[mooby]

Trying to go skydiving with a friend yet repeatedly having bad luck. And just because I feel like venting, here goes:

Back in January I bought a voucher off Travelzoo for $125 bucks, it was to go skydiving near DC (voucher worth $250, expires May 10). My friend who lives in NC bought the same voucher, and we made plans to go together. Now he and I have limited opportunities where we would be able to get together at the same time to do this so we picked April 22nd as the day to go do it, and we hoped nothing bad would happen that could screw it up since it was so close to the voucher expiration date.

Well as my luck goes in Warrenton (where the jump is scheduled) that day thunderstorms came through and DC Skydive cancelled all the activities for that day. Since we were rained out I called the booking company (Soaring Sports) and they extended my voucher until June 10th, since the weather is beyond my control. Well when they extended my voucher, they didn't have any time slots available for the days that me and my friend were available, so I had to shift my schedule around to make it work. (My boss let me work today so I could take Monday the 21st off to do it then). So I figured the odds that it would rain me out this time were slim to none, yet I kept checking the weather forecast this week just in case.

So today I check again, and the weather forecast for Monday keeps getting worse (as of now 60% chance of rain Monday), so I figured why not call Soaring Sports and hope they have two spots open tomorrow, because I don't want to go through the hassle of rescheduling yet again. Well, I call them today and ask them if they have any spots open tomorrow, and the person they connected me to told me I need to call DC Skydive and tell them I'm cancelling for Monday and want to reschedule, so I went ahead and called them. After sitting on hold for 15 minutes the chick from DC Skydive says she doesn't have the right paperwork for me, and that I need to call XYZ Company and tell them to send DC Skydive the right paperwork. So she gives me the number for them and I call them, and then they tell me that DC Skydive referred me to the wrong company, so I need to call DC Skydive back and get the right number from them. Well I'm getting agitated at this point but I do it anyways because I just want to get this jump over and done with at this point. So I call DC Skydive back and after sitting on hold for 15 minutes they give me the number to the right company, so I call them and tell them to send DC Skydive the right paperwork, and this lady says they will, yada yada. So I call DC Skydive back and they say they haven't received the paperwork yet, and they'll call me when they receive the paperwork (hours later and they called me back while I was typing this post).

So now I let a couple hours pass and I call Soaring Sports again. After sitting on hold for another 15 minutes someone finally answers the line (and this chick is a lot nicer than the person I dealt with earlier). I ask her if there's any spots tomorrow for me and my friend to go and then I sit on hold for another 10 minutes while she's checking. So right after she takes me off hold she starts talking and the call drops. So I call her back and it puts me on hold for another 15 minutes. I get back through to her finally and I hear her say "yes we have two spots open for 9 am tomorrow" and the call f'n drops again. So I call back again, and yet again after another 15 minute hold I get through and manage to tell her I'll take them just in time before she starts saying "hello, hello" and the call drops again. Right after I get off the phone with her someone from DC Skydive calls and asks me to confirm the jump for Monday, and I told her I just rescheduled for tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. If it doesn't happen tomorrow for whatever reason I think I'm just going to call and ask for my money back. I'd rather jump than go through the hassle of getting my money back (paid 125 for the voucher and 80 for video), but we'll see. Either way it's been a major pain in the ass trying to set this up. I've been on the phone with all these reps from different companies setting shit up (first time I rescheduled I had to call and reschedule again because they didn't reschedule both our jumps together, so this is theoretically the third or fourth time I've rescheduled for both of us to go).