Frist Family Vacation to the Beach-Part ONE!

Last week, we ventured to Virginia Beach for our very first family vacation as a family of 5 (1/2). It was far enough to be a much nicer beach than Ocean City, MD but close enough that it would only take a few hours to get there! My sister came (as "the nanny")...we kept calling her "the nanny" the whole time and she would respond each time by saying, "I'm NOT the nanny, I'm the AUNT!" It became this running joke with everything! It was so funny!

The girls did SO good in the car and never made any peeps! I couldn't believe it! I almost didn't want to stop after 3.5 hours because I was afraid of taking them out and then it not going so well after going back in their seats, but they did great. We stopped at a rest area and put a big beach towel out and let them play and drink their bottles, and they were so happy and went right back in their seats and made it the rest of the way! I was speechless and so proud of my little girls!

When we arrived at the beach, everything that could have gone wrong with our hotel, did! I was so pissed off at the hotel and made it clear to them that I would never be returning. As a reservation under a Starwood owner (my parent's), I expected a little more accommodations but was completely wrong. Here's what happened:

We made our reservation about 6 weeks in advance through Starwood and requested a king size bed, floor/ground level/pool side room. This was because the rooms opened up to right next to one of the pools and we wouldn't have to (1) use the elevators with our huge stroller and (2) when the girls were napping we could still sit at the pool with still being right there with the girls and the monitor. Also, I requested two cribs. Having triplets and traveling would be hard enough and so I tried to make everything as easy as it could possibly be!

I called NUMEROUS times, almost weekly to ask a question or something and would always confirm our floor/ground level/pool side room with two cribs and a king size bed! I changed our reservation ONCE to two cribs and a roll-away (when we decided to bring "the nanny" with us, about two weeks prior and was told it was no problem!

I called Monday afternoon (we were set to arrive Wednesday AM) to make sure everything was ok with the hotel since hurricane Irene had just slammed the hotel and beach and was told everything was just fine and I of course confirmed our floor/ground level/pool side room with a king bed, two cribs and a roll-away! I was told that time and every single time I called, "yes, ma'ma, everything is confirmed and correct, we look forward to your stay."

So, when we were about an hour away (around 11:30am) I called to say we would be arriving soon and was there an option for early check-in, and was told that it could be a possibility but they would know better when we arrived, which was totally fine as I had packed a "day bag" with everything we needed for the beach/pool for the afternoon. It really wasn't a big deal if we couldn't get into our room until 4pm, as I was ready to enjoy some sun!

When we arrived, Tim and I walked in the lobby to check-in, so we could get a parking pass to park there at the hotel while we went to the beach. As the lady was writing the pass, I said, "ok, so about 4pm our room should be ready, we have a floor/ground level/pool side room." She said, "ok, let me check," and then proceeded to tell me that, nope we we're in "a 3rd floor room with two double beds, and a partial view!!!" ENTER BIG MOMMA FLIP OUT AND EXTREMELY EMBARRASSED HUSBAND!  I started explaining to her calmly after taking a deep breath that I never even reserved double beds and I called numerous times for a ground level room/pool side room with a king size bed! She said that all of the ground floor/pool side rooms were still drying after being soaked from the hurricane. I GOT EVEN MORE MAD! I told her that I called on Monday afternoon to confirm my POOL SIDE room and NO ONE, yes NO ONE said or warned me that they might still be wet by Wednesday, nor that THEY WERE WET AT ALL. (Now, side note---if I had been aware of this issue I would have been prepared for the inconvenience and would have reacted totally different!!!) She then said that they could "hopefully" move us to a pool side room on Friday morning...I shook my head in disbelief as I told her that I have infant triplets and would not be moving rooms since we had so much stuff! This conversation of me explaining that my parent's were Starwood owners and this is not acceptable for a Starwood hotel, that I had tried to make everything convenient as it is hard to travel with three infants and so on...and the lady saying nothing more than "I'm sorry" one time and then just starring at me like I was nuts! She could have cared less and that made me more mad. I was fuming and I may contribute that to pregnancy but I was seriously so mad! Oh and then I said, "well, do you even have a confirmation of my two cribs and a roll-away," and THEN she said, "oh, well we don't have any rooms that will fit two cribs and a roll-away!" SAY WHAT!?!? Then why the heck did you let me request that!?!?!?! And why the heck did you let me confirm that numerous times over the last two weeks?!?! Oh, I was ready to just start laughing at this point! Tim was totally begging me to stop, but I was so angry I knew I needed to leave right away and just turned around and walked away!

