VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions convention reservation

After 40 minutes on the phone and talking to 3 different people I finally got a reservation. Not the room arrangement we wanted they were probably gone while I wasted my time talking to someone not even near the hotel,could not speak English, talked at the speed of sound and had major equipment problems! I repeated my email address 6 times and thankfully I got written confirmation via email. TIp: call the hotel directly. She told me that the room rate would be $212.00 per night and only when I gave her the code did it adjust to $135.00 a night.
This will be our first convention and who knows we maybe will not be able to attend another. See you there. CorvairEd VCCA#47508 Dade City,Fl

Must have talked to the same person I did. But I got a reservation in about 15-20 min. However it was for Jan. The Hotel called me back and fixed it.

i plan to attend, but was debating IF i want to stay close by the action or down the road ??

close by, you can walk to the hall, and the events going on, but you have to deal with all the traffic and people plus parking IF you wanted to go anywhere, getting in and out of hte complex to explore and see.

down the road, maybe 5 minutes or so, have to drive or ride up to the event everyday when you wanted to attend, but less traffic and people so you could go and come more easily to explore and see.

couple years ago my son and i went to the Chicago Bears 100th anniversary convention. we booked at hte host hotel, we stayed there for hte weekend. but there was public transportation anywhere and everywhere we wanted to go. the L, bus, etc.. bought a weekend CTA pass and went as we pleased. never had a car. not sure how this will play out, figured many of you have done this before and know the ropes. I have never done one of these events, and as of now, do not plan to bring either of my Chevrolets 1929 or 1930. no way to transport them to and from and store them while there.

Called the Hilton across the street. Nice person took my reservation and I signed up for 5 days with no issues. $129 + tax per day. Took about 3 minutes.

I called 5 times. First I got someone that I think was in India because I couldn't understand her.. She told me I had to call back at 9:00. I called at 9:02 and got another Indian. She said that she wanted my Marriott member number. Why, it was the Holiday Inn. She told me there were no rooms left.. I then called the Courtyard by Marriott and got another Indian. she told me that I needed to call back at 10:00 before the block of rooms were available. Why can't these hotels hire someone from the US that you can understand? This time I called the front desk at the Courtyard and finally got a man the I could understand. But he told me that the VCCA rooms couldn't be booked until 12:00. So I did call at 12:00. Now I called the front desk again and got another Indian. I gave up and gave the phone to my wife and she got a room after asking the person to repeat what she said several times. Each of these calls I had waiting times up to 25 minutes. This is my first VCCA function that I will attend and maybe my last if it takes so long to book a hotel.

if you go to the Hilton, it takes 5 minutes to book and they are doing Rooms $129 with the code
you can also book them via the Hilton website, quick easy and done. click on group rates and put in the code from the VCCA 60th site. they have single King or double queen rooms, i just checked and still have some available.$129 your choice. ( https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/bnabggi-hilton-garden-inn-bowling-green/ )

please dont blame the VCCA for the incompetence of the hotel chains. If you call the hotel directly, and they do not answer in x rings, it goes to the national number as we call it. and you do not know who you will get and most of hte time they are unaware of special deals or promos for events. been dealing with this stuff for many years traveling for work. then encompassed by no one wanting to work, everyone is short handed...

I called just after the required time and got the automated receptionist AKA voice recording that said I could hold for 20 minutes or get a callback and i would be put in line as the calls were received. I elected the callback which I got in about 15 minutes but again it was automated with 1 for continue or 2 if I was all set. I chose to continue and when a live person answered he was not able to make the reservation as it was being handled by "group sales". So he said he would connect me with them and again I got the twenty minute wait or a callback. I decided not to do either but instead called their main number for reservations and spoke with a live person. After explaining the situation she explained that because it was a group sales event that she could not make the reservation but she called the host hotel while I was on the line . They then allowed her to make the reservation which she did while I was on line. I was very pleased with the excellent service from the corporate reservations agent but the host hotel procedure was totally inadequate and quite frustrating.

We rang The Holiday Inn yesterday morning from Australia and spoke to a receptionist straight away and had a room booked with no problems in minutes.
We were told that there were only a couple of rooms left.