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Hey ladies...FH and I are looking for hotels in the area to block out rooms. We will need to block out about 50 rooms. Any suggestions for reasonable prices??
Hilton Garden Inn is beautiful!!! I don't think they will let you block 50 at first though. I don't think any hotel will allow that. I've dealt with a lot of hotels and blocking....and i think the most anyone let me block at once was 25. But, once you get like 22 of the 25 booked, you can open another 10-15, then book those and open more. So my recommendation...when you finalize your hotel block, get on people to book the rooms. Thats what i did. But HIlton Garden Inn is awesome! Ask for Megan Reed.
I love that hotel but its a little too small and pricey. We need at least 50 rooms bc we have a lot of oot guests. So we need a slightly larger hotel.
Yeah I might have to do 2 hotels... I really was trying to avoid that. Thanks for the other suggestions- I am going to look into them :)
I am looking at hotels a little bit farther away from Riverhead because Hotel Indigo prices are really high and Hilton Garden Inn/Holiday Inn Express prices go up in the summer. I have a lot of people coming in from out of town as well and didn't want them to pay double the price to stay in town. I'm going to have party buses transport everyone staying in the hotel to Giorgio's and back. Let me know if you want some of the names of hotels i'm looking at.
Yes that would be great! We have also discussed the same thing- as far as busing our guests back and forth. Thanks so much!
Hello! I just called Holiday inn express and I got the rate for $209 for a friday night in June of 2012. I was just wondering what other rates people have gotten for this hotel or others in the area, please let me know. Thanks
Just so you know, they can't give you an accurate price until it's within 12 months of your wedding at Holiday Inn Express...we were originally quoted at $209 a night (18 months in advance), but as it got closer I watched the prices online and got them down to $159 a night....they provided the shuttles for you to/from Giorgio's which def. saves a TON of money....FYI, we are going to end up with close to 45 rooms blocked there, you just need to tell your guests to make reservations far in advance so they can keep opening more rooms up to your block
That is SOOOO helpful! Thank you! I called both Holiday Inn Express and Hilton Garden Inn and was much more impressed with Holiday Inn Express, they were much nicer, better pricing (looking at the prices for this Sept) anddddd they are willing to shuttle all of our guests there. Hilton Garden Inn is only willing to do 2 round trips with 2 shuttles (1 round trip each) and they only seat 14pp, if we need another round trip it will cost us $350 for each round trip for 14 people, that's nuts!!! Just for that fact we'll most likely go with Holiday Inn Express, can't wait to hear about your experience, are you guys spending your wedding night there as well?
Great!! Thanks girls! I was looking at rates too and 200 is just too much!! But I need to wait til a year out to really get rates. So hopefully they can get it down!! The Holiday Inn Express is what I'd really like to book.
@aef3333 You're pretty much exactly a month before me so we can compare a lot of the things we're doing to help each other!
Posted by SUbride10_08_11
Yea the shuttles add up quickly- whether you book them thru a hotel or private coach buses, so going with a hotel that includes them was huge for us...especially when we were able to get the rate for $59-$109 less than the other local hotels. Keep in mind the rates vary by season/holiday season, etc. (however we are on Columbus Day Weekend, and still getting an awesome rate). We had even looked at hotels further west (Exit 63 on the LIE) to see if we could get the rooms for less, and they were only able to do like $140 a night and we decided for the extra $19 a room, it would save us A BUNDLE by not having to do shuttles. You can opt to pay for a private brunch the next morning, but we are just going to invite our guests to join us for the continental breakfast that is included (we are paying for the reception ourselves, so a morning-after brunch isn't in the budget). I have been working with Kim at Holiday Inn Express and so far I have had only minor issues, all of which have been resolved as they happened. We have booked the Bridal Suite for the night before and the night of the wedding, so my BP can get ready together the day of, and for us to have after the reception obviously. The only thing I will tell you, is you have to stay on top of your guests to make sure they make reservations ASAP (we sent STDs in February and we already have 20 rooms blocked) if you need to have alot of rooms (like I said, we are looking at blocking another 25 rooms) and there is another wedding that weekend with a block. Also, you need to stay on top of Kim about releasing more rooms to you as rooms book. I e-mail or call her about every 2 weeks (or if I know that alot of guests recently made reservations) so she can open more rooms up to my block....
Lemme know if you have any more questions
Posted by AlexandMike2012
@aef3333 You're pretty much exactly a month before me so we can compare a lot of the things we're doing to help each other!
Also, as an FYI....I blocked and signed a contract with them sooner than 12 months out, since we were a holiday weekend, but once it got closer we were able to renegotiate the rates...all I did was print out the price from their website for my weekend about 11 months in advance, and showed them that the block rate they quoted me was more than the non-blocked rate, and they lowered the price by $50
