Where to block hotel rooms?

arf3420 · January 2012

We're having our reception June 23 at the Pittsburgh Opera House in the strip district, and I still haven't gotten around to blocking rooms somewhere... We aren't having many out of town guests, so I'm only planning to block maybe 10 rooms at the most. The closest hotel to the strip was the Hampton Inn, but I just found out there is the NHL draft that weekend and they are almost completely booked. They have a handful of rooms left but won't block them.
The next closest hotel is the Marriott Courtyard or Westin Convention Center, but they both have a lot of awful reviews online. Has anyone had any experience with them?
I don't know where else to look... I don't want guests to have to drive too far from the reception.
Should I just block the Marriott, or should I contact OOT guests and recommend that they book a room at the Hampton asap since we couldn't reserve rooms? Any suggestions??

pantherRN · January 2012

What about something on the North Shore? There's a newer Hyatt over there.

cas4atpitt · January 2012

I blocked rooms at the Westin for my wedding this past September. My dad was the 1 who set up the room block & of the few hotels he was looking at they gave the best prices. I was a little wary of some of the reviews too, but no one complained about their rooms. They have a nice bar in 1 of the restaurants in their lobby that we went to after the reception, in fact the bar was supposed to close at 1 AM but since it was so busy b/n my guests & the guests from wedding they had in the hotel they kept it open until 2.

ChristineNB · January 2012

What about some of the cute smaller hotels on the North Side? Since you don't need alot of rooms, perhaps the Priory or the Inn on Mexican War Streets would be a thought. I know the Inn has a website. I went and saw the Inn and person and have been thinking of using it, so beautiful

Flowerstar1023 · January 2012

If you're going Northside, there's also the Springhill Suites by PNC park and the Parador Inn. The Inn on the Mexican War Streets is beautiful - just make sure you call instead of email since the owners are notorious for not answering emails (they're just not tech savy).

arf3420 · January 2012

Thanks! I didn't even think of those places... unfortunately the Priory is completely booked already... that seems to be the case with most of the hotels near downtown. I'm looking into the Shadyside Inn now..their rooms look really nice and they're the best price I found so far. They won't block rooms, but I'm just going to put a note on our website telling people to book asap.
But they don't have a bar or anything. Any brides already married- Did you find that a lot of your guests wanted to go somewhere else after the reception to continue the party? Or was it just a really small group? I'm thinking maybe just our wedding party would want to go somewhere else... so we could even just go out in Shadyside or the Southside instead of needing a hotel bar? This is so hard to decide... I have no idea what people normally do?? Lol.

erbear84 · January 2012

I have to say, I work with a big nonprofit organization as a volunteer and we had to transfer a LARGE event from the Omni to the Westin this summer in the time span of maybe four hours and the Westin people were super courteous and wonderful to all of us. Not sure how their rooms are, but the staff rocked!

Where to block hotel rooms?

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