As I've mentioned, we have a lot of people coming in from out of town for our wedding and they are coming from all over the place. We're thinking that when they arrive in hotlanta they'll probably want a bed to sleep in for a couple days. Awhile back K and I decided to start looking at hotels in the area and figure out room blocks for our guests.
One itty-bitty problem with our venue....
It's in the middle of nowhere.
Okay, so it's not that bad. But there's not a whole lot to do in Hiram, GA. There are 2 hotels very close to our venue and we will block rooms at one of these for the convenience of it. But we wanted our guests to have an option that put them in an area with things to do outside of our wedding.
Unfortunately, the next closest major area is 30-40 minutes away from the venue. We're planning on having a shuttle for our guests, so they'll just have to plan to be ready to go a bit earlier than normal. I'm only a little worried about this...
Okay, so it has potential to be an issue. But we'll just have to deal. I really think our guests will be much happier in the area we've chosen, even if it means having to travel further. And for those that don't want to travel, they can stay across from the venue in Hiram. Problem solved.
So I know you're wondering what we did yesterday, and trust me, I'm getting to it! A few weeks ago, K called a bunch of hotels in this area we've chosen (I think about 10 hotels) and we sat down to go through and narrow them down to just a few. Here's how we did that:
1. By hotel class. We had enough hotels that were in the nice range that the Super 8 just didn't make the cut. Actually, we didn't even call most of these for pricing, but we still ended up eliminating some because of this.
2. By price. If it was expensive, it got crossed off the list. There were enough hotels in a decent range that we could do this fairly easily. It actually only took 1 or 2 off the list.
3. By ease of contact. There were a few hotels who we never heard back from or who were just not easy to contact. We want our guests to have a good experience when they book their rooms so these hotels quickly got the ax.
4. By obligation. Some hotels have a requirement that you fill 80% of the rooms by a certain date or you pay for the additional rooms. Umm, what? I'm sorry but, no. We stuck with the hotels that would just release the room block once we got 2 weeks to a month out.
5. By breakfast. Okay, so this may not be a big deal, but we narrowed it down based on which hotels offered breakfast. Some people won't have cars and it makes things easier if they can just go down to the lobby in the AM. We'll also be staying here on Saturday night and we wanted to be able to eat breakfast with our friends and family as a newly married couple.
6. By extras/amenities. Let's face it. Some hotels have perks that others don't. We picked the perkiest of hotels. :)
We got it down to three using these methods. So what we did yesterday? We went to go see the hotels! We wanted to see the rooms, the lobby, the extras. And I'm so glad we did. It made our decision a little easier because we'd seen the rooms, sat on the beds, seen the restaurant and bar (or lack thereof). We're still deciding between two of them but we've eliminated one. Why? It doesn't have a restaurant or bar. We want people to be able to come back to the hotel and hang out on Friday night. I know there are plenty of places within walking distance, but what could be better than being an elevator ride away from bed?
Did you ever do room blocks? How did you decide which hotel to choose?
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