Our arrival in New York City was uneventful. After a short wait for the bus, we headed for our hotel with time for all we needed to do to get ready for the evening’s events. The ride should have taken 20 minutes. After nearly an hour we were still crawling our way through Manhattan. When we got there, we took our bags to our rooms. Hotel people had delivered our bags in the past, but our late arrival made that impossible. We were given fifteen minutes to change and get back to the first floor to walk to a restaurant for a pre-show dinner.

We opened our door to find the room already occupied with a suitcase on the bed, the television turned on, but no people. We called the desk and were told to come to the 8th floor lobby for a new room assignment. We went from 20 to 8, got a new room on the 21st floor and hurried back up, dragging our luggage. The room on the 21st floor was also occupied, this time with someone from our group who was dressing for the evening. We apologized for walking in on her, and went back to the 8th floor. George told the people at the desk that we needed assurance that the 3rd room would be empty. This one was on the 36th floor. By this time we were warm and annoyed. We had time only to partially change before we dashed to the first floor to meet the group. We were a bit late, but they were waiting.

Dinner was excellent. We’d calmed ourselves enough to enjoy seeing people we’d known on previous trips. Our first show was The King and I, nominated for several Tony awards, and an entertaining production with excellent dancing and familiar music. The day ended well.

The next day one of our leaders talked to the event coordinator who had not been told by the people at the desk of our ordeal. She was not pleased about the mixup, and we were given an apology plus a bottle of wine and a box of special chocolates. In retrospect, we were satisfied with the outcome. At the time, it was not so much fun.