ok, I'm five days from leaving, should I contact every hotel/B&B to re-confirm reservations, or is it enough to have an emailed or faxed confirmation in hand? What do you do?

Why not play it safe and confirm it? If a mistake has been made, it's better to find out now than once you get there.

I'll have to admit that I rarely reconfirm, and I've never (knock on wood!) been burned.

But I'm sure it can't hurt to double check, if it makes you feel better.

ALWAYS!!

Yes. Unless you're partial to unforeseen surprises, why not? In the amount of time it took you to post this question and wait for replies you could have fired-off emails to all the places you are staying and ask for re-confirmation.

Not only should you re-confirm every hotel, but your airline tickets should be re-confirmed. I had tickets on Alitalia. When I reconfirmed a week before, I found out that I didn't have a return flight. They decided to cancel all flights to and from Dulles and never informed me.

Absolutely!! I found a mistake on my arrival date for a Paris hotel. had I not confirmed, I might have had to look for another hotel. Not a big deal if I was alone but was with my husband, son and parents!

We always reconfirm with email AND we take along copies of the paperwork. In addition to confirming that our reservation exists we use that opportunity to ask about parking, directions, time of arrival, etc. Especially if you travel in high season, it may be important.

Yes, always, and print/carry copies

If it causes you any worry at all then do it. It takes no time to send a couple of emails.

Emails? I am going on my 3rd trip to Paris in January (my first was this past April, yup I am addicted to Paris now!)...

But I confirm on the PHONE, in addition to the emailed copy of the reservation. To me it is a great way to get jazzed up about the trip (or more excited than I already am).

I do carry a printed copy of my reservation confirmation, but don't routinely contact a hotel to re-confirm. My rationale is this - I would rather be standing in front of a clerk with a copy of my confirmed reservation in my hand than speaking to someone on the phone / via email who was telling me "it is not possible". The only time I had a problem was in a four star Florence hotel. The desk clerk insisted they had no rooms and my reservation had been cancelled. I advised them to get ready to apologize to their guests for the noise, because I would be sleeping in their lobby and I snore quite loudly. They found me a room when they saw me scoping out the sofas in the lobby.

Sure. I reconfirm and I'm glad to do so.

I wonder if that was the Hotel Degli Orafi Seamus is referring to. I have read quite a few complaints about them.

I always re-confirm, especially if its international. Things tend to get missed when people speak a different language. I also quickly go through the details: date of arrival, checkout date, rate/payment, and address.

Hi BR,

Are you sure that your plane will leave at the time you think it will?

Are you sure that your hotels remember you?

Never.

What's a 'reservation"?
Never!

Always. Several times it has saved me great anguish. For some reason one time I even reconfirmed as I was about to leave Rome, I just had this feeling to do so. My hotel in Florence had 'lost' my reservation and was completely booked as it was an Italian holiday. It took me a couple of hours but I was able to secure new reservations. Another time a flight had changed.

It is never a bad idea to confirm. (Or reconfirm if you have a bad feeling, lol.)

Have fun!

I book my hotels months in advance and always confirm about two weeks before I leave for my trip. I save all e-mail coorespondence and just resend the e-mail confirmation to them with a statement like "this is just to reconfirm that I am arriving on date X and staying for X nights". I like to play it safe and avoid any problems when I arrive. This way if there is something wrong with my reservation I can scramble to find somewhere else to stay instead of having to waste valuable vacation time dealing with it when I get there.

Tracy

I was going to say, “No, never. Never had a problem. Why should I bother?”

However, after reading some of the previous posters, I’m thinking it would be a good idea in some circumstances. If I’m traveling at home (to me, anywhere in the U.S.A. is “home”), and with my usual airline and hotel, I probably won’t confirm. I do keep printouts of the e-mail confirmation with me. I also look up my airline reservation a few days beforehand on-line, more to see if the time changed.

But if I’m traveling outside my comfort zone, it’s probably a good idea to re-confirm, particularly if the reservation was made a long time ago.