So...Waitlist?

[aetherltd]

I just checked right now.

For 5/20-5/21 the following hotels have availability:
Double Tree
Holiday Inn San Jose Airport
Hyatt Place San Jose Downtown
Fairmont

As of today, the DoubleTree is full for Thursday night.  (I have Fri-Sun booked, and am still trying to get Thursday.)

[Purelovely]

I really hope that people start dropping their rooms soon so the waitlist starts doing what it needs to. I'm sure there were people who reserved like 5 or more rooms that they don't need. They're trying to sell them off to other con people. It's totally unfair but we all know it happens.

Please remember that the cancel date on hotel rooms you're not going to need is April 24th! Don't forget or you'll get charged!

[vralls13]

The kicker is of course, as soon as you give up your room reservation you fall off the waitlist. So the whole process is a big game of chicken, with the room fee as the head smacking ending if you loose...

[citrus]

The staff from facebook said that the convention mainly consists of locals and that not mainly people stay in hotel rooms. Really now? As far as I'm concerned the convention has plenty of elbow grease and plenty of room to fit attendees. The con is not gonna sell out anytime soon. Yes. Locals are a good thing but if you only rely on locals the convention probably wouldn't be this size now. People who usually drive or even fly all the way to San Jose tend to spend more. And if there's no hotels available. There's no chance of getting into the con. People are sick and tired of having to fight for or play the waiting game just to get to the con. Either we get more hotels or you might as well cap the con as far as I'm concerned. And so far. Getting hotels early seems to be the ONLY thing fanimecon is doing right. But they still have to fix their crappy hotel registration system...

[SpiritOfKairi]

The staff from facebook said that the convention mainly consists of locals and that not mainly people stay in hotel rooms. Really now? As far as I'm concerned the convention has plenty of elbow grease and plenty of room to fit attendees. The con is not gonna sell out anytime soon. Yes. Locals are a good thing but if you only rely on locals the convention probably wouldn't be this size now. People who usually drive or even fly all the way to San Jose tend to spend more. And if there's no hotels available. There's no chance of getting into the con. People are sick and tired of having to fight for or play the waiting game just to get to the con. Either we get more hotels or you might as well cap the con as far as I'm concerned. And so far. Getting hotels early seems to be the ONLY thing fanimecon is doing right. But they still have to fix their crappy hotel registration system...

While I'm sure many locals attend the convention, I have a hard time believing that "not many people stay in hotel rooms".  Fact is you have people flying from all over the US, and even from other countries to attend the convention.  And actually, I've even known locals to get rooms for the convention because they would much rather be somewhere within walking distance, vs drive 30 minutes and fight over a parking space.  Also, if the hotel traffic wasn't high, rooms wouldn't be selling out in a matter of 2-4 hours.  (Yes there are scalpers, but I think the growing number of actual attendees are the real culprit.)  I remember back in 2010 you could wait about 6-8 hours after hotels went live, and still had a good chance of getting the Fairmont, St. Claire, or maybe even the Marriott.  These days, you have to be on it the minute hotel registration goes live.

But now, you also mentioned the bad hotel registration system.  I agree that it's not handling the load, but fact is Fanime can't fix that because it's run by a third party called CMR.  If Fanime insists on keeping CMR, then that service needs to get a server upgrade so it can handle the traffic.  Otherwise though, it's time to move to a site that can handle housing without crashing 3 minutes into going live.  Fact is CMR could handle the traffic until 2013 when the room frenzy wasn't so extreme, but now with thousands of people hitting the site the second it goes live...it just isn't up to the task anymore.

[Nina Star 9]

As much as I hate having to deal with CMR and think that Fanime should upgrade, I don't think that's the main issue here. The problem is why CMR can't handle the workload -- there simply aren't enough hotel rooms for everyone who wants one, which leads to the mad rush. I don't know what Fanime can do to solve this problem except move to another city, but that's the crux of it. CMR is, of course, extremely infuriating and the outages and crashes make the hotel rush much worse, but I doubt that things would be /that/ much better with a working system that sells out of hotel rooms in a few minutes. Of course, the lack of crashes would be less frustrating and less time-consuming, and it would be a huge improvement, but if there aren't enough rooms...people still aren't going to get rooms, working system or not.

How do other cons deal with this? Just sell out of hotel rooms immediately and that's that? Do some other system so that people are more likely to get into rooms, such as a staggered release system or a lottery for the highest-desirability rooms (though a lottery sounds DISASTROUS given Fanime's track record...)? Have more shuttles, better-working shuttles, and more rooms further out from the hotels? there has to be a solution, short of Fanime creating its own small colony somewhere.

I feel bad for all the people on the waitlist who have to gamble on whether to stay with their reservation that they don't want and hope someone else cancels. I've been lucky to not have to deal with that yet (knock on wood). Do we have any answers from Fanime staff on why a reservation of some type is needed to get on the waitlist? Because this system does not seem to be working.

