Blocking Hotels in St. Augustine?

LouWho19

Hi gals,

I'm researching so I can block hotel rooms for my out of town guests in St. Augustine. Most of our guests are out of towners!

I know I need to call hotels, but does anyone have any pointers on this process in general and/or experience with hotels in St. Augustine? I already know I'm probably going to block rooms at two hotels but am not sure which ones to pick.
Thanks!!
-Cindy

kmcg8r

Our wedding/reception is in downtown St. Augustine and I made room blocks at the Comfort Suites Downtown, 42 San Marco Avenue, (904) 829-2292, www.comfortsuites.com/">www.comfortsuites.com, I got a rate for $72-82 tax Thurs night, $110-120 plus tax Fri/Sat nights. However, they seemed a little disorganized. I went in person to make this block, and they told me they would get x rates with 15% off for being part of the block. I later found out when some guests tried to book, that they had "lost" my block, but were still giving them the same rate. So I'm not sure what happened. When I called back they just said it had never been entered. It is still early so I'm not too worried. But the good thing is that they don't hold you to having a certain number of rooms booked, like some other hotels do.

We also have a room block at the Best Western Spanish Quarter Inn, 6 Castillo Drive, (904) 824-4457, www.staugustinebestwestern.com/">www.staugustinebestwestern.com for roughly the same price. I don't like this hotel as much (it is more "motel" style), but the location is perfect. To my knowledge no one has made a reservation here.

But something else we put on our website is a list of about 10 area Bed & Breakfasts.... A lot of the time people can get rooms in B&Bs for roughly the same price and they include breakfast and have a ton of character. We love staying at B&Bs, so wanted to give people that option as well.

Hope that helps!

LouWho19

kmcg8r, you're awesome, that helps a ton!

gingerdunnrd

I blocked off rooms at the Holiday Inn on the Beach (my wedding is on the beach, but the reception is downtown).  They are charging us $89 each night for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, and their hotel literally leads right out to the beach.  They are a little older hotels, but they are still pretty nice  

When I was originally pricing them out, I just went on-line, and they usually have an area where you can request pricing for a group of hotel rooms and I think that's the easiest way to do it.

AlysonParker07

Courtyard Marriott on 16 is a nice option as well, they gave me $99/night and its a brand new hotel 10 minutes from downtown and right off I-95 and across from the outlets.

LouWho19

Thanks girls, y'all are so helpful

meganc182

Don't know how many rooms you needed to block...but we blocked rooms at the Kenwood Inn (13 rooms I think) and Casa De Solana (gave us 20% off). We're getting married in the historic downtown and the parking is not so great, so now nobody has to worry about where to park their cars because it's all within walking distance. And like kmcg8r said B&B's are the best especially since they include breakfast!

jokennedy

My wedding is at the Hilton Bayfront Historic Hotel - we got a room block there, but also got room blocks at several other hotels in the area by going to their websites and submitting an RFP.  Just go to their Groups and Meetings section and click on the Submit RFP link.  Fill out the information and they'll send you back the pricing based on your dates and what you requested.  It's pretty easy to do and often you can get some pretty good rates!

erininjax

I did two hotels as well and then listed the remaining Bed and Breakfasts on my wedding website.

The two hotels I used were the only two diamond hotels in St. Augustine. Hilton Bayfront and Casa Monica. Both rates were over $200 but felt okay with that since the B&B's were also listed on my site. This helps communicate the Guest Information in a very timely way.

All My Best-