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Would we have to dress up all formal for this event?  Or could we go straight from fanime to the concert in our costumes?  :?

i've heard stories of people showing up in cosplay...might have read article about the producer encouraging people to be themselves.

i heard play! video game symphony is coming to down the weekend of fanime at the performing arts center.  i'm so stoked!  i was lucky enough to snag a ticket to the first Dear Friends music from Final Fantasy concert in LA....too much awesomeness.  vgm sounds sooooo good performed by an orchestra.

in my first venture through downtown san jose i was lost looking for a place called la victoria's (mexican food) sadly i live in san jose just never went downtown until college.  i stumbled into the hilton and asked the concierge people for directions.  

they have a printout of downtown sj with all the restaurants on it shown represented as dots, pretty useful for those coming from out of town.  

most of the cheap food is walking distance, stuff along santa clara, san pedro, san carlos is pretty money.

also if you have time you should research some of the downtown SJ places jatbar.com have reviewed.  they provide pics, opinions, ratings, copies of menus and the like.

i've never had to pay a deposit on my rooms when i travel.  then again i've never stayed at a hotel on a severely heavy hotel week.  i've always given my credit card number to reserve a room and they never charge it.  at check in you have to give them a card to charge for the room, doesn't matter if it's your reservation card or your amex.  

be careful, though.  read the fine print on the hotel website about not cancelling your reservation if you no-show.  they may charge your card because you didn't tell them you're not coming.  

the only other instance i can think of why they would charge you up front for your room when you reserve it is if you are paying an online/special rate that you are locking in with no refunds and stuff like that.  a regular room rate has cancel privileges and is usually 10 bucks or so more expensive than the discounted instant rate.

HA HA!!  Got my rooms!!  At least that's what the e-mail said...we'll actually see when I get there...

you should always call the hotel at least a day before you are scheduled to stay to confirm your reservation.  i wouldn't leave the state unless i knew there was a clean room waiting for me on the other end.  don't ever assume it's already gift wrapped for ya, 1 minute phone call could save you mucho trouble.

Better get on that pretty quick...the rooms are selling like mad. lol...

Fairmont suites for 135 a night? Dang...lucky. But Fairmont's pretty far yeah?

the fairmont is also...the fairmont.  pretty upscale there.  went to an indian wedding there, off the hook.  just don't pull everything out of the mini bar fridge to store your 2-liters of soda or whatever, the charge for emptying the fridge is 450+ bucks.  of course if you put everything back it's ok, just don't consume whats in there =p.

Well, I wanted the opinion from people who have actually stayed there before but thanks for the websites.  If anyone can give me their stay experience it would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

i've never personally stayed there, but i commute in the area to get to san jose state.  unfortunately it's across from the Hilton, which makes it look kinda bad in comparison.  hotels.com has useful pics and stuff, and the website of the hotel you're booking should always have pics of their rooms.

Here is BART:

www.bart.gov

Here is VTA:

www.vta.org

Hope that helps.

www.511.org is also useful for any kind of bay area public transportation.  there is a trip planner that tells you where and how much if you give it a start and end place.