Hotel reservation cancelled after submitting my France visa application

The reservation was valid at the time you submitted the application? You will have a valid reservation when you enter the country? You’re golden.

They just want to make sure you aren’t going to be sleeping on the beach or any such nonsense. In the astronomically unlikely event they need to find you, they will even know where to find you.

My first trip overseas alone (and to a Communist dictatorship!), I was waiting in the immigration line when I overheard the officer ask the visitor ahead of me what hotel he was staying at. The visitor, an elderly German man, said he didn’t know, that he had contracted with a tour-guide, who had made the arrangements.

The officer was clearly displeased with this answer. “Go wait over there,” he growled. To me, he said, with an unfriendly look, “Next.”

Now I was screwed, because I was in the exact same situation. I had contracted with a tour-guide, who had made the arrangements. I don’t know what was going to happen to the German “over there”, but I did not want to find out.

The officer asked me a few brusque question and then, “Hotel?”

On the spur of the moment, I told him, “Hotel Orient” — reasoning that we were in the Orient so there might exist a hotel with that name. The officer did not even seem to note my answer and waved me through.

As it turned out, my tour-guide had in fact booked me into the Hotel Orient.