Picking a Hotel for VMworld 2008
This week I’ve been researching and planning my trip to Las Vegas, NV for VMWorld 2008, and I wanted to share some of my findings. Specifically, I’ve been trying to make the decision to book a room for the week at one of the official conference hotels listed on the VMworld 2008 web site or try finding a better deal on my own. I figured what I have discovered could possibly be helpful for at least a few of the 10,000 to 12,000 other conference attendees.
Basically, my hotel decision has come down to 2 important factors:
- The proximity of my hotel to the Venetian (where the conference takes places) and the logistics of getting back and forth.
- Finding a “wife-worthy” hotel that is affordable and agreeable to my company.
Hotel Logistics
Choosing to stay at a conference hotel generally means that you can catch a bus to the Venetian (unless you are already staying there!). Treasure Island, The Mirage, and The Flamingo state “walking distance” on the page linked above. Looking at the map image provided by lasvegas.com (click for larger view), you can see that all of these options are within a couple of hotel properties of the Venetian. Don’t let that fool you though, a single hotel property in Vegas can be several city blocks and could take 30 - 45 minutes to walk. That’s where the Las Vegas Monorail comes in handy.
For $9 you can get an unlimited one day pass for the Monorail, and as you can see on the map you can get to the Venetian from several different hotels using this transportation. This widens the possible hotels for the VMworld week.
Wife-worthiness
Like a lot of other attendees, my wife will be accompaning me to Las Vegas this year. That means that the hotel amenities, location, and overall quality of stay makes a bigger difference to me than it normally would. Trying to find a compromise between my company’s travel policy and my wife’s happiness lead me to using expedia.com to price out non conference hotels. I discovered that Paris Las Vegas had rates for the week averaging $128 per night (the rates change depending on the weekday). Once again using lasvegas.com I realized that Paris rates 4.5 stars while the cheapest conference hotel, The Flamingo at $149 - $169 a night, only rated 3.5 stars. For what it’s worth, my wife was more impressed with staying at Paris then staying at The Flamingo anyways.
One drawback to booking through Expedia is that you are charged for the entire week in September immediately (>$700.00). Hopefully you can expense the cost up front.
Anyways, this is just an example of the many lodging options for VMWorld 2008. I’m sure there are other great deals too. Leave a comment with your findings to help others trying to plan the week too!
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Tags: Las Vegas, vmworld, vmworld2008
July 6th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Rich,
Great Post. Check out http://www.ipmer.com/2008/05/planning-your-vmworld-2008-trip.html for your Airfare!
July 6th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Carlo,
Thanks. My company books the plane and the rental car for me. They give me some leeway with the hotel … sometimes.
Carlo’s post is definitely worth checking out for those readers who can make all the reservations themselves.