[Kyra_Maverick]

If I had to guess (and this is purely a guess, I have nothing but assumptions to base this on) as to why you need a reservation to get on the waitlist, I would say that the system needs to have your information to assign the new room to you. Without your information to tie the room to you, it would just be floating free in the void. And I doubt CMR has a different system that would just store your name and credit info indefinitely, waiting for a room that may never become available. While you're sitting on that bogus reservation that you don't want, it gives CMR a reason to hold onto the necessary information to transfer you to a new room if it becomes available.

I suppose they could email people on the list and ask if they want this room and have them fill out the reservation then, but that opens up other questions like how long should they hold that room for you? 

Basically it's an imperfect system anyway you look at it.

[Admiral Donuts]

The staff from facebook said that the convention mainly consists of locals and that not mainly people stay in hotel rooms.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Did one of them really say this? You should screencap it for posterity because it's one of the most ridiculous staff responses ever.

You couldn't book online this year unless you pre-registered (which was a mistake) and hotels still sold out near-instantly.

But no, nobody stays in hotels.

[Purelovely]

I come all the way from Indiana and have since 2003. It's really stressful not knowing if I'll get the hotel room I want much less a hotel room at all.  :-\ Don't much like the idea of being roomless during a vacation.

[jm1991]

I come all the way from Indiana and have since 2003. It's really stressful not knowing if I'll get the hotel room I want much less a hotel room at all.  :-\ Don't much like the idea of being roomless during a vacation.

i would just go ahead and search other surrounding hotels as a back up. Most hotels if not part of a group/convention have a DOA or 24hr cancellation policy (given they are not made through a 3rd party site) you can chose and book a hotel you like with flexible cancellation policy and cancel it if you do end up getting a room at your desired location. I would find a place ASAP as surrounding hotels will only raise their rate higher closer to the event dates. thats my 2cents from a guy thats worked in the travel industry and hotels for 3+ years

[aetherltd]

At least two people on the waitlist for the Doubletree got messages from Fanime housing today. The waitlisted reservations were accepted and confirmed.

[Firefury Amahira]

I come all the way from Indiana and have since 2003. It's really stressful not knowing if I'll get the hotel room I want much less a hotel room at all.  :-\ Don't much like the idea of being roomless during a vacation.

Yeah, my group drives up from Los Angeles. We've pretty much given up entirely on the con hotels in favor of a better deal maybe ten minutes away. I'd need to double check, but I believe this year we've got a 2-bedroom suite with full kitchen for 5 people for roughly $150/night for five nights (We come up Thursday, leave Tuesday.) Split 5 ways, that's maybe $200 per person for the full con counting the hotel and splitting the grocery cost.

Sure, we gotta deal with paying for parking at the con, but with that kitchen and my sister's crockpot, we save a small fortune on food since we can just toss a cooler in the car with sandwiches for lunch, and set the slow cooker up so we have a fresh hot dinner when we get back to the hotel in the evening. Only time we have to eat out is our annual post-Fanime trip to this one hotpot place after the con wraps up Monday.

[ShikiIchijo]

Has anyone got their hotel room or their room extended since the last day to cancel was on the 24?

I figured this week they'll start updating reservations. (I'm just guessing. I don't know if CMR works over the weekends.)

[Purelovely]

Has anyone got their hotel room or their room extended since the last day to cancel was on the 24?

I figured this week they'll start updating reservations. (I'm just guessing. I don't know if CMR works over the weekends.)

I'm wondering this too. I have the Fairmont (king bed) for Thursday through Tuesday but I want Marriott. We got on the waitlist the first day of hotel reservations. What hotel are you waiting on? I hope you get through the waitlist. We have less than a month now.

[OtakuAngel87]

Has anyone got their hotel room or their room extended since the last day to cancel was on the 24?

I figured this week they'll start updating reservations. (I'm just guessing. I don't know if CMR works over the weekends.)

I'm wondering this too. I have the Fairmont (king bed) for Thursday through Tuesday but I want Marriott. We got on the waitlist the first day of hotel reservations. What hotel are you waiting on? I hope you get through the waitlist. We have less than a month now.

You're not only one...although I'm just looking to add Thursday since when I got my hotel reservations Thursday wasn't available for some reason, and that was on the 1st day.

[HatsuneMarku]

Has anyone got their hotel room or their room extended since the last day to cancel was on the 24?

I figured this week they'll start updating reservations. (I'm just guessing. I don't know if CMR works over the weekends.)

Yup

Mine went from Mon-Tuesday to Thursday to Monday for a double bed at the Hyatt.

[Barnes]

Just yesterday, I got into the Ramada room that I want. Yay!

I almost sent an e-mail to CMR asking where I was on the waitlist.

[Kyra_Maverick]

Since the last day to book a room is quickly approaching, I'm sad to say I have given up hope of my waitlist request being fulfilled. I've got Fairmont from Friday to Monday, but really wanted Hyatt Thursday - Monday.

Fairmont looks really nice and spacious, so I hope my defeat with the housing situation this year doesn't taint my experience too much.

[Tuna]

Well, at least you're not stuck in the hinterland of the Doubletree, where each time you decide to take a break in your room, it's an hour-long voyage, round-trip. Waitlist completely failed me this year  :-\