Vacationing in Virginia Beach - Vital Information the Hotel Doesn't Give You

I have to say that overall, I'm a pretty laid back person. I rarely get upset when things don't go as planned; I'm more of a go with the flow type of girl. However, this changes a bit when I go on vacation. Its not that I'm the type that prints and laminates an itinerary and that we have to be at certain tourist spots at certain times, but I like to know that we're going to have enough time to, lets say, catch our flight. You know, normal concerns.

Over Labor Day weekend, my boyfriend and I traveled down to Virginia Beach. We stayed in a very comfortable room at the Holiday Inn Sun Spree Resort right on the beach. We stayed for 5 days and 4 nights and in all respect but one, they were very accommodating. But it was the one little snag that could have meant disaster for the end of our trip.

When we arrived at the hotel late Thursday night, we checked in and the woman at the front desk gave us a parking pass to hang on our rearview mirror. She instructed us to park in the two story parking garage located directly across the street. She also told us that the hotel offers valet parking, but that it stops at 11:30pm (we'd arrived after midnight that Thursday). We drove across the street and found a spot without a problem. Up until the last night of our trip, we had absolutely no problem finding a parking spot whenever we found ourselves back at the hotel.

On Sunday night, we traveled about an hour and a half away from the hotel in order to visit some friends. When we arrived back at the hotel, it was after midnight, so there was no valet parking available. We drove around the entire parking garage but not a single spot was available. Upon pulling out of the lot, we noticed there was a lot directly in front of our hotel and cars were parked there with parking passes like ours. So we found a spot and parked.

The next morning we woke up and packed our bags for the trip home. We walked out to the parking lot to load up our car only to find that it wasn't where we had parked it the night before. We went up to the front desk to ask where our car was. We explained the situation from the night before and when one of the valet parking attendants went outside with us to see where the car was parked, he informed us that it had been towed because it wasn't parked in a Holiday Inn lot, it was parked in a lot for the hotel next door. Neither lot were clearly marked, the lot we had parked in had a small sign on the actual building which was not clearly visible at 12:30am.

When we asked what the hotel could do for us, they said they couldn't do anything. Parking is scarce on the beach so each hotel is only allotted a certain amount of space. As we were talking with the attendant, he asked us why we didn't park in the lot a block away reserved for the valet cars. We were like, what lot? I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that a hotel wouldn't tell its guests about every available parking space it might have (especially on the busiest weekend of the summer).

Now I understand that it was our fault for parking in the wrong parking lot, but I still think that upon checking in, the front desk clerk should have mentioned that in case valet isn't available and in case the garage is full, there is another lot available to park in. So instead, we had to deal with a rental car that had been towed on a holiday when we were supposed to catch a flight a few hours later. We were very lucky that the towing company was working on Labor Day, but our flight plans could have seriously been screwed up because of this misinformation.

Upon returning home, I contacted the Holiday Inn via email to see if anything could be done about this situation. We had spent a lot of money on this resort room for the long weekend, and we felt that the hotel could have cut us a break seeing as they didn't tell us about the extra parking and we ended up having to pay $125 to get our car out of the impound. When I received an email back from them, Holiday Inn apologized saying that they don't have control over anything that happens outside of their hotel.

I understand that we were at fault for parking in the wrong lot, but if the hotel had informed us about the extra spaces, our car would have never been towed. Its upsetting that they claim to have no control over their parking areas. I can only assume that the same thing goes for car theft and any other issues that may arise in areas of that nature. You'd think that a business should be held responsible for things that happen in parking spaces reserved for their guests.

Needless to say, I know that it's an issue that I'll be more concerned with from now on and I can only hope that others can learn from this experience as well. Don't get me wrong, we had a fantastic time while we were visiting friends at Virginia Beach, but it's never fun to have a damper put on your trip. So next time you find yourself in a situation where it seems like parking may be limited, always assume that there may be more parking available. Be sure to ask about additional parking lots so that you don't have to experience the same thing that we did.