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Another year of pain and suffering for me at least. I had the first slot at 7am so I was up and ready way before. Out of curiosity, I began checking the site only a minute before 7 and already the entire hilton was booked out and some of the Marriott as well...

In the end, I booked a room with two double beds at the Hyatt from Thursday to Tuesday (I cosplay and have a friend who does artist alley, so we always have so much stuff. Checking in a day early and out a day late honestly saves so much hair pulling and strokes) with my window at 7am.

I think the reason it looked like Hilton and Marroitt were already selling out are because they didn't offer the days you needed. Everytime I've stayed at Hilton I've always needed to be waitlisted for Thursday, they just never seem to have those rooms loaded into the system on opening day. Add to that a Tuesday checkout, which is an unusual day to check out and not all hotels offer that day as part of their Fanime block.

I thought about staying until Tuesday myself this year, but when I checked for a Tuesday checkout my choices were pretty limited. A Monday checkout and everything was still availiable.

Weiss Schwarz, I would recommend looking into one of the local hotels not affiliated with Fanime while you wait for Friday to roll around. I know there are a few hotels in the downtown area that don't offer Fanime discounts and had rooms open when I checked earlier today. AirBNB is also an option that I know people have fallen back on in the past.

Was anyone else able to reserve a second room by using a group member's registration ID? That's what I did last year, but for some reason, it keeps rejecting all my group members' IDs as "invalid". I'm freaking out now because I NEED a second room in the same hotel, but it looks like THAT'S not happening...

Try calling the housing line directly, they can probably take care of it for you.

The site crashed as I submitted my confirmation. I had to call to make sure it all went through. This was at 7:04 and finally connected at 7:15

Not quite as stressful as the old way, but still had me on edge making sure I had a room.

I was about 15 mins behind reg opening because I couldnt get the page to load on my phone. I have a 10am 1/18 time slot.

I wonder how many people are allowed in each booking window and if the later slots have even more people in them?

1) City Occupancy Tax 10% per room, per night
2) Convention Center Facilities District Tax (CCFD) 4% per room, per night
3) Business District Assessment (HBID) $2.50 per room, per night
4) California Tourism Assessment 0.065% per room, per night
5) Property Based Business Improvement District (PBID) $0.50 per room, per night

Don't forget to factor in parking which is valet only at Fairmont. As for paying with cash I know people have done so in the past, but I believe the hotel still needs a credit card for the security deposit.

I was afraid there might be some traffic issues with so many people trying to reg at once, but maybe the last minute nature of the annoumcement curbed the rush?

I notice reg is back with CMR, I'm looking forward to a smooth badge pickup like 2015.

Thanks Reg staff for doing everything you could about that line. I understand some of you ended up working 10+ hours a day trying to get badges into attendee hands.

Having convention staff checking badges seemed to work really well. I admit I expected large lines every time I wanted to come and go on the concourse and it was actually very smooth and rather streamlined.

Having a list of board games this year was really useful, thank you!

Swap meet went great, viewing rooms were nice and roomy, and cosplay gatherings were easy to find.

Looking past the elephant in the room it was another great year and I had a great time!

The Fanime website has some new art and Magic School is a good way to describe it.

It wasn't the worst line I've ever stood in, but no one knew where to go or honestly why there was a line at all. It was a huge unpleasant shock, to say the least and it soured my mood for about an hour. I can handle a line when I know it's coming, it was the unexpectedness of it that really threw me.

I had a misprint on the fan name for one of my group badges but that line was not worth it to get it fixed.

My husband has a misprint on his badge too. The fan name I originally emailed about. Sigh. But the line to get that sort of thing fixed was absolutely not moving at all yesterday, so we decided not to do anything about it.

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Thanks for sharing this. It sucks so many had to stay so late and I hope today runs smoother.

From what I heard is that they have new sponsors... I agree that last year was the best badge pick up ever.

They changed reg systems, but Fanime has never really had sponsors before. They're very proud of their "by fans for fans" motto.

1.5 hours for badges. I'm sure part of the slow down was having to break up the line to make room for hallways and walkways, but I'm currious if something happened. I don't feel it was Line Con bad for me, but walking into any line at all vs the last 2 years having none at all was disappointing.

What the heck happened to the super smooth reg system? Awkward snaking lines from the Marriott onto the con floor.

I'm glad you'rw getting help sorting this out.

The way I imagine it works is the hotel tells CMR how many rooms it has available and then CMR books them out. But if the hotel gave the wrong info to start with there's no way for CMR to know that. I'm glad they're sorting it out for you.

It's reassuring knowing that CMR is taking it so seriously. I really hope they're able to come up with a solution for you!

Did you pay with a card or with cash? If you paid with card, can you pull up the statement from last year showing you paid in advance? Hopefully that will help, I know how stressful it is to not go as smoothly as their supposed to and wish you the best of luck.

I got this email as well and was wondering about this. Email said it was about "changes" made to my room, but no changes showed up in the hotel summary? Hopefully it was just a side-effect of the info being transferred from Fanime to the hotel, but I can't help but be worried that my reservation was canceled somehow. I'm thinking of calling the hotel tomorrow to check but I don't want to bother them!

It wont be a bother for them. The front desk looks up reservations all the time, and if it will put you at ease all the better. It only takes a minute to look it up.