u/Informal_Trick_1658

Yesterday, during his Hall of Fame speech, Andruw Jones gave a shout-out to all the players from Curacao who've played in the major leagues, including Roger Bernadina. That was nice to hear and, wherever Roger is these days, I hope he's doing well.

Does anyone else do the NY Times Strands puzzle? It's a daily word puzzle where all the words are part of a theme. Today's puzzle is titled "What is...." and might be of interest to the folks here.

My husband and I would like to find a spot to enjoy the beach where there is place to rent an umbrella and chairs and where there are restrooms and a place to get food and drinks within walking distance. I’m thinking that Myrtle Beach State Park but wanted to confirm.

Thanks.

I’m currently staying at a Marriott property in Virginia. When I booked my reservation, using points, it was just for one night (last night), but then I decided a few days ago to extend it one more night (tonight) again using points.

The website would not let me modify my reservation online (clicking the link to modify took me to a blank page) so I called the Fairfield Inn where I’m staying to see if they could do it for me. The man who answered the phone looked up my reservation but said he couldn’t make the change because “we’ve just switched to a new system.” He told me to make a separate reservation for tonight and then to check in again this morning when they’d give me the same room.

We arrived yesterday at 4 to check in, and we watched the front desk person methodically try easily two dozen keycards to find two she could get to work to be programmed for our room. When I asked if there was a problem the response was that they’ve just switched to a new system and many of their keycards no longer work.

This morning I went down to the reception desk to check in for tonight and couldn’t accomplish it because of problems with the new system. The front desk attendant was also dealing with the fact the keycards for nearly all the guests had deactivated over night and had to be redone or replaced.

I went back upstairs with breakfast for me and my husband and we decided to go back to sleep for a while only to be awakened by housekeeping who believed that we’d checked out. I explained that we were staying another night but the system issues meant that we hadn’t been able to check in again this morning. She made a note of that.

I went back to the front desk to see if we could finally check in for tonight and the system issues meant still not working. I have genuine sympathy for the young woman who’s working the front desk today because she’s at the desk by herself and is clearly dealing with a major mess that she can’t resolve herself. She’s also been unfailingly polite with everyone even though some guests have not been polite to her.

So we need to go out soon and are a little concerned about leaving our stuff in our room. We’ll take our valuables with us just in case.

Is this happening at other Marriott properties or just this one?

My husband and I have been invited to the wedding of the daughter of his best friend. We've been hearing about the wedding planning and how "badly" it's been going for months. Long story short, but the daughter wanted a small wedding of immediate family (which would mean that friends like us would not be invited (and my husband and I were fine with that)), and the wife overruled that because she wants her and her husband to be able to invite all of their friends. I think they're up to 200 guests.

I'll spare you all the details of the disagreements between mother and daughter, which have been many, but, long story short, the daughter picked a very picturesque church out in the sticks (for the best outdoor pictures, so let's all pray for sun that day) and the mother picked the swankiest reception spot in town. The wedding is at 12:00 (mass with communion) and the reception is at 6:00. That leaves a fair amount of time for the guests to have to kill before the reception starts.

I have not heard anything about the family having anything for the guests in that interim period (we've been to family weddings where someone has a casual open house in between). My husband and I live halfway between the two locations and have been thinking about inviting some of the guests (i.e., mutual friends who we've known for years) to stop off at our house in between the ceremony and reception. We would have light refreshments, and we would all just hang out and chat for a couple of hours until time to head to the reception. Heaven knows, if there's nothing else planned, my husband will definitely go home for a while.

Is it ok to ask the parents if anything has been planned for the guests between the ceremony and reception? If so, should I tell the parents what I'm thinking about? It's clear that the wedding planning has been extremely tense and I don't want to upset anyone, but the alternative for some of our friends is to drive to their homes and almost immediately turn around to drive to the reception.