounced in katakana. OK, I know katakana and I can input it on my virtual keyboard, no biggie.
NOPE!
It was NOT taking it, saying the English characters and katakana didn't match. I tried so many ways but it just wouldn't take my name (I kept my last name when we married, I just like it). So I tried TMM's name, and while it still took a few tries, I got through. Well, almost. Got a nice big error message to contact the bank, no actual confirmation. Got annoyed and decided to try again another day. Checked again yesterday and the site showed one less koala room available than before. Hmm. Checked the accounts online. Nope, no pending charges. No options on the website for travel notifications. Oh well, I'll try again and call if needed. Tried to get the last koala room (listed at a cheaper price, too). Nope, different error message to contact the bank. Bah. I'll try tomorrow. Soon, the bank fraud dept calls me up. Yes, that was me, I really am trying to get a hotel room in Japan. Ok, they said, after 10 security questions, try again in a few minutes. Sweet! I do so... NOPE. But no bank error, something about the info being incorrect. Let's try again. Back to two available rooms and no more deep discount. Sure, whatever. Wait... I-is that a CONFIRMATION page?!?!?
There is a pending charge showing now, but the fraud line still called, but it was an automated thing and I didn't have time to call before work. Oh well, hopefully it'll go through this time. If not, there's still 4 months to get a room at this hotel, even if it's not the koala room.
On a side note, Hotels.com lists a basic room at this hotel for $160. The website itself lists the regular rate for the Koala room for around $292 for 2 people. I got it for $172 ish for 2 people. Probably b/c we're booking early, it's not peak travel season, and its a weekday, but still. I'll have to double check everything later to make sure I didn't mess something up.