One-Two Punch: SDCC Hotels On Sale 2/26

Now that was fast: just a few days after selling out passes to San Diego Comic-Con 2013, the convention has announced that hotels in the downtown area will be going on sale Tuesday, February 26th at noon Eastern Time. This is fully a month earlier on the calendar than last year, when there was almost a month in between when passes went on sale and the opening of hotel reservations. So I don’t know if the people at SDCC are hoping that forcing people to fork out for passes and a couple of days worth of hotels all at once will help deter the bubblegummers who aren’t really serious about attending Comic-Con… or if they’re treating the preliminaries like a Band-Aid: just rip the damn thing off all at once and just get the pain over with.

Well, whatever the reason, here’s the deal. At some point in the 72 hours before Magic Hour, SDCC will be sending an email with a link to the sales site to badge holders. The site won’t go live until noon Eastern Time on the dot, and when it does, once you get in, you will need to pick six hotels from the list: no more and no less. This is different from previous years, when you could pick one hotel or all of them. And it is certainly different from, say, 2006, when I read the list, thought it over, went to lunch, came back, thought it over some more, and then booked a room with no trouble at about 4 p.m.

Once you get through, you will know… well, that you got through. The sales will be processed after the sales site closes, and sometime by February 28th, you will get an email advising you if you got your first choice, your fifth choice, or if you will be sleeping in the airport men’s room. Once you get that email, if you were lucky enough to get a room, you’ll need to follow a link back to the travel agency, confirm your reservation, and make a deposit equal to two days of the room rate, plus Uncle Sam’s (and the San Diego City Council’s) share. That deposit will be refundable up until April 30th; between then and June 1st, you can get half your deposit back if you decide that you’d rather spend the thousand bucks on actual comics, but after that? Yer paying those two days even if you’re taken hostage by The Joker on June 2nd.

Don’t feel like putting up with the raw, animal anxiety of sitting through the sales process? Well, you can get in on the Early Bird sale, which will let you get a room on the shuttle circuit (but off the main drag) right now… provided you’re willing to pay for the whole thing right now, all at once. Still and all, it’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind… unless you’re like us and you booked a room at an off-Convention downtown hotel six months ago, as a backup.

With that said, we will be in front of our browsers at 11:59 a.m. next Tuesday, with a list of our first choice hotels in one hand and crossed fingers in the other. You can see the list of available hotels here. And make sure to keep an eye on Comic-Con’s actual hotel info page, in case something changes between now and then.

Ah, the run-up to Comic-Con… so like being in the Military: weeks and weeks of boredom and anticipation, with quick, ten-minute intervals of pants-shitting terror and fervent prayer.