mucsea2003

I love the fact that the balloons actually create a shadow on the map :) . Completely unnecessary, but totally cool! :) Even cooler is Google's satellite function, which I only found out about through this! I also agree that the priceline star rating should be incorporated. Thanks thereuare!

Yes! Priceline counteroffers can always be undercut! If you still have time, I would up to $130 and hope.

I severely doubt that there is any limitation, especially not one that is more stringent than the airlines'. But if you want to be 100% sure you can e-mail King County Transit Customer Service at CustomerComments@metrokc.

A W E S O M E

You might want to check flights after Sep 15th. They might get a little cheaper after that but certainly not below $800-850.

Excellent choice Three weeks in Italy in September will be awesome. However you will have to pin down which areas you want to see. I think there are at least two must sees and those are Venice and Rome. But there are about a million other areas worth seeing. For my part I love Southern Italy which can be very different from the North. I would also very much recommend the Amalfitan coast south of Naples. For flights you might just want to look around Expedia, Travelocity and the like. The most convenient connections from SEA will be on SAS via CPH, BA via LHR or KLM/NW via AMS who will all fly you (at least) into Rome or Milan with just one stop. I personally like SAS but it pretty much depends on the price and which FF program you belong to. Delta also flies into Venice which is a great airport to arrive at because you can take the boat into town. I don't know any other city where you can do that. Pretty much any airport will do for you, since getting around inside Italy is quite easy by train. Trains are pretty reasonable there and they run quite often unless the personnel are on strike which does happen sometimes. As Willtravel noted, Priceline will probably only be good if you go for higher class hotels. Hotel quality in Italy can be quite inconsistent with the oficial star rating, i might add. For Venice I recently got an excellent deal at the very nice Hotel Sant' Elena on venere.com . It is in a quiet residential part of Venice, but less than ten minutes by vaporetto to San Marco. If you would also consider to stay at a condo or vaction home for some of the time you could try your luck at VacationVillas.net. I just came back from a week's stay in Liguria close to Cinqueterre in an apartment found via them which was just great. Are you travelling with or without kids? Are you strictly going to sight-see the cities or do also want to experience some of the country side or some beaches? Let us know if your plans get more detailed and we might come up with more ideas. PS: Go Mariners!

You might also be too early. Just retry bidding 2.5* Lake Union starting at $45 and upping by $10. If the Courtyard is available it most likely will turn up at 45, the Residence Inn or Silver Cloud likely at about 65-75. I think both the Courtyard and the Residence Inn are actually nicer than the Silver Cloud. I would also suggest two rooms, because you won't be getting more than two Queens per room. Enjoy Seattle in the summer!

You may also consider to bid for one of the nice 4* hotels in downtown Portland which are quite reasonable on Priceline. It is only a short and easy ride with the light rail to the airport. You would have the advantage to be staying downtown with all its dining and shopping opportunities. If you are really lucky you might end up in one of the suites at the 5th Avenue Suites. Unless of course you are travelling by car. Then this might not be so great since parking can be a little pricy downtown. Don't count on finding anything more reasonable more upstream along the Columbia this time of the year.

Worked for me! :) At least I am Gold with my new account now. I merged it with my old one. Let us see what happens now! Thanks for the heads up.

This hotel is located in what Priceline calls the central zone. In fact it is a little bit outside of the city center. It took about 10 minutes by cab and 16 Euros to get from the airport to this typical 70ies like concrete hotel building. From the hotel I took the tram which leaves right around the corner at Heinrichstr. to get to the downtown area which took about 10-15 minutes and costs 2 Euros. Check-in was fast and friendly. They assigned me to a non-smoking room with one queen bed. They even pointed out their Priceline rate on that little card you have to sign when checking-in. Accepted my Marriott rewards number and later credited me with airline miles but no stay credit. :) The room was a clean, standard, o.k. sized business hotel room with rather dated interior. Aside from the queen bed there was a small sofa and a tiny TV set. All the furniture and also the bathroom seriously need some replacement to justify a 4* rating. As it is, it is more like a 2.5*. The indoor pool on the top floor was closed when I arrived (after 10 pm) so I couldn't try it. One should have a nice view from up there. I didn't try their restaurant or bar. They had a pizza plus beer plus ice-cream room service special which took about 45 minutes to be delivered and was quite good. All in all, it suited my needs well (a bed for the night, not too far from the airport) but was not the greatest hotel I have stayed in.

I agree. You will walk miles from a free parking spot (if you find one) and your car might not be there when you return.

Yes this was my first bid with the good CC. The hotel was nothing special, I will post a review when I have the time. But they were so nice to point out their priceline rate to me at check-in. :) It was 46 Euro, which comes to about 31.5 GBP or 59 $, so at least I got pretty close with my bid!

Finally another Priceline bid has come through for me. Priceline doesn't like my CC anymore. I had to use my mom's to get this done: First bid accepted: Renaissance Dusseldorf Hotel Check-In Date: Sunday, 1 May 2005 Check-Out Date: Monday, 2 May 2005 Your Offer Price:

There is actually a newly opened Marriott in Redmond which priceline most likely rates as a 3*. I doubt it will come up too often with the relatively cheap 3* hotels in Bellevue in the same zone, but could be really annoying for someone hoping to stay in Bellevue.

