Steve and I are going to New Orleans for a volleyball tournament this Friday (1/13/05). The host hotel for the tournament was the Bourbon Orleans (where we've stayed a couple of times during Southern Decadence).

Last night (Tuesday), the hotel called my work number and left a message that said that our reservation had been transferred to the Royal Sonesta. Note that the Bourbon Orleans is across the street from the night life, while the Royal Sonesta is 10 blocks away - that's a mile of walking each direction - after playing volleyball all day. Not ideal. But New Orleans is going through recovery and I'll do my part to help. However, I called the Royal Sonesta first thing this morning to make sure my reservation was set and - guess what? they had no record of my reservation. So I called the Bourbon Orleans and no one I spoke to on the phone (five different people) had any idea what was going on. Only "Linda Bastion" knew - and she wasn't in yet.

So I thought about contacting other hotels in the French Quarter where we've stayed - the St. Pierre, but their web site said they were sold out and there was no answer to the phone; and the Lion's Inn is now owned by different people - and their rates are higher than the other hotels. This could be an unpleansant weekend after all.

Yahoo Business News had these two conflicting headlines from Reuters. That way, everyone can be happy. BTW, the actual bad news is that sales grew 2.9% the last week of December and 3.9% the week before that (thus "sales fall in final 2005 week"). The good news is that sales were up 2.9% over 2004 (thus "sales rise in latest week").