Franz Josef Glacier – The Town, not the glacier

Pretty easy drive even though it took the better of 6hrs. Roads here, yes it’s the roads again, are deceiving. Because of all the curves, average traveling speed today was 35MPH. Fortunately, the high-performance Kiwimobile was capable of maintaining those speeds.

Franz Josef is a small, very small town where we planned to stay for 6 nights. Lots of hiking, tramping and outdoorsy things to do so we didn’t feel that was going to be a long time in one place. Besides, we have plenty of time. 

Our reservations were at Glenfern Villas, a group of duplexes in a quiet area of Franz Josef. Complete with washer and dryer, this would be a good place to catch up on laundry while enjoying the scenery.

Did I mention that we used Hotel’s.com to book our room? I’ve used them for about 2 years now and always had a good experience, plus collected a free night which we used in Paris! Well it seems that the growing behemoth, Expedia, bought Hotels.co and couldn’t wait to screw it up. We discovered this when we tried, yes tried, to check in. According to Glen (the owner) Expedia cancelled our reservations, and, you guessed it, they’re completely booked.  Never mind that 4 days earlier we received a confirmation from Hotels.com saying we should get ready for our stay in Franz Josef. Guess now I know what they mean by, “Get ready”.

No problem. Glen called around and found us a comparable room for half the price. Only problem was that we had to leave by Sunday, 3 day instead of the 6 we’d planned for the area.

Checked in and had a nice glass of wine while we relaxed. Day ended pretty good considering another demon tried to ruin it for us. I wonder if United owns Expedia?????