Complaints for housing

Started by NetBelleAnie, February 10, 2014, 08:34:27 PM

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NetBelleAnie

Well, I'm starting this thread because even if I am joining staff this year, as someone who loves going to Fanime but needs to visit their hotel room frequently due to health issues, I will complain.
The hotel registration system is absolutely ridiculous.  I was online from 9:30 to 11:30 and in that time frame, at 10:00 I went to register and was repeatedly given errors and "Service Unavailable".  I would get to the page and enter my payment information, and then receive another "Service Unavailable".  I tried the phone number about 50 times with a busy signal every call.  This repeated the entire time I was on the website until I finally got the message of there being no more rooms available for the time I was planning on being at the con.  At this point I had to leave for various appointments throughout the day.  I finally returned home and found that, while the website is now working just fine, there are no more rooms left.
This is a huge problem for me as a both staff and a guest as I need to be in one of the hotels closest to the convention center due to needing to take medications and using my mobility scooter.  Because I would almost never be able to use the elevators in the Hilton or Marriott, I usually would choose the Sainte Claire due to it only having 5 or so floors, and thus less traffic to compete for the elevators.
I know I am not the only one here attending (or staffing at) Fanime who has certain health issues that makes it so one cannot stay at a hotel further away, either for staff housing or regular attendees.  I need my significant other in the room with me to help me with my health issues, so going for staff housing isn't an option (as he is not joining staff).  Now checking and calling the hotels individually isn't working, as they are all booked as well. 
So as I sit on a waiting list, I figured I should post this complaint.  I'm not asking for special treatment, but it just makes me sad that the housing website isn't capable of having the vast quantity of people use it at once. The fact that I tried my best to get a room and could not is frustrating.
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mikasa-san

Their servers seem not stable enough to handle the traffic overloading it all at once. Perhaps having a pre-pre registration for staff members working for the con? Because trying to get a hotel room when thousands of other people are trying to get a hotel room is... very chaotic. There should at least be a day difference between staff registration and regular con-goer registration.
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SkaiRa1n

Personally, I think they should've stuck to their original plan and have people pay for their badge in order to get a room.  This might have helped the situation a little bit.

Sivartius

Housing registration was very difficult, and I ended up not being able to get a room.  Your situation with your special requirements makes it really hard.  Still, we do know that this is definitely better than no Fanime.  I'm very grateful to be able to go, even though I had to look for someone who already had a room to take me in as a roommate. In life, I can laugh, or I can cry, and crying isn't any fun.  So I try hard to see the rediculous aspect of any situation.
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Admiral Donuts

Really the problem is that there are more and more Fanime attendees, and the same number of rooms, so as more people demand rooms, people are motivated to get them earlier and earlier...

Sivartius

Yeah.  It's just like registration.  More and more people are attending, and so the lines get longer and longer, and the staff can't grow fast enough to keep up.  Also the more people they have, the more space it takes, and the more we have to wait.
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Lucifargundam

Quote from: Sivartius on February 10, 2014, 10:55:09 PM
More and more people are attending, and so the lines get longer and longer, and the staff can't grow fast enough to keep up.
This. Thank you.


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heeroyuy135

Fanime mentioned that they're working on entirely new system for 2015 that will reward those who do buy their badges as well as those who are in the non-attendee status like press, industry, AA, panelists, and so fourth. My question is will that system be ready next year and what's not to say that this'll happen again?

Kahluah

One idea that will never happen is renovating the hotels that connect to the convention center to have more rooms.

But yeah housing is ridiculous every year. I am waking up early tomorrow to call to be put on a waitlist, with any luck I will get a room.

They should also put some kind of prevention up against room hoarders.

phr34kish

Quote from: HeeroYuy135 on February 10, 2014, 11:06:40 PM
Fanime mentioned that they're working on entirely new system for 2015 that will reward those who do buy their badges as well as those who are in the non-attendee status like press, industry, AA, panelists, and so fourth. My question is will that system be ready next year and what's not to say that this'll happen again?

If they give us more than a week's notice, it probably could be a great option. But this years roll out was just bad planning.

The part that worries me is last year we didn't seem to have ANY of these problems. At least not with the hotel registration. The server didn't crash and the process was smooth. Why fix something that's not broken? :/

Hachimitsu

Sadly I don't think either plan works! Remember we have new staff and new rulings! The conventin is getting bigger and bigger that there are two conventions one for clockworks alchemy and one for fanime. With that being said, I don't think any plan would work for fanime's housing because there are some people who pre-registered during the convention and did not receive their confirmation notices.

of course i could be wrong O_o!
just be glad it wasn't like last yea (front door closed, back door open!)

