Hotel Advice

So, I need your advice, ladies. My fiancé was in charge of securing a hotel room block for our out of town guests. He picked the Courtyard by Marriott in Ronkonkoma right off the expressway. I left it completely up to him. This has turned out to be a disaster for many reasons:

1. They only would give us 20 rooms - we begged for 5 more, so we have 25 total.
2. They do not offer a free shuttle to and from our venue, Land's End.
3. They will not provide us with a comped room for the bride and groom.
4. They do not offer free breakfast.

At first, I thought the 25 rooms would be okay, and if we needed more, guests would just have to pay the full price instead of our discounted price. As time went on, we debated breaking contract and trying to get a new hotel.

Tonight, I logged onto their website and requested a room for my wedding night without using my special code...there are no rooms available! So, when our 25 are all used up, there won't be anymore.

Should we break contract and try and get a different hotel? My fiancé already booked 4 of the 25 rooms for her family, and she is the only one that has booked so far. No one else even knows about the hotel yet.

The Hilton Garden Inn was ready to offer us as many rooms as we wanted...

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Posted by sjr385

Do you have any sort of financial guarantee for the rooms? It's not uncommon for hotels to limit the number of rooms that you can block initially, especially if you're not financially responsible for any unbooked rooms. Rooms in a room block are tied up until about a month before the event, when any that haven't been booked get opened up to the public. It's possible that another wedding that has blocked rooms at your hotel, and that there will be rooms available in the last month. Some places will let you negotiate a comped room for the bride and groom if a certain number get booked; other's won't budge.

Is no free breakfast a deal breaker for you? I know the Holiday Inn Express and Hyatt Place in Riverhead offer it - idk about the others. I think the Hilton Garden Inn was willing to let us pay for breakfast for everyone but wouldn't include it.

Which hotels has Lands End negotiated shuttle deals for? The free shuttles are usually contingent on a certain number of rooms being booked, and they usually don't have enough seats for all the people. Lots of girls wind up booking shuttles separately or paying for extra from the hotel.

What sort of contract do you have with the hotel? Is there anything preventing you from setting up a second room block at another hotel in case your first one fills up?

It's not as disastrous as you think! Your guests are adults (or children who come with adults). They'll make it to and enjoy your wedding - free breakfast or not, shuttle or not, even blocked rooms or not!

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ITA!! You hit the nail on the head!!

Let me tell you my biggest wedding fail, not getting enough hotel rooms for my guests. I can not tell you how much drama this has caused. If you think you will need more then 25 rooms then go with your gut and look somewhere else. We now have 2 hotels and were STILL short rooms and its a disaster

Hey Kat!

I am booked with the Hilton Garden Inn. So far they have been great to work with and provided hotel cards for the invitations.

Breakfast is not free, but you can get them to hand out coupons to your OOT guests and they collect them at breakfast if you want to pay for your guests. The shuttle isn't free from what they told me and I booked a shuttle through my Limo company. (Camelot)

However, someone I worked with is getting married at Giorgio's and the hotel is providing a free shuttle. Not sure if that has something to do with the hotel being a recommended vendor of Giorgio's and they only do it for that hall. I haven't called yet to ask about it. I'm almost afraid to since I've already booked the shuttle.

But it might help you out if you mention that! :) What does it cost to break the contract with the other hotel?

If you think you will need more rooms I would say to get a second block at another place. Its better to be safe than sorry. I'm dealing with the hotel block right now and its already starting to worry me how shady some of these places are.

Is $169 plus tax which will be about $190 per night too much for a Sat in July? Its hard to make this decision for my guests.

Book them both. Don't let your block go, it is the weekend before 4th of July..

My hotels aren't giving great perks either.