Advice for Walk-ins for hotels?

[weluvpluto]

We're driving from Milwaukee and will be stopping once plus staying in an offsite hotel the night before our Disney ressie starts.

Does anyone have any tips for getting a good hotel rate as a walk-in and nice areas to stay in Nashville / Chattanooga/ northern GA area (I don't think we'll make it to and through Atlanta the first day)

We have a cell phone, but on our last trip I noticed we had no reception anywhere past the WI state line! We're also AAA members and have an Entertainment card.

 

[ducklite]

Entertainment card rates MUST be booked in advance.

AAA rates can usually be gotten as a walk-in.

That said, the later you walk-in, the better your chances of negotiating a lower room rate are. Face it, by midnight if they aren't sold out they probably won't be. It's good to know in advance what the hotels rack rate is. Walk up to the desk and ask if they ahve rooms available. Then offer them about 60% of rack. They might say no, and then politely mention that 60% is better than 0% of the nightly rate towards making the nut. IF they stillr esist, offer 70%. Be prepared to walk if you do'nt get the rate you want.

It's best done with teh cahins in an area with a lot of the right near each other--they know if you do'nt get a reduced rate at one, the guy next door will give it to you.

Anne

 

[Lewisc]

I'd bring the AAA travel guide. If you have cell reception it's easier to make a few phone calls and negotiate rather than walking up to the desk and then leaving if you don't get a good rate. I'd call the actual hotel rather than the 800 number for the chain.

If you're making a stop (food, fuel or bathroom) a few hours before you're going to stop you might use a pay phone (buy a pre-paid card) and make your calls.

 

[NotUrsula]

Better yet, DON'T wing it! It only takes one time that you stop in a town that is hosting a sport tournament or a convention to point out the utter folly of that strategy.

Figure out where you are likely to be, and make reservations. If you are unsure whether traffic conditions will badly slow you down, then you can make more than one reservation and cancel the ones you won't use. (Check for penalties, but many rates allow for cancellation by 5 pm on the day of arrival.)

We like Priceline for road-tripping, as we usually plan our stops in advance. If you have a laptop with you, or stop at an internet cafe, you can even do same-day ressies on Priceline. On random road trips, we often use it from hotel #1 to make the next-night ressie for hotel #2. If the hotel does not have cheap internet access, you can use a calling card on your modem, to call your regular local-access number via long distance for only about 3 cents/minute. (If you do a bid from a public computer, you need to have an internet-accessible email account you can use to manage the bid.)

Pull up the website of your wireless service carrier, and print your coverage map. If your account does not allow roaming, you can usually arrange to have it for a short time, though it normally isn't cheap; call your carrier.

 

[cherylp3]

http://www.roomsaver.com/

 

[AspiringCindy]

Please be careful with "winging it". Last summer, we decided to "play it by ear" as we drove back to Jersey from WDW. Big mistake! We left Disney 12:00, stopped in Savannah for dinner, and continued on. When we entered NC, we started to get tired and began looking for places to stop. After $100 in phone charges and many, many stops, it was determined that every hotel was sold out along I95 clear up through NC, VA and Wash. DC! What a nightmare! At that point, we were only 4 hours from home and finished the drive. It was a very unsafe thing to do, but we had no other choice! I will never drive to/from WDW without having a hotel secured in the future!

 

[Deafmedic]

Dalton is about 30 miles from Tennessee on I-75. There are several nice motels and resturants there. I would recommend you booking because by 6-7 pm they are pretty full due to people stopping early to shop at the outlet mall there.