Good hotels to block rooms for OOT Guests--Madison

debbies44

Hey Madison brides,

My wedding will be downtown (Madison Masonic Center) and I'm looking for a relatively inexpensive hotel to block off rooms for our OOT guests.  Almost 99% of our guests will be OOT, so suggestions on what I should do (i.e. more than one hotel, how to go about blocking, etc) would be great!  I'm not really sure how I go about all this, so suggestions are helpful.

TIA!

athenagirl16

There are a few hotels by your venue...the edge water, the concourse, the inn on the park, and double tree. Double tree will probably be the cheapest out of all of them but it is also the farthest away of those four..I would say the concourse and then the edge water are the closest (only a few blocks)

You might be able to arrange a shuttle with a hotel that is a little farther way..like Howard Johnson (down a ways on E. Wash kinda by east towne mall or the Best Western farther down on University).

IDK about prices for anything though but I would think the farther away from downtown you get the cheaper its going to be and then guests wont have to pay for parking (im not sure about parking at any of these hotels)

Im planning on calling more than one hotel to block off rooms but Im a ways away from that point!

Hopefully that helps!!

ehathewa

The Extended Stay Hotels in MIddleton are very reasonable.  We got a rate of $50/night. 

The Clarion (near the Alliant Energy Center) has very nice rooms (the outsie leaves something to be desired) with free hot breakfast and a pool.  We got a rate of $99/night. 

Our wedding is on a Badger home football game weekend, so many of the hotels downtown/campus area were outrageous.  If you go a little further out the prices were much more reasonable. 

elmulvey

Ok, so we went with Middleton hotels instead.  the concourse and the edgewater are expensive, and its a home football game when we get married, and its parents weekend.  (Yup, good pick on my part). 
Anyhow we too are getting married at the Masonic Center and we have hired Badger Bus to transport our guests to the venue and home also.  That way nobody has to navigate downtown Madison on a football game day :-) a
Anyhow, we ended up with teh Country Inn and Suites in Madison at $79 a night and the Comfort Suites in West Madison for $59 a night. 

debbies44

how much was badger bus to transport?  We are thinking about looking into them so we can have hotels further out, but don't have any idea how much something like that will cost and I hate getting quotes before I've "decided" because I feel trapped and sometimes get guilted into things lol

elmulvey

Badger bus:  we reserved 2 busses, 55 passenger coaches from 2pm until 12:30am and its $1300. 

ZaiX3

Depending on the date, it might be too late if it's a game weekend this year to book rooms, but I found that a lot of the hotels weren't willing to do large blocks, so instead we got blocks at a bunch of different hotels.

The Hilton/Sheraton coordinator is really nice (Nicky) and you can check the status of the room blocks online, the Sheraton is a little less expensive than the Hilton.

We also got rooms at the Inn on the Park but they weren't willing to discount any of them.  Some other ones to try in the area are the Concourse and the Doubletree.  A new Hyatt Place opened and it seems like their rooms are a little cheaper but their customer service is really crappy and you have to front the money.

Further from the downtown area is going to be cheaper as people said, but then you might have a transportation and parking issue.

d&fwedding

I echo the earlier comment about working with Nicky at the Hilton/Sheraton - they have a tool that allows you to view who has booked rooms in your room block.  The Concourse has also been easy to work with.  One caution about the Inn on the Park - at least in my case - they wanted us to guarantee the rooms so if they did not fill, we would have to pay.  If it's not a home football weekend, you should not have a problem finding several hotel options.

debbies44

thanks ladies.  Considering it's January there's no football, but we might have to fight a hockey series.  Not sure about that yet.  I decided this is something FI can do--I have so many other things on my plate right now it's been hard to even start researching!  But I'm thinking we will do a hotel downtown (maybe the double tree or the hilton/sheraton) and then one on the west side maybe.  Thanks again for your help!