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DEALING WITH BIKE WEEK 
Thinking about booking during
bike week? Think again. If you plan on staying
anywhere near the Weirs during bike week, which occurs during the
second week of June each year, you better be ready for a
fight. It's you against the other 340,000 bikers, all of
which want to be staying in an area less than one square mile in
size.
In this article, we
will offer some tips, advice, and common sense we've gathered that
may help you secure a room during bike week. Getting a room
is part luck and part science. Either way, it will most likely
entail hours of calling and searching around, with the possible
prize of shelling out a big pile of money in the end. With that,
let's begin.
If you have never
stayed up here during the rally before, than you're already going
into this battle with your arms chopped off. Why you
ask? Many establishments will offer their
previous years guests the option to return, and a vast majority of
them will. This saves both parties time and effort and many
of the family owned properties look forward to seeing familiar
faces each year.
Don't try to book
years in advance, no place takes reservations that far out.
It's been known that a few people have placed reservations almost
18 months in advance. That's a long time, and you don't know
what's going to happen during that period. You could get a
new job and have to move, you could get a divorce, you could lose
all your money in a poker game. The possibilities are
endless.
The explosive growth
of the internet has led to many room seekers taking their search
online. Correspondence with lodging establishments via email
is becoming a great way to do your room hunting. It allows you to
always have a copy of what was sent and what the response was,
unlike a phone call. There are some pointers that you might want
to keep in mind. First, be careful what email address you
send things from. Whether you think it's fair or not, if you
send an information request from your personal email address,
which is PublicEnemy1@drugdealer.com, chances are your email is
going right into the virtual trash can. It's not a secret that
what people choose for their email address in some way represents
what they feel their personality is, what they wish is was, or an
interest they have. If we owned a lodging property, we'd
much rather rent a room to suzy@savethewhales.org.
Although every
property is different, your best chances at sneaking in a room
rental would be to call around starting in February, and then
maybe again in April. At those times, most places request
deposits from last years guests. Sometimes, a deposit is not
received and that persons room is released. Just sit down with a
big list of places numbers to call and make your way through them
a couple of times between February and April. Your only other
options entail finding a place outside of Laconia, or the Lakes
Region. Head out 30-40 miles or so, and things will start to
open up.
Now lets say you
made a phone call when the moon was aligned with Jupiter and a
major solar flare erupted on the surface of the sun, you managed
to get a room and you are overjoyed. Chances are, you really
want to be getting a mailing come next winter asking if you want
to return, don't you? If so, you can better your chances as
being asked back by following the below tips. Some of them
seem obvious, you may take offense to some of them, but you'd be
surprised how often these things happen.
Keep your room
reasonably tidy. It all boils down once again to the fact
many of the establishment around here are family owned.
You're
staying with the owner of the property, not buying a room from a
chain corporation. Trash your room, and to the owner, it's
personal. It shows you don't respect their property
and the work they put into it.
Very few places have
so many rooms that they can't keep track of who is a registered
guest and who is not. No matter how clever you are, the odds
of you successfully sneaking friends into your room is slim. If you
get caught, not only will you not get asked back next year, you
place yourself in a position to be asked to leave.
Smoking in a non
smoking room is a bad idea. It puts the lodging
establishment under stress to remove the smell you left behind for
the non-smoking guest who is to have your room after you
leave. Please, take our word for it when we say that, no
matter how hard you try, you cannot conceal the fact that you have
smoked in a room. If you think that spraying air freshener will
hide it, you are mistaken. The mere sight of air freshener in a
motel room is 99 percent of the time a symbol of guilt as
significant as ashes on the floor. Continuing to smoke after being
warned will lead to you being asked to leave, and don't expect
your money back. No place will refund you for breaking their
rules. That won't be your only problem. If you get kicked out
during bike week, you'll probably end up heading for home. You
are probably not going to find a
room elsewhere. Also remember, property owners in the Lakes
Region are networked, poor behavior at one place can hurt in so
many more ways than one.
Bike week is a great
event, if you cooperate with your host and follow a few of these
guidelines, you'll get a room you may be able to keep for years.
Think of how nice it would be to not have to hunt for a room next
year!
