For better or for worse, what hotels you chose yesterday and what placement the Comic-Con Gods decided to randomly place you in are going to determine your fate this year. And come Friday when hotel confirmations will likely go out, thousands of attendees will be scratching their heads, wondering, “How did I end up at that hotel?”
So, for fun, we’ve broken down the numbers on hotel rooms at all of the hotels in the Comic-Con hotel block. It’s important to note that these are total number of rooms, and at most if not all the hotels, a certain percentage of rooms is left out of the room block – though those rooms not in the hotel block often go for insane rates (looking at you, Hilton Bayfront). Even if we knew what that percentage of non-room-block rooms was at one hotel, there’s no guarantee it’s the same at each hotel – so we’re just going to suggest you subtract at least somewhere around 10% from these numbers, and take all of this with a grain of salt. But, it’s an interesting experiment anyway.
For downtown hotels only, there are 11,058 rooms total – with the Manchester Grand Hyatt (1,625 rooms), the San Diego Marriott Marquis and Marina (1,360 rooms), and the Hilton San Diego Bayfront (1,190 rooms) being the only hotels to feature over 1,000 rooms. The Hard Rock Hotel has 420 rooms and the Omni San Diego Hotel has 511 rooms – meaning it’s not hard to imagine both the why and how of why those rooms get snatched up so quickly.
Theoretically, for yesterday’s sale, this means you can maybe feel a bit better if your number in the waiting room was around 9,000 or less (as again, we don’t know what percentage of rooms isn’t in the hotel sale, and we don’t know how many were let in initially before we even saw numbers, and we also don’t know how many had two waiting room sessions open in that section and closed one). It will be interesting to compare on Friday.
Here’s a look at the breakdown by hotel:
Area | Hotel Name | # of Rooms |
Downtown | Andaz San Diego | 159 |
Downtown | Best Western Plus Bayside Inn | 122 |
Downtown | Courtyard San Diego Downtown | 235 |
Downtown | Courtyard San Diego Gaslamp | 90 |
Downtown | Doubletree Downtown San Diego | 333 |
Downtown | Embassy Suites San Diego Bay | 341 |
Downtown | Four Points by Sheraton | 207 |
Downtown | Hampton Inn San Diego Downtown | 177 |
Downtown | Hard Rock Hotel | 420 |
Downtown | Hilton San Diego Bayfront | 1,190 |
Downtown | Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter | 283 |
Downtown | Horton Grand Hotel | 132 |
Downtown | Hotel Indigo | 210 |
Downtown | Hotel Palomar | 211 |
Downtown | Hotel Salomar | 235 |
Downtown | Manchester Grand Hyatt | 1,625 |
Downtown | Omni San Diego Hotel | 511 |
Downtown | Residence Inn Downtown San Diego | 121 |
Downtown | Residence Inn Gaslamp Quarter | 240 |
Downtown | San Diego Marriott Gaslamp Quarter | 306 |
Downtown | San Diego Marriott Marquis and Marina | 1,360 |
Downtown | The Bristol Hotel | 102 |
Downtown | The Sofia Hotel | 211 |
Downtown | The US Grant San Diego | 270 |
Downtown | The Westgate Hotel | 223 |
Downtown | Renaissance San Diego Hotel | 258 |
Downtown | Westin Gaslamp Quarter | 450 |
Downtown | Westin San Diego | 436 |
Downtown | Wyndham Bayside | 600 |
TOTALS | 11,058 |
We’ve combined all the other areas (Airport, Coronado Island, Mission Bay, Mission Valley, Old Town, and Shelter Island) into one list. Of those, only the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina offers over 1,000 rooms (1,053 to be precise) – though Town & Country comes in close with 940.
There are 8,429 rooms total at these non-downtown hotels – which we’ll be honest, we were a bit surprised to see is less than the number of rooms downtown. However, these are only rooms in the hotel block negotiated by CCI, meaning there are any endless number of both hotels and rooms available outside the system.
Here’s a look at the breakdown by room:
Area | Hotel Name | # of Rooms |
Airport | Courtyard SD Airport/Liberty Station | 197 |
Airport | Hilton San Diego Airport Harbor Island | 211 |
Airport | Holiday Inn San Diego Bayside | 237 |
Airport | Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina | 1,053 |
Coronado Island | Coronado Island Marriott Resort | 300 |
Coronado Island | Hotel del Coronado | 679 |
Mission Bay | The Dana on Mission Bay | 271 |
Mission Valley | Best Western Seven Seas | 307 |
Mission Valley | Comfort Inn and Suites Zoo Seaworld | 200 |
Mission Valley | Courtyard San Diego Mission Valley | 317 |
Mission Valley | Crowne Plaza San Diego | 416 |
Mission Valley | Days Inn San Diego Hotel Circle South | 280 |
Mission Valley | Doubletree by Hilton San Diego Mission Valley | 300 |
Mission Valley | Doubletree by Hilton SD Hotel Circle | 219 |
Mission Valley | Hampton Inn San Diego Mission Valley | 182 |
Mission Valley | Handlery Hotel San Diego | 217 |
Mission Valley | Hilton San Diego Mission Valley | 350 |
Mission Valley | La Quinta Inn Mission Valley | 166 |
Mission Valley | San Diego Marriott Mission Valley | 350 |
Mission Valley | Sheraton San Diego – Mission Valley | 260 |
Mission Valley | Spring Hill Suites by Marriott Mission Valley | 135 |
Mission Valley | Town and Country Resort | 940 |
Old Town | BW Plus Hacienda Hotel Old Town SD | 199 |
Shelter Island | Bay Club Hotel and Marina | 105 |
Shelter Island | BW Plus Island Palms Hotel and Marina | 227 |
Shelter Island | Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn and Suites | 182 |
Shelter Island | Kona Kai Resort Spa and Marina | 129 |
 | TOTALS | 8,429 |
Even assuming that most folks in town for San Diego Comic-Con are going to be rooming with other attendees, and that some get their rooms outside the system, there are only 19,487 total rooms available in the hotel sale (and that’s best case scenario, if every single room at each of those hotels was made available to attendees – and we’re very sure that’s not the case). There are well over 130,000 attendees, and while 19,487 isn’t a lot to squeeze them into, it becomes even more difficult when most of them want to stay downtown. That’s why every year after the cancellation deadline, there are still hotels available in Mission Valley and the Airport. It’s not that attendees can’t find somewhere to stay, it’s that it’s just not downtown.
Math is hard, but it’s not hard to see why Hotelpocalypse has become the monster that it has: Supply and demand, baby.