Oh boy is right! SURELY you can pare that list down by at least half and preferably to about four hotels per location. Have you checked out Trip Advisor? I can't even imagine FINDING that many hotels in one Italian city that would interest me!

Really, kane, you can do better than that. Start by asking for hotel opinions right here!

St.Cirq, Don't be so sure! I have already checked out TripAdvisor, and every other web site that has hotel opinions.

Maybe, just maybe, my criteria doesn't match up with the hotels I have listed, but how do I determine that? I cannot list every hotel on this forum and ask if it fits my criteria.

Perhaps oberost is on the right track. Dig my heels in, and just start contacting the hotels.

I still don't feel like I'm getting anywhere though (right at this moment).

I booked all of our lodging for our June trip via email. Compose a basic message for each city. Then you can easily send a message to each hotel individually by cutting/pasting your message text. I found that many hotels responded within 24 hours, others took a few days. As you receive replies you can note the room rates offered and amenities offered on your spreadsheet. I would seriously consider shortening your list, though. And wait until about 8 months out to send these out. Good luck.

BTW, once I had selected a hotel and notified them that I was accepting their offer, if they wanted a cc I would fax that info to them directly.

It seems like you do have a lot of hotels on your list. In planning a recent trip to London, I started out with 20+ hotels, too (also in a spreadsheet, but as I'm pathetic at Excel, mine was in Word), but one reason was that I couldn't decide which area we wanted to stay in. But once I began calling, I quickly narrowed it down, and ended up only calling 3 places. (I called for London, but I've used emails very successfully for booking hotels in Italy and France.)

I'm really amazed that you came up with that many hotels in each city that are real possibilities for a group of 10. If you haven't already done so, try to limit your geographic locations within each city. Also, be brutal, especially in using the TripAdvisor reviews. Yes, they're just "average joe" comments, but if I came up with a hotel that had 2 or more comments about cleanliness, it came off my list of possibilities. Also, if a hotel didn't have a website where I could see pictures of the rooms and bathrooms, it came off my list too.

I'm happy to look at your spreadsheet, and offer whatever suggestions I can (though I can't help much with Capri or Sorrento, as I'm not familiar with those cities); you can email me at [email protected].

Enjoy planning your trip!

[email protected]

The Excel spreadsheet is on it's way to you.

Thank you.

I would definitely not broadcast. Especially not to small hotels. I think they would be concerned that you are the type of traveller who would change plans for a couple euros, and could leave them with a large number of rooms to fill. You will get better rates and service, I think, if you appear pretty committed to staying with them, and nicely ask about the best possible rate for your big group.

I'd do this even for bigger hotels, but mostly because I think that if people like your inquiry and enjoy dealing with you, they will go out of their way to help you...including with the best possible rates.

I used to work in a commodity business, and the lesson was-- there really isn't such a thing. The personal touch always gives you the edge!

tashak, I agree with you 100% about the personal touch. If anyone reads my style of writing, I tend to be very polite and sincerely appreciative.

The majority of opinions seem to be shaping up like this: Don't send a broadcast message. Reduce the number of hotels in each location.

I can't wait to hear from Lexma90 about my list of hotels.

I'd love to hear an opinions from bobthenavigator, patrick, elaine, rex, and any other seasoned Italy travelers who may have some good advice in the beginning stages of my planning.

I feel the love!

Another "no" to the broadcast vote.

In picking hotels, I use the same research tools you mentioned (primarily this site, trip advisor and venere.com) to figure out best location, ammenities, best bang for the buck, etc. I will end up with a "wish" list of maybe 3-5 places out of my price range where I'd stay in a heartbeat if I found a deal on somebody's website and a "realistic" list of 5-15 hotels (depending on where I'm going). I then get input from the DW and rank the places on both lists. I'll email the top 3 on my realistic list and keep an eye out for bargains on my wish list. If the top 3 choices are taken, I'll go to the next 3, etc. I'm sure you will check each hotel's cancellation policies before committing to any hotel. If one of my wish list places suddenly becomes available (hasn't happened yet...), I can make the switch.

It sounds like you are prepared to stay at the hotel with the lowest rate in each of your destinations and I presume your email is requesting a discount from each hotel's posted rate. If so, I'd email each but keeping track of every response/non-response and following up will be a part-time job for somebody. As others have noted, you'll be too early for some hotels.

Good luck!!

Dave

Dave,

You hit the nail on the head with your comments. What you outlined is exactly what I am trying to accomplish.

Again, as you said, another "no" to the broadcast e-mail.

You guys are the greatest.

How many hotels are we talking about here? Write your generic message in Word & paste it into an email, type in the address and subject line, hit send... and repeat for each individual hotel. How hard is that?

I don't see how this <is a lot of time and work to send each e-mail individually.>

I agree that depending on the size and type of hotel, a telephone call or fax is more effective.

Suze, You must have missed my hotel count: 97! I know, I know, I have been berated already. REDUCE THE LIST.

Also, I had posted earlier about setting up a Word document, copying and pasting, as you recommended. However, 97 e-mails seemed daunting. It's time to start deleting hotels.

I have to jump in on this one! I use email whenever I can with hotels, and it has worked very well. I send individual, very polite messages and have received replies from most of them in Italy and some of them in Paris. (I suspect that if the hotel has no rooms, they just ignore the email, but it is kind of insulting to receive no reply from a valid email address...)
Restaurants are also hit and miss. I've had some success getting reservations this way, which is great to get out of the way before you leave (saves valuable travel time).
I definitely agree that you could probably pare your list down to 5 or 6 hotels in each place. You have plenty of time, and researching hotels is fun!
Good luck!

cybertraveler,

I do like your suggestion about reserving restaurant reservations. We have never made reservations, but I always have a list of preferred restaurants with me. However, we always traveled in April/May when Italy is less crowded. Hmm, maybe I should try to make a few dinner reservations before we leave the U.S.

Looks like you agree with most of the other posters: Individual e-mails or faxes, and, of course, carefully worded, polite requests to the hotels.

Ah, Esprit d'Corps!

Hi. Here is the system my husband and I have set up in planning our last 5 trips to Europe that for us works very nicely.

One thing that we realized was that it's hard to remember the pluses/minuses of all hotels and compare all of them at once, so we devised a "rating system" to do that.

We first do the research and find hotels/B & B's that interest us in a particular location, typically 10-12 of them.

Secondly, we make an Excel spreadsheet with about 10 columns and list each hotel. Then we rate the aspects of the hotel that are most important to us, such as location, niceness of the rooms, property grounds, patio/terrace, ambience, are any meals included, and cost.

Using a 1-10 rating (10 being the best) we look at each property on the internet and rate each category. By the time we total the scores, it clearly indicates to us which are our highest scoring properties. This usually narrows things down to 3 or 4 top choices. We generally then email our top 3, inquiring about availability and price, and make our final choice from there. It also gives you "back up hotels" in case something changes, then you don't have to start all over.

It's too much to email 20+ hotels for each destination-you'll drive yourself crazy and spend months doing it!

Holy Moly! I must have planned my trip to France backwards. First I ran across hotels that sounded unbearably neat, then tailored a driving itinerary that wound around through them. Well, not entirely true for every single place, but...... However, I think the most options I had for any one town (including Paris) was three.

I did use e-mail for every one except one place whose website requested a letter sent by actual mail. Some of them took a couple weeks to respond, but all did. I also attempted to be really polite, used a bit of my limited French and addressed the person by name.