Fishing Trip out of Cocoa Beach on the Orlando Princess Boat

Photo on Left: Orlando Princess

What should have been the worst weekend ever turned out to be one of the best.

Where should I start? Well I guess I will start from the begining. The wife and I had planned a trip to Cocoa Beach for her birthday to do a day of deep sea fishing. We had called and booked a room at the Luna Sea Motel months in advance and set up our reservations with the fishing boat Orlando Princess.

That Friday night that we were going to be checking into our room we called to make sure what time the front desk would be open just in case we came in late we wanted to make sure there was someone who could check us in. Normally you wouldn’t have to with larger hotels but with small mom and pops motels you never know. Well good thing we called, they didn’t have our reservations in their system. We gave them our Reservation number and they looked it up. “oh we are sorry this reservation is for June 2-3 not May 2-3.” They said we must have made a mistake when booking the room. How is it that we could get our birth dates wrong? Anyways, they explain to us good thing you called because we are almost sold out, we have one room left, and it is a suite. They said the price for our room was quoted as a week day rate because June 2 was a Monday not a Friday, but they would give us the room for the rate that we were first quoted because of all the trouble.

Ok so here we are thinking we are all set, good thing we called, we have a room lets get this trip rolling. Upon check in we were given our “new” rate which was about $20 higher than the original price. What ever, lets just get our room get settled in and get some dinner.

We paid, got our room key and headed to our room. As soon as we opened the door we can clearly see someone was checked into the room. I closed the door went back to the front desk and explained to them what i saw. They proceed to question me like I was seeing things. They were like there is not to be anyone in that room. So finally I convinced them to follow me to our room. They opened the room and went inside and said, “hmmmmmm…..” this is strange…well no one is suppose to be in this room, lets gather up all their stuff.” Then thy had the nerve to have me carry all the luggage and personal belongings down to the front desk. Well would you guess it, right after we got unpacked and settled, mind you it is now 12:30 am we get a call from the front desk. “Don’t get unpacked that room is book.” I said what next?? They said we are going to give you a comp room at the Clarion in Merrit Island, it is only about 10 minutes away. I had them give me something in writing, because at this point I don’t trust them.

Well we found our hotel, checked in, and told them our situation. They took all the paperwork I had Luna Sea Motel write down for me and said that they would speak to the manager and let us know in the morning what we needed to do. The Clarion ended up charging $66, a little more than compt, but cheaper than the $89 the motel wanted to charge.

The room ended up being great, clean, Wireless internet, nice King Bed, and a Awesome Tiki bar called Zaki Tiki at the Clarion. We met the owners Tom and Stacey, they were awesome and took care of us. I highly recommend anyone staying out near Cocoa Beach check out Zaki Taki Bar at the Clarion on 520, right near the banana river. They have at least three large flat screen TV’s, a large dance floor, a games room with over 20 slot machines. Two terrific pool tables, a outdoor bar/hut with a volleyball court with white soft sand. There was even more in the back that I couldn’t see because of it being so late, may have even been some tennis courts?? Oh I can’t forget the large pool and nicely maintain grass and landscaping. The music was top 40 and they have a nightly special of drinks and entertainment. I noticed they even had live Reggae bands on Wednesdays. The drinks were stiff and the music was fitting. If it wasn’t for our chance luck in finding this gem, our weekend would have been ruined.

We ended up making the boat, didn’t catch any fish and I ended up getting sea sick, but all and all it was an fantastic trip. We found a new place, Zaki Tiki in Merrit Island off of 520 in the Clarion Hotel.

*******Written by Christopher Cook of RentVacationHomesOrlando.Com - feel free to use this story, please keep link included http://www.rentvacationhomesorlando.com ********