The Hellmouth's in Tacoma.

My theory says Tukwila, actually. I had it pretty well worked out at one point. Tacoma just has bad smells. Tukwila, on the otherhand, radiates pure evil.

Hopefully none of the pits in Seattle will be developing unexpectedly over tunnels.

Well, there IS already a city underneath.

Cues up Tom Wait's "Underground"

My theory says Tukwila, actually. I had it pretty well worked out at one point. Tacoma just has bad smells. Tukwila, on the otherhand, radiates pure evil.

The Hellmouth absolutely is in Tukwila.

Tukwila looks like it would be fun to say, though.

So does Beetlejuice and we all know what kind of problems that can cause.

Meara & me just looked at the Monaco. Opinions to come...

So does Beetlejuice and we all know what kind of problems that can cause.

That still hasn't worked for me. Except on Twitter.

Tukwila looks like it would be fun to say, though.

Be careful! I actually called Fuddrucker's "Fuckrudder's" in front of my students last weekend. The worst part is that I didn't even realize it until one of my students pointed it out.

facepalm

Sorry, ended up on an hour and a half long call with my new boss. Eep.

So. Monaco. Has a really fabulous room for the hospitality suite, which is a room with couches and loooong window seats and suchlike, between two hotel rooms (which we could get people to book). Very large, and if we guaranteed 40 room/nights between Friday and Saturday (that's 20 rooms per night), they'd comp it (otherwise it's $250/night). It also has a v. nice tub. Ahem.

Monaco has free wifi and a wine reception from 5-6pm, with Guitar Hero on Friday night (or was that Thursday, Pete?) and a tarot card reader on Saturday. Heh.

The ballroom is a bit tricky--there's a v. small one, which would be a $1500 food/bev minimum, or a rather large one, which would be a $3000 food/bev minimum (which is...a lot). She mentioned possibly having people out in the lower lobby type area and/or setting up a bar there (there may not be guests out there--I think perhaps only meeting rooms and maybe the gym are down there?), but even so, the small room might be too small.

The rooms are smaller than the Crowne Plaza, but swanky. Kimptons are very nice.

Free Wifi.

You can get a pet goldfish for your stay.

I'm going to email her to get the catering menu, and see about what she can do on the rates.

I think some of this will come down to tallying all this up and calculating *really* what it would all cost...for example, their ballroom is more expensive, but if they comp the hospitality suite, the $3K minimum is suddenly versus the Crowne Plaza $2K minimum plus $600 for hospitality, and that's only a $400 difference. But I want to see their final prices and add shit up for y'all.

a tarot card reader on Saturday.

Did you two get the name of the tarot card reader? I wonder if it's anyone I know.

You had to mention the tub! So. Much. Impending. Trouble.

The hospitality suite was exceptionally nice. It was large, but a good large, not over-sized and cavernous. It looks like a very comfortable space.

Guitar Hero was indeed Friday in the lobby, but it seems to be for one hour only.

Yup, the small ballroom is a little too small unless the extra lower lobby that was offered to us (with bar) works for the people who want to hang out and be further from the music. The real question is how private that area really is. Not very I suspect, but it may have very few people actually traveling through it on a Saturday night.

The two rooms adjoining the Hospitality Suite are their high-end Club Monaco Kings which run maybe 50 bucks above the norm (Meara, do you have the exact price?). Each of the Kings came with 2 TVs though on top of the one in the Hospitality Suite itself.

Oh, the Monaco had a very nice restaurant with an award-winning chef, yet they were offering cheap eats like Happy Hour's $3 "funky pizza". No idea what the funky alluded to. They also had a couple of secluded sections of the restaurant for groups too.

Purely my opinion but I think either of the downtown hotels are better options than the Nexus up in Northgate. Two reasons; The Nexus's worrying caveat of 2nd noise complaint and you're done warning for the Prom, and the fact that they couldn't give us anything more than a couple of adjoining rooms for the Hospitality room. Yeah, the Nexus is cheaper but since its shuttle wasn't what we hoped for being downtown seems like a much better option for dining and entertainment.

The Monaco was 50 yards from a Starbucks and a Seattle's Best Coffee, FWIW.