Madison is a great town to walk around in. The whole Capital square / State St. / University area... so it seems wrong to me to be in a hotel where we'd have to drive to get downtown....
(just keep in mind, you can not buy alcohol from stores after 9:30pm, you gotta go to the bars to do your boozing if you run out at home.)
Or drive to... what's that suburb? Mendota? (eta: Maple Bluff, right?) Anyway, we've made tons of trips out to a liquor store there (on N. Sherman), where you can get beer until midnight.
I like the Candlewood, even if it isn't right smack downtown. The rates seem more reasonable and, unlike the Inn on the Park, they don't appear to jack you in the ass for a/v.
I'll call the Crowne Plaza for room rates, but I'm making the assumption they'll be higher. I thought if people had strong feelings about certain hotels we could narrow down the field and I could make site visits to the ones we felt were only strongly in the running.
I like the Inn on Park but get the feeling that the event costs will be higher (not just the room rate).
Candlewood is farther out from the downtown area, but the area it is in is very nice. It's Fitchburg, which has seen expansive growth recently, so most everything in the area is much newer. Right around the hotel is a nice plaza with quite a few shops and the Great Dane Brewpub. Once you get out of the immediate area of the hotel, though, it's not very pedestrian friendly. Most of Madison's outlying areas aren't.
Inn on the Park is the most expensive. You're paying for location, there. Close to everything, including at least two of the local microbreweries. The option here, is maybe looking for outside venues for prom?
InnTowner is my favorite, but only because I'm very familiar with the area. I lived within blocks of it for two years and could walk to all my favorite places and school. I was in great shape. :) Don't forget, they offer a complimentary shuttle service. Also, one of the campus bus routes runs right by it. It will at least get you to the Memorial Union (a fun place in and of itself), which is at one end of State Street. The bus is free and it runs between the hours of 6:00am and 12:45am. If you stay somewhere until bar close, you'll have to cab/walk.
The Marriott is very nice, too. They have a seven story waterfall in the lobby. My last company held their Christmas parties there for a number of years. Again, not close to downtown, but a hop-skip-step from Greenway Station which is chock full of expensive shops and restaurants. Starbucks! The only hotel close to a Starbucks. Again, once out of the immediate area, not super pedestrian friendly. But one of the breweries is in moderate walking distance, along with more shops.
The Crowne Plaza, while not too shabby, is on the east side which is much less economically advantaged, shall we say? (I should know, I grew up there.) It's across the street (and by street, I mean a 6-lane major artery on the way out of town) from East Towne Mall, but there aren't a lot of high class restaurants, bars or interesting things to see. We're talking Olive Garden and Chili's. Again, very pedestrian unfriendly.
we're eating at Firefly regardless of where we stay right?
Update:
Inn on the Park has no rooms available for June 20-22. Since we weren't specific in our request (it was sent before we chose a date), they only held dates for us for May. We can take them off the list.
So it sounds like Candlewood and InnTowner are our finalists?
I'd lean Candlewood, based on cost, wifi, etc. But I'd love to get either locked down ASAP. What do we need to do here, Sail?
Seriously, I don't have a clue! I've never paid attention when we were deciding on hotels, all I ever cared about were the dates. Seems to me we just sort of concensed.
Cool. Why don't we start by getting a poll going for a couple of days to pick (unless we think we can consense here?) - then we'd need to get confirmations from the hotel on rates/availability. I'm think we should do that no later than Monday.
