Wedding Blog
Um, why hasn’t anyone told me how difficult and time-consuming reserving a block of rooms for a wedding can be? Somebody has really dropped the ball on keeping Miss Lab in the loop!
I’ve been trying for a couple weeks now to get a hold of someone at a few hotels I’m interested in, but haven’t had much luck. Either I call too late (this internship is killing all my free “business hours” time) or when I get a chance to call within operating hours, their sales teams are out for the day! I’ve tried leaving voice messages and emails, but no one is getting back to me. ARGH.
I was always under the assumption that hotel blocking would be one of the easier things to do in the wedding planning process.
I guess I was mistaken. I mean, what’s so hard about taking down my contact information and then marking some rooms as unavailable until a certain date? Sheesh. Maybe one of you hotel-savvy hive members could clarify the reason it may be hard to do?
Anyhoo, I figured that while I wait for someone to have mercy or pity on me, I’d share a couple hotels I’m hoping to snag at a discount for our guests.
We’re reserving two hotels for the wedding weekend. One will be close to our reception site and the other will be close to our after party site. Both are within walking distance of all the squares, so our guests will rarely need a car to get around and see the heart of Savannah. However, the hotels are still near a major highway, so guests will be able to make a quick escape back home the day after the wedding!
First up, the Hampton Inn & Suites in the historic district:
All photos found at their respective websites!
This hotel is literally right around the corner from our reception site. Our guests could just walk there and back if they wanted to. The Hampton is Savannah’s newest hotel, so it’s definitely clean! It’s the only hotel I’ve visited on our list of possibilities and the entire staff was incredibly friendly (even though sales wasn’t working that day).
I loved the chandeliers and Southern decor they had in the entryway and lobby!
The rooms were all very clean and modernly dressed in neutrals.
Who doesn’t love a free breakfast bar?!?
Our next top choice is the Inn at Ellis Square downtown. The building is simply stunning:
And, it’s located close to River Street where we’ll hold our “after-party”! Again, no ugly super-busy-color-clashing-gaudy printed comforters on the beds. Always a plus!
I’m keeping my fingers crossed on these two in hopes of scoring some discounted rooms in the price range we want for our guests. Of course, Savannah has a plethora (I love that word!) of hotels, some chain-owned, others historic. In addition, there are bed & breakfasts to choose from. Our guests will be welcome to pick any hotel they want, but we wanted to make sure we provide them with some affordable and conveniently located options. Not to mention that I love when hotels are researched and chosen for me, so I’m guessing our guests will appreciate that, as well.
We’re expecting 75 out-of-towners, so we’re planning on blocking about 25 rooms (a mix of single and double beds) at each hotel. We’ll be suggesting on our wedding website that friends share rooms to cut down on travel costs (a lot of our single guests are friends and/or co-workers who won’t mind sharing).
I haven’t found much information concerning how many rooms to block according to guest counts and when the deadline for reserving should be before releasing extra rooms. Any suggestions, so when the sales managers finally call back, I’d have a better idea of what to ask for?
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My FMIL has taken over hotel reservations for me. After reading this, I should probably go thank her again!
Good luck!
I had luck booking in Phoenix with a Hyatt Summerfield Suites. I contacted all the hotels I was considering (4 in all - including a Hyatt Place, Marriott and Holiday Inn) by doing a reservation request on their official website and they all responded within a week. You might also mention your wedding, that seems to get them to respond faster because they want you to book activities related at their hotel. Scheduling walk throughs was another story, I scheduled appointments but usually the person wasnt available, it might just be easier to show up for a walk through.
I have no idea why they make it so hard either but I am going through the same thing. I have a room block at 3 different hotels yet they will each only give me 10 rooms to book at a time. So, I have to wait for 10 people to book the rooms available- then call back the hotel and beg them to add 10 more. It’s really the last thing I want to do in the last 2 months of wedding planning, but that’s how it goes, I guess. Its so frustrating!!
That is so weird. I actually didn’t have any problems contacting them at all… I always called them during my lunch hour, or “coffee break” time so I could talk to a person. I’m not sure what is going on!
I also didn’t have any problems with contacting a hotel and blocking off rooms.
Miss Lab, for the Hampton Inn you can submit a request online under Meetings and it’ll let you submit a request for all hotels under Hilton’s brand. It’s really easy and painless. You may want to check the other hotel website as well. HTH!