Tsu

QuoteThe part that worries me is last year we didn't seem to have ANY of these problems. At least not with the hotel registration. The server didn't crash and the process was smooth. Why fix something that's not broken? :/

To be fair, one big difference is that last year they initially only posted a link to fanime.com and people crashed Fanime's server, not the housing server. Someone eventually leaked the housing address on Fanime's FB page, but everyone else was just getting stuck at Fanime.com. Fanime officials did post the link on their facebook page a short while later, but in the meanwhile, many people with the leaked link had completed reg and were out of the way, and I'm sure part of the crowd that had gotten stuck at Fanime.com had to give up for various reasons.

I was lucky and got the address from FB last year. I was unprepared for the mess this year, but I don't think Fanime is entirely to blame. I'm fairly sure that CMR Housing is a service Fanime hires to set the rooms up, so the blame is with them. And since they run cons like AX too, they should be ready for a huge rush of people.

Overall, the badge buying may help next year. We haven't outgrown the con center, but it sure feels like we're outnumbering the hotel rooms these days...
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EJAY420

Did anyone get a confirmation email??? Im still waiting on mine!
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Tsu

Quote from: EJAY420 on February 11, 2014, 09:29:56 AM
Did anyone get a confirmation email??? Im still waiting on mine!

I got mine pretty much instantly after registering. You might want to call or email housing.
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Dracil

Quote from: Hachimitsu-ink on February 11, 2014, 09:16:53 AM
Sadly I don't think either plan works! Remember we have new staff and new rulings! The conventin is getting bigger and bigger that there are two conventions one for clockworks alchemy and one for fanime. With that being said, I don't think any plan would work for fanime's housing because there are some people who pre-registered during the convention and did not receive their confirmation notices.

of course i could be wrong O_o!
just be glad it wasn't like last yea (front door closed, back door open!)

Then cut out clockwork.  That really should be its separate thing that shouldn't be using up resources from Fanime on the same weekend.

DangerHeart

Quote from: Dracil on February 11, 2014, 01:34:45 PM
Quote from: Hachimitsu-ink on February 11, 2014, 09:16:53 AM
Sadly I don't think either plan works! Remember we have new staff and new rulings! The conventin is getting bigger and bigger that there are two conventions one for clockworks alchemy and one for fanime. With that being said, I don't think any plan would work for fanime's housing because there are some people who pre-registered during the convention and did not receive their confirmation notices.

of course i could be wrong O_o!
just be glad it wasn't like last yea (front door closed, back door open!)

Then cut out clockwork.  That really should be its separate thing that shouldn't be using up resources from Fanime on the same weekend.

I wouldn't think it uses that many more resources to run since its technically a completely different con. Plus, I think the same it opened housing also starting using the Raddison and Holiday Inn, so that created more rooms, enough I think to make up for the new con plus more.

Hopefully what they say is true and they do have a solid plan for next year. I agree with some that this years plan could've worked but wasn't executed right so it just flopped. I kinda hope next year they stick with having to buy your badge first before you can book a room AND the two room limit, that alone will help with warding off room hoarders.

phr34kish

Quote from: DangerHeart on February 11, 2014, 04:09:52 PM
I wouldn't think it uses that many more resources to run since its technically a completely different con. Plus, I think the same it opened housing also starting using the Raddison and Holiday Inn, so that created more rooms, enough I think to make up for the new con plus more.

Hopefully what they say is true and they do have a solid plan for next year. I agree with some that this years plan could've worked but wasn't executed right so it just flopped. I kinda hope next year they stick with having to buy your badge first before you can book a room AND the two room limit, that alone will help with warding off room hoarders.

I honestly don't mind the room limit at all. Admitably, I've never planned for a large group before, but I can see those done on a case by case basis.

But unless Fanime steps up their communication and gets things like AA, Swap Meet, Press, etc. out the door before hotel reg goes up? Requiring a badge is going to just backfire again. Those announcements get later and later every year, never earlier... (APRIL for AA last year anyone?)

Imperial

Clockwork kinda is a bridge that would make things worse if burned, plus we work together to help both out to be better.

I'm already finding people auctioning rooms off for fanime, and rediculously high, 700 bucks is what i am finding outside of fanime booking. the convention is now big enough that the city of san Jose needs more hotels to meet the demand. and not for just our convention, they are constantly booked thanks to business people flying in for meetings and such. Heck, FC filled both hotels at the convention center, and its growing slower than Fanime...

Admiral Donuts

Quote from: tjimmy2 on February 11, 2014, 05:18:35 PM
I'm already finding people auctioning rooms off for fanime, and rediculously high, 700 bucks is what i am finding outside of fanime booking.

Where are you finding that?