Excalibur Booking a room in advance or....

We have 9 people going to Vegas and staying at Excalibur end of september from the 24th-29th. 7 of us have rooms with 2 people 2people and 3 people in a 3 rooms. Anyways the last 2 people say will just get a room when they arrive in Vegas. I guess i'm a planner and want make sure i have a room forsure and don't wanna be stuck with no room for the night.
Has anyone ever done this? Wont they pay way more than booking before we get there. I've been checking roomrates and they are going up every week. Do las vegas hotels always have vacancy and is it a good or a bad idea? I think it is a horrible idea to wait until we get there. Glad i have my room booked but i just don't get it to wait until arrival to get a room. Any input is greatly appreciated thanks in advance.

 

I personally would never take that chance. I think the rates are likely to be higher on arrival. I wouldn't say that the people you're mentioning need to book right this minute (for example, I have a trip planned for October and haven't booked yet). However, I wouldn't make my first bet upon arrival that I will get a room at a price I like. They could end up at the Super 8 or something.

 

I agree with everything you stated I booked my rooms back in early march. Yeah we been telling them to book now but they sure as hell aren't craming in my room if non are available haha.

 

There is absolutely no downside to booking now, assuming you book direct with the hotel. You can always cancel between now and then.

 

Booking the hotel in advance does not equal planning / control freak. It is crazy in my mind to not have a hotel booked before getting there. Are they planning to just go from hotel to hotel until they find a room and rate they like? What if they can't get into the hotel the rest of their crew is already booked in? Seems pretty goofy, borderline irresponsible.

 

Yeah i don't get it either cause i would assume rates would be higher when you arrive rather than in advance. We are all booked at Excalibur so i would assume they would try and get rooms where we are all staying. If there's no rooms available they can figure out on there own where to stay we have been telling them to book a room already haha. Agree with you about being goofy and borderline irresponsible.

 

With hotwire and priceline waiting until day of can be a way to score cheap rooms if you're lucky. I prefer booking in advance but lots of people like playing the game

 

are they Vegas rookies? It is really ridiculous to wait til you get there. Always book a cancelable room ahead of time and keep checking rates. Probably going to try and scam way in with you when they can't find a decent deal the day of.

 

For some reason hotel rates seem pretty high for this week, not sure what's driving it but tell your buddy to make a cancellable reservation and keep monitoring the rates.

If rates go down, he cancels, rebooks, and gets his first win without setting foot in town. If they go up, he keeps his reservation and he wins because he can stay in the same hotel as the rest of the group.

Unless he really doesn't want to stay with the group.

How well do those two folks know each other? Because if they book on Priceline at the last minute, they might get to share a bed since there is no guarantee of two beds.

But then again, I read that there's 65,000 rooms on the strip and a total of 150,000 rooms if the outlying areas are included. How can all of these rooms possibly be booked? We all pay for our education anyway.

For much of my business travel I make last minute Priceline reservations. But one trip I waited too long and almost had to stay in a hostel in Chicago. I wised up.

 

It's supply and demand... they won't all get booked up, but the price is going to go up pretty steep if the timing is bad and they end up trying to book during a busy peak time in LV. Think paying $399/night for a room in some second-tier property that normally costs $59/night.

 

Those two friends are just trying to pull as fast one. They really don't have their act together. Either they plan on flaking because they're just too insecure to say they can't make the trip, or they'll end up crashing in one of your rooms for sure with some excuse of hotel rates being too high.... And they won't help split the cost. I totally have friends and family like this that pull this bs all the time.

Even if you told them that reserving a room now won't commit you to anything as you can still cancel up to 72 hours beforehand, they still won't do it.

 

Well if that is the reason this won't help but it's a good read. Blog from a front desk clerk.

https://vegashotelconfidential.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/no-room-at-the-inn/

 

They even have plane tickets bought. It's actually my buddy sis and her bf if they don't want to pay for expensive room rates when we get there they can go sleep on the sidewalk haha. Room rates are already up 250$ for the week from the sept 24th-29th from when i booked rooms a few months ago haha.

I read your post and wow people these days are dumb haha. I envision one of these storys taking place when we arrive to the 2 people who didin't make a reservation but i think they will just be paying probably double or triple the rates of our early booked rooms.

 

I just checked the TR hotels for their room rates that week and you're right! prices seem to be high that week. Even during mid week. Checkout this offer from Excalibur below. Nightly room rate averages out to $91 a day for your dates...

https://www.excalibur.com/en/booking/room-booking.html#/step1&programId=83075351-b721-45ba-a0c8-f70a064301bf&arrive=2017-06-05&depart=2017-06-06&numGuests=2

If they are a young couple and want a cool hip place then they might not be committing to the trip because Excalibur is more of a family friendly hotel. Lots of kids. I don't fault them for that if that's the reason. Excalibur is anything but a party hotel

 

I booked royal tower back in february for the that week was 494$ through mlife for 5 nights total with resort fee and taxes. Every where else was pretty much double the price and prices are still climbing. We are staying here cause we would rather have a cheap room and leave more money for gambeling and drinking eating sight seeing and whatnot. They have comitted cause they bought airfare already but when they get there and have to pay double or triple what we are paying i wont feel bad for them they have plenty of time to get a room.

 

They should be able to easily get a room on HotelTonight day of (no guarantee of price though), I've done this in Vegas before during the Steve Harvey Award Show thing. Got a $30 or so room at the Polo Towers (there were casino rooms available, I just didn't care about sleeping at one). This was a few years back though. Note: they might not be able to get something on the strip, but imo Lyft makes that somewhat of a moot point these days.


Personally I wouldn't risk it over a weekend as I don't want to deal with a hassle on my vacation.

 

Just send them a link to HostelCat for their stay

 

It's the weekend of the iHeartRadio music festival. Granted, it ends on Saturday, but it's a great time to visit and there is a larger convention with 45,000 attendees that week.

 

End of September is a great time to go for the weather, but it is expensive due to the convention season picking up again and going in to full swing after a summer lull.

If your friends are thinking of staying with the rest of the group at Excalibur they could have a hard time getting a last minute room - I know people don't think much of The Excalibur, but funny enough despite its reputation it has one of, if not the highest occupancy rates in all of Las Vegas.

And one thing to keep in mind is: if they wait until they get there to book a room, it could affect your trip as well - if they can't get a room at Excalibur they could end up asking to share with one of the other groups, or if they have to stay at another resort you could end up spending a lot of time waiting for them, IE: if your group wants to meet up for breakfast and you are all in the same hotel it goes a lot smoother than if you have to wait for two others to get there from another property.

 

It's my buddy's sister and bf If they can't find a room by us it will not ruin my trip. Might ruin my buddy's trip but if they can't find a room at Excalibur with all of us we just won't see them much I guess haha. I just don't get it why they won't book now it just irks me and my buddy. Just not smart to show up to Vegas without a room IMO. If they have to stay off strip away from everyone else cause of there stubbornness of not getting a room it there fault. With a group this big anyways I'm sure we will be splitting up a lot during the week. We definitely have to set some ground rules so everyone has a good time. Not everyone will want to do the same thing the whole time we are there. thanks for the input.