Carol and I just joined the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA).  As business owners for many years, we understand that a well run business society creates needed advocacy for travel agents, the travel industry, and the traveling public.

As I was perusing the member website, I came across this list of strange requests and thought you might get a kick out of it.

ASTA’s Top 20 Strangest Requests Made to Travel Agents

The following are the Top 20 Strangest Requests made of an ASTA professional in the past year in no particular order:

1.    Can you please book the honeymoon suite for us and another couple?
2.    Can you please plan a honeymoon for me, my bride and my mother?
3.    Can you guarantee that no pet has ever been in the hotel room?
4.    Can I fish off of the cruise ship?
5.    Do they speak English in Britain?
6.    Can you book two rooms in different parts of the resort—one for me and my wife, and the other for my girlfriend?
7.    Is our relationship like a client/lawyer relationship? (ASTA wonders if this is the same client who asked Question 6).
8.    Does the crew actually sleep onboard the cruise ship?
9.    Don’t tell my fiancé this is where I took my first wife for our honeymoon.
10.    I would like to go somewhere where there are NOT a lot of men.
11.    I’d like to meet Elvis.
12.    I’d like to get married in the Caribbean on an island where the marriage is not legal in the U.S. (Again, we refer you to Question 6).
13.    Will there be shadows on my face at 4 p.m. when the pictures are taken?
14.    Will you watch my pet while I’m away?
15.    Are there toll roads on the way to Hawaii?
16.    How can I get to Europe without going by air or sea?
17.    I’d like to visit Scotland and Denmark on the same trip. (Agent then tells client he does not have time in his schedule to travel the distance). But they’re only an inch apart on the map!
18.    Can you set it up so that the whales jump in the background at the same time I’m proposing to my girlfriend?
19.    Can you ask the airline to block the seat next to me so I can stretch out?
20.    I don’t want a window seat on the plane because I just had my hair done.

Some of these answers remind me of the sketches Jay Leno used to do in the streets of California.  What do you say to someone who asks about toll roads on the way to Hawaii?  :O
 
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