Jeff Free V

I had something of a crisis with Semester at Sea yesterday. Although I suppose the crisis actually happened at about 11:55pm on December 14th, 2009.

There are some trips that you can only reserve a spot on before you go on the ship. You have to request a spot during the Pre-Sale period. We got the field practica guide sometime around Thanksgiving, and it had a bazillion trips in it, and I remember reading through a good portion of it when I went to visit Nana that break. It was still incredibly overwhelming, though. The deadline to submit a request for these trips was December 15th, which is kind of vague, so I decided to make sure it was done on December 14th at the very latest.

December 14th was during finals week at Penn State. There was free food that night in one of the study halls. Kerry O was wandering around the ground floor at 10 o'clock or something like that. She said that all she was going to do for the rest of the night was procrastinate, study, or eat food. I told her that sounded great and we should go to the study break snack in Simmons together, and she agreed. At some point I started to feel more concerned about S.A.S. stuff, and I think I may have even called their 24-hour answering service to see if this needed to be done tonight. The guy said yes, and I told Kerry that this was going to take me a little bit, and would probably be frustrating for both of us, so I understood if she wanted to go. She insisted she really didn't have anywhere more fun to be, so she hung out, which was fine.

At some point I remember going to Drew's room, and Kerry was there too at some point. I think perhaps she did leave for a little bit and then come back. I introduced her to Drew and told her that he was going on Semester at Sea with me.

Anyway, I very very clearly remember picking my trips. I remember logging in to MyVoyage and clicking on MyTrips. I remember how the page looked - the same theme as the rest of the S.A.S. website. I remember picking a primary option at each port, then picking an alternative, and then holding Ctrl while clicking any additional alternatives. I remember the bill coming out to some ridiculous amount. [[Understand that these trips were things like Great Wall, Taj Mahal, Safari, etc.]] I remember calling my dad with Kerry still sitting near me, near the doorway, and him getting upset that I was "springing this on him." I remember telling him that it was going to be "sprung" on him anyway, so he couldn't get mad at me. I remember he called me back a little later, with Kerry still there, and told me to just use his credit card, and he seemed a lot calmer about it, like he wasn't mad at me anymore. I remember he told me to write it down, so I did write it down, on the back of my orange field manual. I wrote the four sets of four numbers in a box. I was afraid someone would think it was a credit card number, so I put a + sign in front of the numbers and started adding them. It was security through obscurity. I told Kerry what I was doing. I was proud. I remember putting the credit card number and information in, and I remember hitting submit.

I swear that the transaction had gone through.

We went to get food. I apologized for the wait. She was a good sport and I was glad I hadn't frustrated her or put her in a bad mood.

Yesterday I saw something that said the bus we were slated to take from San Diego to Ensenada was posted on our MyTrips page, along with all the other trips that had been assigned to us. None had been assigned to me. I had actually been a little bit worried about this for a while, but figured it was just taking a while. I then checked the Facebook group, and saw that some kids (but not a whole ton) had posted what trips they were going on. I figured maybe kids who requested fewer trips had them assigned earlier since they were easier to figure out; maybe mine was just taking a while. But I called just in case, and they told me that everything had been assigned. There was nothing on record for me.

I talked to my dad. He called the credit card company. Apparently the charge had never even been presented. It wasn't even that it was denied, or bounced, or rejected, or over the balance - it had just never shown up in the first place. I had no idea how that had happened, but I knew that damage control needed to happen as quickly as possible.

I called S.A.S's office probably 100 times in the next hour and a half. That might be a slightexaggeration, but I'm not totally positive. Eventually I got through enough to find out that there was a woman named Alison D who might be able to help me. I had talked to her once, and she asked me if I had the list of trips I wanted in front of me. I said no, but that I could get it together before 5pm. This was at about 4:15pm, and she was supposed to leave at 5pm. She gave me her direct number and told me to call her back. I found the list of trips and alternatives I had wanted, and called her back. Busy. Called back. Busy. Called back. Busy. This is where the 100 calls comes into play.

My dad realized I wasn't getting through and told me to call the main number. So I did, and they said she was free and would take my call next. Busy again. I kept trying. I left two messages and my dad left one. I even marked one as urgent!

5pm came and went. No calls back. I guessed I could just call her tomorrow and sleep with my phone on in case she called me before I woke up.

Leroy, Gabe and Kelly were visiting, and I was in a terrible mood because I thought my semester was about to be ruined/had already been ruined by a credit card malfunction of some sort.

She called me back at about 5:30. I thanked her profusely and apologized for pestering her. She was actually incredibly nice and understanding, and she apologized, as if the fault may lie on their end. Truth be told I have absolutely no idea what went wrong, so I suppose it's possible that someone went wrong on their end, but I suspect that I did something wrong. But whatever. We went through what trips were still open, and I took what I could. I think she had done a Semester at Sea before, so she even counseled me on a few decisions, which was really nice. I got most of the big trips that I wanted. The only downsides were that all the overnight house visits were full. I was pretty upset about that. I also didn't really feel like scheduling one of the super-expensive safaris, so I just took a one-day one instead. She said that was an improvement, considering all there is to do and see in South Africa. I also missed out on the overnight trips in Brazil, but she said I'd have a boat-full of friends at that point, and I'd find something to do.