Even once you get a block booked there can be problems. I’ve had nothing but problems with my blocks at the Hilton and Doubletree. My guests call them and they can’t find our block. Of if they find it they tell the guests there aren’t any rooms left which isn’t true. Can you imagine every guest then calling me to tell me this? It’s a nightmare. My grandma has tried to book her room 3 times at the hilton. It was booked one day but they never sent her the email confirmation. I could see it was booked though on my online viewing system. Then it showed up as cancelled for no apparent reason and she hasn’t been able to get it booked again and neither have I despite calls to the managers numerous times. And again, yesterday at my shower I had to hear from a guest that the Doubletree told them no rooms were available in my block or at the hotel in general, which isn’t true at all. There are plenty of rooms available in my block still. I don’t understand how these hotel workers can be so incompetent. You would think holding a block would be simple, but it isn’t for the Hilton/Doubletree group!
Try this site- http://hotel-guides.us/ I used it and got GREAT rates bid to me. You put in your variables (cost, dates, estimated # of guests, location, etc) and they give you bids. I jsut blogged about it a few days ago! (misspug.blogspot.com)
I interned in the sales and marketing department of a non-chain hotel while n college and room blocks for brides was one of my tasks. I didn’t think it was so hard, basically a bride would call or come in to see rooms and based on unsold rooms and season, I had a range of rates that I could offer for the room block. This means that my first offer was not always the best I could offer (sometimes it was, especially if I liked the person) so maybe you want to try asking if they can do better once you get some rates. I would then tell the bride the date at which the rooms would need to be released or guaranteed. I also booked room blocks for my job and it was usually the hotel telling me the date so you most likely won’t get to decided this but make sure to stress it with your guests because hotels usually will not be flexible in extending the special rate. Finally, if you don’t get a particularly good discount, you may want to just suggest some hotels to your guests and let them book online, there are some great deals on the internet right now. The last wedding I went to, i booked my hotel outside of the room block because it was $10 cheaper per night through the hotel’s website. good luck!
hotel blocks are curious things…and a royal pain. It is funny to me how relaxed the service industry in Savannah is in general. After several years in the corporate conference planning world , I always have to stop and remember things just move slower down there. I’ve just PM’ed you some notes and I’ll look in my Savannah folder when I get to the office tomorrow and see if I have any contacts at those two hotels I could point you to.
i’m a HUGE Hilton brand fan and Hampton Inns are one of my favorites by them! they’re so affordable and i have yet to ever stay in a bad one (and i’ve stayed in alot of them)… my favorite is their hand lotion, it smells so good, i always keep them in my purse!
the only thing i had trouble with in making the blocks for our rooms was that the Hilton’s here required a credit card reserve, which meant we had to pay 50% of any rooms not booked… um, no. so we stuck with just the Marriott, they’ve been phenomenal to work with and don’t require any credit card reserves!
I used http://www.hotelplanner.com/ to get bids from a bunch of hotels in Savannah for our wedding weekend. It’s been a great time saver, and we’ve gotten some good deals!
I just took a couple hours one day and drove to the hotels I was considering, and was able to speak to someone at each place about what kind of discount they would give me.
I would say one big decision is whether you want to do an official block and have rooms set aside for you, or just get a group discount and have the rooms come out of the general reservation pool. I did the latter, because I just didn’t know at the time who would be coming/where they would be staying and I didn’t want to be stuck “guaranteeing” X number of rooms and having to personally pay for the unbooked rooms.
I ended up finding a hotel that gave me a 25% discount, and didn’t make me book any certain # of rooms - the only downside to this option was that they would also not guarantee me rooms would be left open for me - but it wasn’t a problem at all. 90% of our guests stayed there and not one had a problem getting a room. (Whether you want to do this option probably just depends on if you think the hotel would normally book up for the weekend).
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s having problems (well, not GLAD that you ladies are having problems, just glad I’m not crazy and haven’t been doing something wrong this whole time!). Thanks for all the help!
@kjpugs: Thank you so much for the website! Checking it out now!
@Shae726: Thanks for the tip!
@slicey19: Wow, I’m loving the “inside” information! Thank you so much!
I stayed at the Inn at Ellis Square last spring during my trip to Savannah, and we had exceptional service. I would definately recommend them because their prices were nice too.
The second hotel is beautiful! You have two great options so far - good luck!
I do contracts with hotels all the time for work. For room blocks, make sure you will not be penalized any dollar amount if you do not meet a certain amount of rooms booked. A lot of hotels try to throw that into the contract but I always ask them to strike that part and I have not had a problem. Just make sure there is a deadline and let the hotel know that if your guests don’t book before that deadline, they can take the remaining rooms for their stock. The travel industry is getting pummeled by the economy so you should be able to get some great rates. Negotiate by pitting them against comparable hotel rates in the area if you feel their prices are too high. I’m surprised you can’t get them to call you back. I have some reps calling me weekly to see if I have any needs. Perhaps you can word your message to seem like you’re booking a block for a business.
I had the most trouble dealing with the hotel blocks! I actually delegated this to my husband because I was so frustrated dealing with it!
When we reserved our block, we asked if they would give us any incentive rooms, like if we blocked a certain number of rooms. We were able to get our room for free because we filled our block.
