I am having a bit of a quandary. We are planning a destination wedding in the Cayman Islands in June of '08. All of the hotels that I have spoken to down there (Marriott, Hyatt, Westin, Holiday Inn...just to name a few) work a little differently in blocking rooms than anything I have ever seen. I have been offered a great rate of more than 50% off per room per night. They want us to sign a contract for a certain amount of rooms, and then we cannot deviate from that amount. Meaning, if we don't fill them all, we still have to pay for them, and, if more people come than we anticipate, then they do not get the special rate.
The problem is, my Mother and Father do not think they are responsible for signing the contract and putting down a down payment for 20 rooms of $4,000.00. (We would not pay for the rooms, the down payment is just to secure the block- as people make reservations money is refunded back to us). They say if people are financially able to travel down to the Caymans, then they are financially able to pay the rate of more than $400.00 a night without any special deals. (But my fiance and I are not! We need the special rate!)They do not want to be held responsible for rooms that might not go filled- sounds reasonable enough to me.
Here's where the problems get bigger. I thought maybe with the save the dates I could send a little info about this...imply that I would not want guests to miss out on any special deals, so that I would have to know soon those that were DEFINATELY coming in order to reserve a room in the contract for them. My Mother says this is too forward, but everyone we have invited on our very short list is family and very close friends- I do not think they would be offended by this type of question.
I guess, basically, I want to know whether or not a) It is our responsibility to reserve a good room rate for our guests traveling down there (I say yes), and b) whether or not asking for a "pre-count" of hotel rooms is inappropriate.
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Accomodations Question..please HELP!