I walked out of there dialing my dad's cell and explaining everything to him. He was pretty mad too! I could feel my blood pressure rising and knew I needed to get some food asap, so we walked to a close by restaurant and ate lunch while I collected myself. I was just so angry and upset that I had worked so hard to make everything go smoothly with 3 infants and yet nothing was working out! My dad called the hotel and nothing was resolved. So by the time we went back, I just stated again, how upset I was, and the lady barely even acknowledged me! We got our room on the 3rd floor with two double beds with a parking lot/partial view and that was that. Then they brought me a crib and a roll-away when I stated that I would just take the 2 cribs since we had double beds now, but of course no one listened.

The room was small and as nice as it could be, I guess. The bathroom was tiny! Very tiny. The air condition leaked on the balcony, so you couldn't even walk out on the balcony without shoes one. The balcony was right over the air condition until for the entire hotel, so you couldn't put your towels on the railing because they would blow right off and land in the puddles of water from the air condoning unit in the room..yeah, Starwood quality right there! Not to mention, the railing was very flimsy and could not be trusted.

Within the hotel, the breakfast buffet, for $13 dollars a person was HORRIBLE! I have never seen such crap in my life and have seen continental breakfasts at Holiday Inn's that were MUCH nicer and had better food! I waited over 20 minutes from my omelet, of simply eggs and mushrooms! Unacceptable! One of the hot tubs in the indoor pool was empty and not working, not to mention the water was about 55 degrees and therefore freezing! For an indoor pool, that is also unacceptable! The water in both outdoor pools was also freezing, but I understood why since they had just received about 12 inches of rain. The zero entrance at one of the pools was nice, but some days it was filthy and no one seemed to notice it to clean it. The main lobby bathroom was VERY small, along with the beach floor bathroom and totally not conducive for changing if you wanted to go to the beach, and we reorted to changing in our car the first day, since our room wasn't ready.

One of the pools where you can clearly see how people were in the pool side rooms, taken on Thursday.

The bike path right in front of the hotel was like a freeway! Don't think a pregnant woman with a quad stroller would stop anyone! Man, it was like crossing the highway each time, especially Friday and Saturday!

There is a crane that was over the pool the whole time since the hotel next door is being built. This didn't really bother me as we spent most of our time at the beach but still it was annoying to hear the dump trucks and such all freakin' day long!

I had read on my favorite travel website, Trip Advisor, that the two elevators were very slow, and they didn't let down! We had to wait 15-20 minutes some days to go down in the elevator! It was horrible and super hard to keep the girls entertained in the stroller while just waiting in the halls. Oh and speaking of the halls--they reaked of cat/dog pee! It was foul! For a "pet friendly hotel" I found that disgusting and each time getting on and off the elevator it hit you like a ton of bricks!

The pros to the hotel: The beach is right there, barely a few steps which was very nice! There were always plenty of towels for guests to use at the beach/pool. The lady who cleaned our room each day was so nice! I loved her. She asked us everyday if we needed more of something since we had the babies and came in and said hi to the babies each day and said how beautiful they were. I tried to be in the room when she came so that I could disgaurd of all our diapers and baby food containers/bottle liners, so she woulnd't have to do all the extra work. I just felt bad because our room was like a maze with how much stuff was in there! The beds were also very comfy!

There were a few more things, but I left that to Trip Advisor's review!

So after this whole mess, I decided it was time to start enjoying our vacation and not let these idiots get to me anymore!

Madelynn pooped from the long day, she couldn't even sty away during her dinner!

We walked the boardwalk that evening because it was a little cold and windy for the beach and took some family photos! We were the highlight of the boardwalk and were actually filmed in a VA Beach Hyundai commercial! Stay tuned for it's release and I'll for sure post it! The film crew just thought the girls were so cute and how crazy is this: one of the camera men's neices, cheered with my sister in high school and lives in our town! Small world!

Sleepy girls!

We got carry out from a pizza place called Dough Boys, because ya know, I can't get enough pizza these days and it was pretty good. My sister and I shared a salad which was huge. It was just getting too late to keep the girls out any longer and Big Brother came on and I didn't want to miss it! LOL!

We all slept so good that night and couldn't wait to hit the beach early the next morning, and we sure did, as we were on the beach relaxing by 9am! Whahoo for Momma's great organization!

Stay tuned for Part 2!