Worldcon 76 in San Jose will open hotel reservations for members on November 22.
The official announcement on the convention website reads:
The Number One Question we’ve been asked since spring is “When will room reservations open?”
We have just sent out an email to all registered members informing them that hotel reservations for members open tomorrow, Nov 22, at 1PM PST.
Reservation information will be posted publicly here on the website at a later date, to ensure members get first crack at the hotels.
(Actually, we sent out 3, because yours truly typoed both the date and time, setting it two weeks in the past. Clearly I was undercaffeinated.)
If you are a member (attending or supporting) and did not receive a copy of that email, please write [email protected] so we can fix it.
And yes, we are aware there is a 4th typo in the email, our hotel information page is https://www.worldcon76.org/travel-lodging/hotels (that typo was inserted by the editor interface, not me)
Please spread the word!
[Thanks to JJ for the story.]
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Make sure, though, that the hotel doesn’t just decide to do major floor closing renovations the week of the con and after the rooms have been booked.
Arisia 2018 members know what I’m talking about.
I am unsure that I going. Probably because of the 2018 Duff race, the delegate will likely WANT to go to Worldcon, but that’s not guaranteed
Well, it’s 1;27 and I haven’t received my linked e-mail yet. Grrrr.
Alan Ziebarth: Well, it’s 1;27 and I haven’t received my linked e-mail yet. Grrrr.
Mine came at 1:09. I know you’ve probably checked your Junk mail folder, but if you haven’t, look in there.
I selected a room in my desired hotel, and by the time I finished filling in all the blanks and clicked “confirm”, it told me that the room was gone, and I had to start over. There were no rooms left at that hotel. 🙁 I did manage to get a room in my second choice hotel, at least.
18 minutes after the time that reservations officially opened, neither Marriott was among the hotels that the official reservation form showed.
Rich Lynch: I’m fascinated how this happens every year (except last year, where they didn’t have a real convention hotel to begin with). I’m so fed up with the instant sellout of Worldcon rooms.
We had the same experience.
Even though we had been warned that “The rooms will go fast–do not wait a moment to make your reservation!”, by the time Ruth finalized our reservation for the CC Marriott, it was totally full–14 minutes after the link was sent out.
Luckily, we did get into the Hilton next door.
Because we were coming in a few days earlier by the time I got a link that worked we could only get rooms at the Fairmont and the other Marriott. I didn’t get a working link until 1:30. And that was mailed to me from the registrar.
So, is there a Motel 6 in the San José area? 🙂
I was going to comment how much easier the process was this year, but now it would feel like bragging. I wonder if it’s because so many of us wanted rooms before and/or after the Friday-Sunday period when they had at least 75% of the rooms for three hotels blocked out?
Jon Meltzer on November 22, 2017 at 3:33 pm said:
Certainly there are — several of them, in fact. If you don’t mind riding light rail back and forth between your hotel and the convention center, there are many hotels located down the North First Street corridor, ranging from fleabags to Holiday Inn. (I think I’ve stayed in many of them over the years.) The Vagabond Inn, for example, where I stayed many times during the time I was “commuting” to the Bay Area to work from my home in Nevada for a week or two at a time, currently shows rates in the $129-139 range for the likely days including the shoulders before and after the convention, and is a short walk to the light rail station (about 20-30 minutes travel time from Gish to Convention Center; I’ve done it myself). But light rail doesn’t run all night anymore the last time I checked, so there’s a trade-off involved with your cheaper hotel room.
There are still rooms available in the Fairmont Hotel. The Fairmont is the largest of the convention’s hotels, has the largest block, and the most suites (which is why it’s the designated “hospitality” hotel). The rooms there are more expensive than what was in the Marriott/Hilton, but the latter two will not expand their room blocks because they figure they under-priced them when they committed to us. (And when I looked on the Marriott’s web site yesterday, I saw that they’re currently asking rates around $400/night for next August. That is, I suppose, one way to get those shoulder nights if you think it’s worth the cost.)
The Fairmont is about the same distance from the Convention Center as the Marriott was from the CC in Kansas City. I did some reckoning using the GMaps Pedometer tool for the walking path that I think most likely (lobby to lobby, not street entrance to street entrance) and got distances that were within a few meters of each other. (About 450 meters/1500 feet) So if you were in Kansas City for Worldcon, think about the distance you walked from the convention center to the Marriott and that’s what the trek will be in San Jose. Except that in San Jose we have a hotel prepared to allow us to host traditional parties in suites, so we won’t have to do the “fan village” arrangement (a la KC or London) or severely limit parties entirely (what Helsinki was obliged to do).
I’m already seeing people saying, “Worldcon is out of hotel rooms,” which is not true. What does appear to be true is that most of the cheaper rooms in the closer hotels are gone. If you want to pay less, you can spend an hour or two of your time traveling back and forth between your hotel and the convention center daily and give up easy access to your room during the day. It’s up to you to decide whether that travel time is worth the savings.