Comic-Con Hangover

Just when you thought it was safe...

I mentioned in a previous post that if I didn't have a hotel room lined up for next year's Con before I left this year's, I'd consider myself a failure. Well, get ready to stamp "loser" on my forehead, because I don't. Although it's not for lack of trying.

I decided this year that, despite the fact that I can't really afford it, the Marriott Marina (otherwise known as the hotel that actually shares a wall with the Convention Center - it's that close) was the place I wanted to stay next year. I figured it would be worth it in terms of convenience and lack of exhaustion (Consider the possibilities: 20 pounds of swag carving a groove in your shoulder? Just run over to the hotel and stash it! 4-inch costume heels slowly carving your feet into bloody fragments? Run (hobble) back to the hotel and throw on sneakers! Tired of trying to have a nice, sit-down dinner while dressed as a Klingon? Stop by the hotel on your way out and change!), if not in actual value. Also, I told myself, if I'm going to participate in the Masquerade, this is the year to do it. My sewing skills are improving, my friends who might be willing to dress up number more than the fingers on one hand, I have a boyfriend who understands lighting tech and a friend who can choreograph - the planets are in alignment! What better excuse for staying at the Marriott than realizing that you're going to be hauling trunks of makeup and costumes - above and beyond all your own crap - down to the Convention Center. I decided to bite the bullet.

But I'm not a Con rookie. I knew that waiting for the convention-rate rooms to go live in February would leave me with approximately a 1 in 125,000 chance of scoring a (deeply discounted) room at the lovely Marriott Marina. So I was already planning on paying (gulp) full price, or something close to it. I was hoping there might be a tiny discount for booking a full year in advance, and even considering prepaying (I hadn't yet calculated what the interest accruing on my credit card from that charge would cost me). So when I walked over to the Marriott to donate blood on Friday, I stopped by the front desk on my way out to see if I could make a reservation. The lady there informed me that they did not take any advance reservations in person, but only through the reservation line. She then gave me a pen with the phone number on it. Slightly annoyed but resigned, I took the pen and walked back over to the Convention Center, where I found a semi-quiet spot to sit and call the reservation number. The lady on the phone informed me that they could not take reservations so far in advance. I inquired if she would check to make sure there was no exception because of the Convention. She checked. Nope. I then asked her is she could tell me when they would be accepting reservations. She said that she wasn't certain, but to try back in a week.

I waited a week and a half, then called again. The lady on the phone said that my check-out date (7/26/09) was still past the dates they were booking. Again I asked when that might change; again I was told to try back in a week. (In the meantime, you understand, I checked three or four major travel sites, AAA, and the websites for the big hotel chains. No joy.) So this Monday I called again. I gave my dates and my preferred hotel to the lady on the phone. She plugged it into her computer. Pause. "I'm sorry, the hotel you've requested has no rooms available. It's fully booked." Ever polite (because, pissed as I am, the lady in the call center is not to blame. She probably doesn't even know what Comic-Con is), I inquired if she could tell me when the rooms had filled up, as reservations had been unavailable up until less than a week previously. Her system did not have that information. I thanked her and hung up.

And proceeded to repeat the entire rigamarole at with the Hilton (2nd closest hotel) and their reservation line. It too is fully booked, more than eleven months before the convention. The nice lady on this call, sensing the oddity of this, asked me if there was a convention or event that weekend. I replied that there was. She then informed me sweetly that that must be why so many rooms were blocked out, since most people would book their rooms later, through the convention. I didn't bother trying to tell her that the San Diego hotels reserve at most 30% of their rooms to sell at the convention rate, and that the rest would eventually be sold at astronomical rates. I just thanked her politely and hung up.

I went back to the travel sites. Hotels.com still tells me that no rooms are available in the entire city that weekend, which I take to mean that they won't search that far out. Another site - I think it was Travelocity, but I've lost track - offered me rooms at several hotels, all for the identical bargain price of $8999.99 per night. For my sanity, I'm assuming that's a system glitch. The Automobile Club (after mysteriously losing my membership information and forcing me to create a new login) informs me that they will not coordinate travel more than 330 days in advance.

At this point, I'm at a loss. My only advantage in this sort of thing is that I'm organized and I remember to do things early. But the hotels have negated this, and I'm not quite sure why. I do not believe that all of the rooms at the five closest hotels to the Convention Center are already booked. Which means that the hotels are holding them for some reason. Sure, some of them are for the discounted Convention rate, but not that many of them - given that they can charge more than their everyday rates that weekend, they don't want to allocate very many rooms at less than the everyday rate. So what are they holding them for? Are they expecting the Hollywood studios to book all of them? Or do they just think they'll be able to charge more later when people are desperate? I don't know, but I'm starting to get angry.

I don't expect to get what I want all the time, but I hate it when I've done everything right and yet, for unknown reasons, I'm still screwed. I'm willing to put cash on the table eleven months in advance. What more can hotels ask for? And if I can't get a room right now with that attitude, what hope do the morons trying to get a room in June have? I've been a San Diego loyalist - I'm practically a native, after all - but when this sort of thing becomes common, when you need contacts just to get a decent hotel room... that's when I start to think the Con has outgrown the city.

Not that I'm giving up, of course. The Holiday Inn a mile from the Convention Center offered rooms for a little less than I paid this year, so I booked one. In three weeks, when AAA deigns to help me, I'm hoping they'll offer me the hotel I've stayed at the past two years. (For some reason, this particular hotel always claims to be a long-term-stay facility on its own website, and refuses to accept reservations shorter than 20 days. But when I book through AAA they accept my four day stay.) If they do, I'll take a room there, because I'm used to it and my boyfriend likes it. I'll cancel my Holiday Inn room, which is about the same price and distance. Then I'll wait for the Convention lottery. If I get a room at one of my top four hotels, I'll let the AAA room go.

And I have a couple of other ideas. But I'm still annoyed to be this angry, this soon. Comic-Con is supposed to be my vacation. But when do I get a vacation from Comic-Con?