Note: The usual disclaimers apply.

From far away in the mountains, he took time off from the longest hide and seek game ever played to wish us Happy Kaamatan. In the National Language with authentic regional lilt, no less. With a unique Sabahan twist, and perfectly appropriate body language at the end. Better late than never.

HotelReservations.com offers the complete range of vacation planning online: hotels, motels, resorts, flights, cars, vacation rentals and vacation packages. You’d only need this one website to have a complete trip plan.

Services are currently offered for 15 countries, a mixture of top North America and European destinations: the United States, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Appropriately, the site is browsable in several languages, namely English, Spanish, French, German and Italian.

I tried several of the features at Hotel Reservations dot com and here’s a summary of some that I liked.

For the hotel reservation feature, they have a feature to enable you to list hotels located near famous landmarks. For example, for the city of London I could pick the hotel of my choice located near Harrods. The hotel compare function allows you to shortlist hotels to assist you in making up you mind.

They even have a comprehensive destination guide that enables you to find out details about your destination and hence plan you trip in advance. It contains recommendations on attractions, restaurants, hotels, even up-to-date weather forecasts, health tips and much more for thousands of destinations, even those not listed in the 15 countries!

For those seeking special-interest holidays, the site offers options as wide ranging as family-oriented, beach hotels, gambling, golf and spa holidays. So yes, you can bring along your Cobra golf set if you want.

US customers are offered road trips, where you can find a destination by specifying driving time from your current location. Indeed this is a great idea for a great weekend trip on wheels!

The prices offered is also competitive with prevailing market rates. They also offer big discounts on world wide destinations.

Of course, if you are more comfortable with the telephone they can be contacted at 1-800-893-4086.