Miss Lab - I work at a Hampton Inn in PA. I know that some hotels are not as bride friendly as others, so I apologize if you are having trouble with your block.
I PM’ed you the direct contact information (email) for the Sales Mgr and the Director of Operations at the Hampton Inn & Suites. HTH
For everyone’s information - Most hotel’s policy is to give a bride a specific number of rooms initially and then they will expand the block as rooms are reserved. Typically, we start at 10 or 15 rooms and will expand in 5 or 10 room incriments depending on demand. Typically the deadline for making reservations is 30 days prior to arrival, but if the hotel is slow, they may give you a 2-week cutoff. This cutoff allows the hotel to try and resell the rooms to regular (transient) guests if your guests do not reserve all of the rooms. We also give a bride and groom a complimentary room for their wedding night or for a getting ready room for every 20 rooms they reserve. You should be able to get the block rate for a discount of approximately 10 to 15% off their regular rate. Make sure you check their website for an AARP or AAA rate, as your wedding block rate should beat that rate by $5 or $10 depending on the rate.
A great resourse is the Savannah Convention & Visitors Bureau. http://www.savannahvisit.com/ They can assist you with negotiating hotel rates and can also give you Savannah swag to place in your out-of-town bags.
We went through Priceline to get some $$ quotes and then actually visited the ones we narrowed it down to.
Visiting the actual hotel was huge because on paper one looked amazing but the customer service at the other one won me over.
We went with the hotel with the better customer service and we, now under 2 weeks, are so glad we did.
Good luck!!
I used to work for Marriott and Hilton as a sales manager so I definitely know the drill.
First thing, if the hotel people aren’t calling you back it is a sign that they don’t value your busines. Think of it this way: if they are ignoring you now, how bad it is going to be to get a hold of them once you sign a contract? A sure fire way to get a response is to talk to the general manager and director of sales. The online form is also a great way if they have the availability. This usually goes through corporate channels and the sales managers are timed in their response. Another good way to get a fast response is to contact the corporate sales offices (Hilton Direct or Marriott Global Sales). They will get your information and contact several hotels on your behalf to get rates. This works well because hotels bid against themselves.
The other ladies had a good note about guaranteeing rooms. In hotel-land this is called attrition. STAY AWAY FROM ATTRITION. Even if you think you’ll have enough people, sometimes people will book using their reward points or AAA discount or will use a wholesaler like Orbitz or Expedia. Rooms booked through these channels will not count toward your room block. So you might have 20 people staying at the hotel and only 6 count toward your block. That said, always book the minimum (usually 10) because often you can add rooms as the block gets full at your group rate. In this economy ALWAYS try negotiate the attrition percentage down. Some places require 90% but you might be able to get it down to 60% or less.
For anyone having issues with the blocks saying they aren’t available or that the rooms are more than you think, here is what is most commonly going on. 1. The guest is trying to stay a few days earlier or later than the contracted dates. Often the rate is only based on “availability” so it is up to the sales team to say if it is available. 2. Often they are trying to book a room type that isn’t in the contract. Perhaps they want to upgrade to an ocean view. If those room types are not loaded into the group’s block, it will say the block is unavailable. NOTE: When you call reservations (even at the hotels) you are routed to a central call center. They only know what they see on the screen. Make sure to have your guests ask for the sales office or IN HOUSE reservations.
Here is my take on the whole thing. Room blocks are dying. With the internet and deal shopping, people will stay where they can earn points, have a cheaper room, etc. The best thing you can do is to provide information on the closest hotels to the ceremony/reception without actually booking anything. This is going to be practically stress free for you. You won’t have to worry about fufilling a contract. You don’t have to worry about anyone calling saying they can’t get in the group block.
OMG! You ladies have NO idea how much it means to me to get such detailed advice! Thank you sooooooooooooooo much! I’m calling these places back feeling like I have an army to back me up! 
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Mrs. Labrador Retriever, Athens/Savannah
Age and Occupation: 24, Student/Sports Reporter
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Physical Therapy Assistant Student/Future Dr. of PT
Engagement Date: December 31, 2008
Wedding Date: November 2009
Venue: Whitfield Square/Savannah Station
About Me: I'm working on my second degree from UGA (Go Dawgs!). I'm a self-proclaimed attention-w****. If it involves a camera, I'm in front of it! You'll never meet a girlier tomboy than me. I can go toe to toe with any guy on the subject of college football, and lift more than any girl in my gym, all without chipping a nail. I hope to someday be the only person you want delivering your sports news. My FI and I are the loving parents of three Labrador Retrievers (one of each color) and are planning a "Southern Romantic Charm" wedding in the beautiful, historic city of Savannah. I'm not extreme in anything except moderation... and wedding planning.
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