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Place I stayed: Days Inn (every year since 2000, ho!)

Number of people in room: 5 & 7 (two rooms)

Hotel Staff: Awesome, awesome and more awesome. :D They gave us extra room keys, and a bunch of coupons for a local pizza joint. Never had any problems getting extra items like towels, toilet paper, etc.

Walk to the con center: About 2 minutes depending on traffic.

The bad: As everyone else has said, the rooms are small. BUT, they have always been clean and the air conditioners work beautifully. It's always nice to come back to a freezing room after walking outside in the hotness. :) It's also difficult to get rooms here... we never get the con rate cause we book regularly. So it's been pretty expensive the last few years.

The good: The location and free wi-fi make this place totally worth it. Plus it's full of con-goers, so you don't have to worry about being quiet in your rooms. XD We keep our doors open all the time (we usually have six rooms in the hotel each year for our massive group) and roam between them all. Never had any complaints from other tennants or the staff. The place is great for hooking up your game systems, too. There's a plug on the back of the tv that's easy to screw on and off, so you can hook anything up. Much brawling was had. :) TV isn't a flat panel, but it's still a pretty good size. Plenty of cable channels to watch, too.

Would you stay there again?: Absolutely, we've already made reservations for six business suites there next year. :)

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Place I stayed: Holiday Inn

Number of people in room: 1

Hotel Staff: Friendly, but made a mistake in my checkout billing.

Walk to Otakon: about a block and a half.

The good:

Clean, comfortable large rooms.

Staff was friendly.

The bad:

Elevators were slow.

Parking was $21 a day.

Original roommate could not make it so I had to pay for the room by myself.

Room was warm when I checked in. I ended up adjusting the thermostat.

I really didn't have any time to spend there, working and enjoying the con. I just used it as a place for sleep.

Would I stay there again?

Yes, I already made reservations since the cheaper alternative (Days Inn) is already sold out.

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I had to stay in 2 hotels (One hotel had a good rate for Friday to Sunday, but were sold out for Thursday, so Thursday was another Hotel) Got all nights at a rate of $199 a night. I already locked in 2009 with Hyatt for $199 a night

Place I stayed: Springhill Suites Marriott

Number of people in room: 2

Hotel Staff: Majority nice, except for whoever was incharge of phone. I have never talked to a larger jerk at a hotel all my life.

Walk to Otakon: 5-7 minutes

The good:

-Amazing room

-2 Brand New Flatscreen LCD TVs that are Wall Mounted

-Very fresh and new looking

The bad:

-Even though the staff was nice, they were quite incompetent. When I called in and asked for directions, they told me to figure it out myself and when I called to have my car brought out from Valet, they lost my valet number, making it so I had to wait additional half-hour for my car.

-Bed was very uncomfortable. The couch was more comfortable to fall asleep on.

-The entrance to the hotel is not on the address they provide. Its on a side street to it's left.

Would I stay here again? At the rate I got it at, yes. At the rate they are asking for next Otakon. Nope

Place I stayed: Residence Inn Marriott

Number of people in room: 2

Hotel Staff: Very Nice and knew what was going on majority of the time. Only had 1 problem with front-desk people.

Walk to Otakon: 5 minutes

The good:

-Full Kitchen

-Very Nice Bed

-Large Bathtub

-Pretty much has anything that a small apartment would have

-Free breakfast was good

The bad:

-TVs were quite dated, but didn't really matter due to I never had time to use them.

-Internet was a pain to get running at first.

-People at front desk disabled my card half way through the trip, and told me that I never gave them a credit card. I did, but I guess there was an error on it, so instead of telling me the day the error occurred, they waited a day to tell me.

Would I stay here again? At the rate I got it at, yes. At the rate they are asking for next Otakon. Nope.

Edited by VincentIII
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Place I stayed: Sheraton Inner Harbor

Number of people in room: 4

Hotel Staff: Incredibly helpful and polite. The best I have dealt with in my years of going to Otakon since 2000.

Walk to the con center: Like a 1 minute walk from the BCC

The bad: Small bathrooms, no fridge or microwave in the regular guest rooms. The group of people screaming in the hallway on Saturday night at 3AM where I actually poked my head out the door and told them to be quiet or I'll call the front desk to complain since other Otakon staffers were on that floor trying to get sleep, no free internet.

