As I mentioned in my CIM 2012 race report, I chose the Hyatt Regency Sacramento for a number of reasons as our hotel for the night before the race.
The Pros: Convenience
- 3 blocks from the finish line
- No 2-night requirement
- Late checkout – 1pm – without an additional fee (ok if you plan on finishing the marathon within this timeframe)
- Restaurant on-site
- Parking on-site
- Free wifi
- CIM Bus pickup at 5am and 5:15am
The Cons: Nickle-and-Diming
- Late checkout only goes until 1pm. If you stay beyond, they’ll charge you 1/2 a night’s stay (the CIM rate this year was $185, not including taxes/ other charges)
- Parking fee is $17
- The wifi is free but they only allow access for 1 device. Pay a fee for additional device access.
- The mini-fridge in the room is monitored with sensors. Any item moved will incur a charge.
- No live TV options. Everything is pay-per-view.
- When I got back to the hotel room at around 11:30am after finishing, only middling warmhot water in the shower was left.
Next year (uh, if I do decide to run CIM next year…) I’ll do a little more research before booking. We ended up getting a room with 2 Double beds since by the time we checked in (around 3pm on Saturday), the desk was having difficulty finding a room with a Queen/ King bed as originally requested.
We headed out for dinner after the Expo, to Palermo’s Ristorante in Elk Grove, dinner reservations at 5pm. We returned around 7:30pm, in pouring rain, and the parking lot was packed. We could only find a few spaces on the roof, some a bit difficult to squeeze into due to bad parking by some inconsiderate jerks like this one:
If we had known that the parking lot would have gotten so tight, we might have just chosen to stay and eat-in at Dawson’s, the restaurant onsite and DD’s namesake that looks like it gets decent reviews.
1209 L Street,
Sacramento, California, USA 95814
Tel: +1 916 443 1234