Yes, I always plan my lodging ahead of time... 38 88.37%

No, I usually fly by the seat of my pants... 5 11.63%

Hello All,

Seeing as I work for a hotel I am always amazed when people show up looking for a room on busy nights only to have to explain to them we are all filled up and the next place most likely to have a room would be 20 minutes down the road... Often times people get quite angry at me for having to tell them this...

When I travel, I make sure to always have a reservation, especially when I know it will be busy where I am going or have specific requests (smoking, ground-floor, ect)...

My question is, am I the exception here? or do a majority of you travel without a reservation?
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well i usually stay at my parents house when i go to Michigan. But when i do travel with the government we use Reservations
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It's rare that I travel without a hotel reservation. Can't think of the last time...
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In the past I have taken many spur of the moment road trips that required calling hotels in the next town down the interstate to see if they had a reservation. Sometimes you think you can make a 14 hour drive with no sleep and it turns out you can't. Occasionally I just pulled off the interstate when I saw a sign for "49.99" per night or whatever and went in the lobby to get a room.
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We almost NEVER make advanced reservations. And have only been shut out once in 30+ years. We have had times where we had to pay more, go a little farther or settle for less of a room, but we are always polite about it. This includes Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Smokies, and many others. We got shut out in Big Springs, Texas one trip when there was a big Rodeo in town that we didn't anticipate, and we had to go 2 hours east (direction we were already headed.) A night in Moab cost us twice what we planned, because we didn't realize Moab was a big weekend retreat for desert recreation. A trip into Yellowstone that was suddenly in a blizzard meant we had to go to West Yellowstone to find a room instead of one in the park. But overall, we find rooms. We are NOT picky and limited to 4 or 5 star joints. As a matter of fact, some of our best rooms have been in small, mom and pop establishments in out-of-the-way places.
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I understand it with last minute trips and unforeseen circumstances, but Cherokee has a casino and often times EVERY hotel books out... So long as your not picky I will usually do whatever I can for someone, Including calling competitors and setting up reservations for them at other properties, but I am amazed by the people that EXPECT you have a particular room and will settle for nothing else...
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Priceline for name your price. Don't leave home without it.
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Always locked in before I go anywhere!!
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Sadly, we have seen that from other people, especially expecting $200 rooms in a joint that tops out at $85!!! Two months ago, in the St. Mary's area of Glacier NP, a sudden storm blew through, and all rooms were taken by noon. The main, large hotels offered nothing, and wouldn't even call around! We stopped at a small, older motel that was also full, but the clerk immediately said she knew a small hotel about 8 miles north that had rooms half an hour ago, called them, and even had them hold a room for us. We went gave her a $20 tip, drove up, got one of 5 rooms left. Then we went across the road to a small cafe to eat while they were cleaning our room and getting it ready. When we returned from eating, there were two couples walking thru our room (which the maid was in, with an open door). They both turned their noses up, were kinda snotty, and said they would drive down to St. Mary and get rooms. We simply kept our mouths shut. An hour and a half when they returned, all rooms were already taken!!!! Sometimes these people DO get what they deserve!!!
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OH don't even get me started with the headache that are Online Travel Agents (OTA's) Often people don't read the fine print with such websites, the worst of which is Hotwire, All they do is guarantee you have A room at that property, not necessarily the room you request... Then I, as the desk clerk, get to explain it to them when Hotwire promised they would have a ground floor or a non-smoking room...

OTA's make a commission on the rooms they sell, often times you can end up paying the same for a non-guaranteed room type as you would if you just called the property directly... Most of them, Priceline, Expedia, Hotwire, Travelocity, Orbitz ect. will tell you ANYTHING to get you to buy so they make their cut...

My advice to anyone, don't use an OTA, and if you do, Call the desk after making the reservation and confirm what you are looking for with them... :-)
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Only time I don't have advance reservations is when I take a long driving trip and am not sure how far I will get before I stop for the night.

So, I did not vote in the poll since neither answer is truly accurate for me.
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I don't always make reservations,
But when I do, I do so in advance

Reserve responsibly, my friends
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I can't remember the last time I traveled without reservations.
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We always make reservations.
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I usually do, except when on the bike. I ride until I decide to stop for the day, hard to set reservations that way.
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What Kinda bike you got there Larry?
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My wife and I roadtrip a lot. You often don't know when you've just had enough and will stop for the night. Only once due to a NASCAR race we didn't know about were we turned away and suggested heading down the interstate another 25 miles. No problem, certainly don't get rude about it. We just figure most hotels have a vacancy somewhere. Short roadtrips we tend to have advance reservations for accommodations.
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99% of the time I make a res. Even if it's the day of. I usually make all mine online as well.
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This is us exactly. If I'm going to a specific destination, especially by plane, I have the reservation, usually well ahead of time. The only exception is when we were in Europe, I had the first hotel reserved and then we decided where we wanted to go from there and made the next reservation before we left the previous one.

However, when I'm on a road trip, a lot of times I don't have a reservation and see how far I'm going to get. My cross country drive a month and a half ago worked out very well this way. We got farther than we thought one day, and not as far another. It was great to have the flexibility.
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It's 2012, the ease of reserving rooms or dinner or anything is amazingly easy... I can't NOT reserve my spot, haha.
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