The good: HUGE bathtub to soak in after a crazy day (and if your roommates don't mind lol), comfy beds, easy to use coffee makers for the bleary eyed like myself at 6AM, being extremely close to the BCC, chocolate on the bed, access to the Skywalk to get to many places.

Would you stay there again?: Absolutely. I have grown to love the Sheraton. XD

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Well, we had a much better experience w/ the Lord Baltimore Radisson. We were on the 10th floor, had a large room, two double beds. No microwave or fridge, but there was a coffeemaker (only two of the five of us drink coffee anyway) and Dunkin Donuts was not far away for breakfast.

The staff was very friendly. Tonya at the front test was a delight and very helpful. Dwayne the bellman was patient and helpful even when every single Otakonner was trying to check out at the same time and the elevators were overwhelmed. [i did mention on the Radisson's survey that this was an issue to address.] Munene the head valet fulfilled my requests - one of us left batteries in the van and he went and got them; I asked if he could bring the van to the front to load up and then park it again so that we could finish the afternoon @ the convention on Sunday. Parking was more expensive than I would have liked ($29/night) but I didn't do anything more than pull up to the hotel and then drive away - and the cost of parking included coming and going if we had wanted to.

Yes, the housekeeper seemed to have problems understanding English, but the room and bathroom was clean. Extra towels were brought VERY promptly no matter when we called for them. We were there basically just to sleep - we spent as much time as possible at the convention.

I talked w/ other Otakon-goers and many of them had been at this hotel in past years and didn't seem to have a problem w/ returning to it. And yes, I would go back to the Lord Baltimore Radisson again next year.

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Place I stayed: Sheraton Inner Harbor

Number of people: 4

Hotel Staff: The only contact I had with the Sheraton Inner Harbor staff was the front desk staff who was extremely polite and friendly to me, when I needed to get my keycard redone, no questions asked, just needed to show my ID and tell them my room number and it was done!

Walk to Otakon: 1 minute or less thanks to the skywalk going from the hotel to the BCC.

The good: First year staying at the Sheraton Inner Harbor thanks to Otakon. The room I had was really nice, great air conditioning. Very nice flat-screen HDTV. Being very close to the BCC. Skywalk access to not only the BCC but to Harborplace and the Bank of America building. Hotel floor that I was on (6th floor) was nice and quiet overnight.

The bad: No free WiFi. No fridge or microwave in the room I was in. Needing to have my keycard redone about 5 times over the weekend.

Would I stay again? Yes I would, would like to stay at the Hilton in 2009 though.

Edited by KSweeley
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Place I stayed: Renaissance Harborplace

Number of people: 4 in 1room, 2 in the second

Hotel Staff: They were amazing. We had no trouble with our room and excellent room service.

Walk to Otakon: Bout 3 minutes but with the skywalk less.

The good: The view was amazing from the room and it was nice and comfortable. A flat screen tv. It had a pool. The hotel was close to food and other things like the gallery, which was like a little mall that had gamestop!

The room service was nice and the food was good.

The bad: No microwave and no good on demand unless you want to pay alot. Especially for music.

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Place: Residence Inn by Mariott (2008)

Number of People: 7 (10 thurs night)

Hotel Staff: Overly helpful, to the point where I made a comment that it's okay for them to be human. XD I had needed to get a prescription filled on sunday, and they directed me to a pharmacy that was closed, but that was due to their computer not having updated information.

Walk to Otakon: Depending on which door we were allowed to go in on any given day, between 5-8 minutes if the lights cooperated, 8-10 otherwise.

The good: even though we made a MESS of the place, (ex. dieing the tub black from spray in hair color being washed out) I didn't get charged a single dime extra than i was quoted. I got the room through hotels.com. There was a king bed that we could have slept 4 in, but only slept 2. There was a pull out couch that slept 2. There was a full kitchen (ie fridge/freezer, stove, microwave....dishwasher....). the hotel is easily within walking distance of both the harbor for food, and the con center. There was a cute little divebar type pub down an ally we ate dinner the first night suggested by one of the staff that was pretty good, but servace took forever. the hotel was also right next door to a CVS and a 7/11, and up the street from a Dunken Donuts.

The bad: the kitchen was laid out a little odd, and we couldn't find the utensils for a while. and the sink was outside of the bathroom.(i mean the bathroom one not the kitchen one). there was a mix-up at checkout about us having a car. we didn't we tok the train down. But the second i said that we didn't they investigated the issue and removed it from the bill.

Would i stay there again: Yes. It wasn't inexpensive.....but it was worth it. I paid about $840 for thurs-sun.

