need help with online booking for FL hotel

[friend2dogs]

We will be sailing the Sea Princess from Ft. Lauderdale in Decmeber, and would like to know how to book a room at a reasonable price through one of the search engines such as Expedia, Travelocity etc. We are interested in either the Renaissance or Embassy Suites. What sites are recommended, and what location should be entered to get either of these hotels? Thanks very much for your help.

[Ernie G]

Travelocity & Expedia don't really sort their hotel participants by zones. Priceline and Hotwire do. If you just want to be by the port and want to secure a room through Travelocity, Hotwire or Expedia you could book anything along SE17th or you could bid your room on Priceline. Inventory now may be low since it is a far time till December. Priceline is broken down into zones with the Downtown area/Beach area seeming to be the most popular. Sometimes you can get a 4* for $75 or a 3* for $60. Just depends on the inventory that they have. The Embassy is a 3* and is located in the Downtown area. We won it on Priceline once for $65 and on Hotwire for $88. The other 3* in the Downtown zone is the Marriott Marina. The 4* is the Renaissance. The Beach zone includes the Hyatt (4*) and many 3*.

 

You can go to http://www.betterbidding.com or http://www.biddingfortravel.com or http://www.biddingforfun.com for pointers on how to bid.

 

Hope this helps.

[signman]

Doggy Friend, you are a little confused. If you are looking for the 2 hotels you mentioned, then just go to the Marriott website for the Renaissance and the Hilton site for Embassy Suites. Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, Hotels.com will give you multiple options across all price and quality levels for the dates you specify.

 

An opaque site such as Hotwire or Priceline asks you to specify a location you want to stay in, (Downtown Fort Lauderdale in your case) and a quality level. Hotwire will then give you options by star level and location and will show the price and amenities for each hotel. You will not know the name of the hotel until you pay for it. Priceline asks you to bid for a star level and general location. Then if they have rooms in their inventory at the price you offered, your bid will be accepted and the name of the property will be revealed to you. The previous post lists some websites to help make more sense of this. The Embassy Suites has not come up on Priceline in a while, while the Renaissance comes up all the time at terrific prices. But you are probably out too far to bid yet. The best information is at Bidding For Travel. Recent successful bidders post their winning bids and properties.

[friend2dogs]

Thanks for the tips!