Do I really have to go? Today (in fact, all last weekend) I spent enough time looking for a place in Sicily to last me a lifetime! It was full of ups and downs - we found two possibilities; near beach and town, both would accommodate two couples and two children, with elbow room (excitement, up, up, up!). Then... both started to smell - eventually, one even admitted that the advertised place didn't exist for the advertised price. "Let's talk offline, work a deal, I have several other villas, I'll move out of mine for a few days..." (down, down, down)
We spread our search. Amazingly, I found a single building with two apartments - in town, short bus to the beach. When Rick tried to book it, one was already booked (a little quirk of the site, which I discovered later). So, now I looked for another apartment that is near the first. And, voilà! (yeah, gotta learn the Italian for that) There is one less than 5 blocks away! The fun began...
We decided our friends would take the first apartment, and we would take the second. They would wait until we knew that the second apartment would work for us, and we could book it without all the rigmarole we experienced earlier. Hah! Rigmarole, but eventually we worked something out. It's more than quoted by the online tool, but the owner had a (reasonable sounding?) explanation for the snafu. It was still upsetting; fortunately, Rick handled it - I'm just glad I wasn't part of the booking process!
Meanwhile, our friends are waiting to hear about the other apartment.
We've used both of the tools for other trips and stays, with good results. But I think it is important to keep your fish-meter powered up, and step away from the listing if necessary. Is it worth the stress? If we didn't take advantage of these alternate methods, I think we couldn't go at all. So, ultimately, yes. But right now, hmmm...
^That helped ;-)
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