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Place: Brookshire Suites

Number of People: 4 on thursday in a standard room and 6 on fri/sat in a suite

Hotel Staff: The staff at the desk is uber friendly, they gave me all the keys I wanted, told me about the 10 dollar fee, upgraded me to a suite without cost because of booking misunderstandings. The people at the reservation hot line were anything but helpful. They gave me conflicting answers about adding people to the receipt, when I asked about a week before the trip exactly what type of room I would be getting I was told that I would have a suite, only to arrive and find out that orbitz/expedia/hotwire (I used orbitz) bookings are standard rooms only, the front desk couldn't upgrade me for thursday but gave me a king suite for fri/sat because of the reservations people. The hot line also told me check out would be 4 o'clock, that they allowed the later check out. On Sunday I got a call at 1140 telling me my check out time was 12 and that there were no late check outs, The front desk allowed me an extra half hour without charging me the fee for being late. SO pretty much... if you have questions before your trip only call the front desk of the hotel directly, don't let them direct you to reservations or any of the other "help" lines.

Walk to the con: The street its on seems a bit iffy at night, there are dark alleys right next to the hotel (so many dead rats -shudder-) but really, it was only about 5 minutes walk which was awesome if you can get past the atmosphere.

The good: The FREE breakfast bar, eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes... amazing. The suite we had fri/sat was amazing, we fit two twin air mattress and a queen in along with the king bed with room to spare. The bathrooms were really nice.

The bad: The standard rooms are TINY. All the furniture is wedged in with VERY little walking space. Definitely not worth the 200 a night. Our door also had issues with closing, you could slam it and walk back over to find it open.

Stay there again: In a suite yes, if I couldn't get a con rate room, in a standard room NO, not even if I were desperate.

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This has to do with reviews....

Anyone who as stayed at the Days Inn in a standard room they got with an Otakon rate..did it have a microwave and if it didn't were you able to get one put in there?

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Place : Days Inn

Number of People in Room : 4 (2 double-bed room)

Hotel Staff: Very polite. The dude with the moustache and flat top haircut (manager perhaps?) was VERY friendly and helpful. They also were nice enough to let me check-in early. Check-in time there is 3pm. I got there at 1pm and had no problems.

Walk to Otakon: Not far at all.. 2 or 3 minutes depending on traffic and how slow people in front of you are walking.

The good : Room was clean, free wi-fi was nice. The bartender in the hotel bar was awesome. I had breakfast in the restaurant a couple of mornings and the pancackes were great! Free juice refills, which was also nice. The buffet was average but still not bad.

The bad: Room was a bit small for 4 people. One of my roomates kept getting nearly stepped on when he was sleeping. Also, the people across the hall were LOUD because they, apparently, figured that everyone there was from Otakon and didn't care that they were obnoxious until 4am. Apart from that, no real "bad"s. I wasn't in the room for much of the con.

Stay there again: Definitely. This was my.. third or fourth Otakon at the Days Inn. I've never had any issues there. It was already booked for this year, though, so I'll get to stay some place new next year.

Anyone who as stayed at the Days Inn in a standard room they got with an Otakon rate..did it have a microwave and if it didn't were you able to get one put in there?
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Hotel: Radisson Lord Baltimore

The hotel interior reminded me and my friends of The Shining. I waited for the little boy to come down the hallway. LOL

Oddities: Everytime I got in the elevator and wanted to go to the Lobby, it went to the Lower Lobby first ALL the time, opened the door, and the went to the Lobby. I really was waiting for the little boy there. LOL

Overall, I enjoyed it. I would have rather been in the Hyatt, but oh well. Would I stay there again? Yes, if other hotels are not available though.

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Where: Brookshire Suites

How Many: 2

Staff: Desk people were always ready to assist with questions. (The folks at check in were awesome!) The bell staff were totally cool.

The Good:

Close to everything. Only 3 blocks away from the BCC and 2 blocks away from the harbor. Free breakfast every day and you can make a to-go container! (I didn't take advantage of that but I thought it was cool.) We got put in our room right away even though we were way early for check in. You cannot hear anything from adjoining rooms. Plenty of free apples! Holding our bags on sunday couldn't have been easier.

The Bad: You can hear the street noise. (For me and my friend that wasn't really an issue. We both live in places near main roads.) Is a little dark at night.

Would stay again?: Absolutely! In fact I'll be booking for next year in a month or so.

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