By Whit Honea, Vacations Blog Editor

Orbitz Worldwide hosted their first annual Blogger’s Day early this week at their headquarters in the beautiful city of Chicago.

Orbitz was an incredibly gracious host and really went out of their way to ensure the comfort and enjoyment of all their guests, which included some of the biggest travel blogs on the web today (yes, even us!).

There are a lot of big things on the horizon for Orbitz and they were kind enough to share them with us, unfortunately they made us pinky swear not to cover all of it. Something about swimming and cement shoes.

What we can discuss is the excitement and passion that is Orbitz and how it runs throughout the entire company. They are generally giddy over the news regarding their change in Orbitz fee policy. They are obsessed with hotels and customer service. Technology drives them. Also, coffee.

Barney Harford, the Orbitz President and CEO gave us a good portion of his day and he was happy to do so. He even laughed at my jokes, which was probably forced and mere politeness, but I’ll take it.

In addition to Mr. Harford we were able to chat with Sam Fulton (Group Vice President, Retail), Chris Brown (VP, Product Strategy), Carolyne Crawford (Sr. Director, Customer Relations/Training), Roger Liew (VP, Technology), Julie Szudarek (VP, Strategy and Planning), Brian Hoyt (VP, Communications and Government Affairs), Eric Brodnax (VP/General Manager, The Away Network), Jan Lofgren (VP, Account Management and Development – Orbitz for Business), Chris Hills (Air Traffic Lead Team) and many others, including Kate who does a lot of the blogging and social media for Orbitz.

A special thanks, hence her own paragraph, goes to Marita Hudson Thomas, for everything.

Stay tuned to UpTake for more on Orbitz news and hovercrafts.