I am currently staying at this hotel and think it is a pretty nice place. Really nothing to complain about, especially not for $45 a night. Location: IMHO this is a very good location even though it is not downtown, but due to the fact that there are only three hotels in this zone which are all pretty good, you can be quite sure what you get. Good bus connection or a short cab ride or a good walk from the downtown core. Good access to Highway 99, so easy to reach to/from the airport without having to get on busy I-5. Check-in: Friendly, young staff. No mention of Priceline. Got a room with 2 beds upon request. Room: Spacious, two queen beds, desk, armoire, love seat. In-room coffee maker. Comfortable and clean. Facing the lake with a nice view. Not completely soundproof, you can hear the steet. So if you are sensible to that, request a room on the side facing away from the lake or on one of the upper floors. Amenities: Free high speed internet in the room, which is great! Pretty nice indoor pool and whirlpool. Laundry, business center, fitness room. Parking: $12 per night but free (and safe) street parking right across the street

Oh boy, Friday's game was really bad. But a full Safeco Field on a warm day like that is still great. Too bad we didn't meet!

This is very sad to hear!!! :)

My section is even in foul territory, so no home run balls there. :) Thanks for your respect for Edgar. I will also cheer for Olerud when he hits his second home run for the Yankees, which no doubt he will do at some point in these three days. I still have a hard time understanding how they could have let him go. And now the Mariners pay his salary while he goes to the World Series in pinstripes. I don't get it! I will look out for you around the Sushi stand. Unfortunately for me no game on Sunday and no next year, since we are turning over our house on Sunday and move to Europe on Tuesday. :) And watching Bucky is fun! Could become less fun when they start to introduce steroid testing though....

I will be at Friday's game (Section 346, Row9, boy do I have bad tickets!) and will be holding up a baseball-crazy 2 year old wearing a Jamie Moyer T-Shirt. I am terribly busy this weekend, since we are leaving the country on Tuesday, so I don't know if I can make it to any meet, but maybe Monday morning coffee would be doable. Let us keep in touch. And let us all enjoy watching Edgar one last time! :) BTW, deleted your seats are in the Ichiro zone: Seating chart

We stayed here for 2 nights at the beginning of August. This is a good hotel, however there were some concerns. Check-in: Friendly and fast, mentioned Priceline about 5 times. I asked for a room with two beds, which they wouldn't give to me without paying an upgrade charge because of Priceline even though they were clearly not fully booked on that Sunday night. They had a bowl with two goldfish brought up to our room, which was a nice gesture. And the kids loved that feature. Lobby: Great old lobby. Very nice, worth looking at even if you don't stay at the hotel. Complimentary coffee and newspaper in the morning. Iced Tea, lemonade and cookies in the afternoon. The wine tasting (5-6pm every night) is in the wine cellar at the very back of the London Grill restaurant. The wine was not too special but it was a very cosy and nice gathering point before going out for dinner. Room: On the seventh floor (719), not too small with one Queen bed. Looking at the floor plan, all their rooms seem to be different in size. Ours was somewhat on the lower end, but not the smallest. All the above listed amenities incl. in-room coffee. However, the room was clearly not what you would expect from a 4* hotel. In fact it really needed some refurbishment. The carpet was very worn and had stains and bumps all over the place. At the entrance to the bathroom it was so worn you could see the wood underneath it. :) The bathroom itself was tiny and had pretty old motel-style fixtures but was very clean. Bed was comfortable and the room was clean. We had an extra rollaway at no charge. Service: The staff including housekeeping was very helpful and friendly and happily fulfilled every request. WiFi high speed internet is $9.95 a day, so bring your laptop, becuse the business center which is only open during the week is pretty much useless (just one computer and Internet didn't work when I was there.) and they charge like $6 for 30 minutes. No pool unfortunately. Parking: Valet with in and out privileges is about $22-24. We didn't do that and instead street parked which is free and widely available from 6pm to 8am and all day Sunday. During the day we parked one block down in a garage that had an $8.25 early bird special that was good until midnight. When you buy something downtown (which is not hard - no sales tax!) you can have your parking ticket validated, which in our case resulted in free parking. Location: Perfect, just three blocks to Pioneer Square and only a short walk to Powell's book store. Overall: A nice hotel with (at least one) clearly substandard priceline room. (I liked the 5th Avenue Suites much better.)

There is free coffe in the lobby in the morning though. Saved my day! :)

:) Cool! Congratulations!

Just returned from a six day stay there. Here are my 2 cents: The hotel is fairly new and located on Sherbrooke Ave almost at the foot of Mont Royal. It is a glass and concrete building with about 20 floors. On entering I found myself in a very modern, relatively small lobby, housing a small business center with two computers, free internet access and printer. There also is a small gift shop and a restaurant/bar adjacent to the lobby. Check-in: Very friendly staff. No mention of Priceline. The hotel automatically assigns rooms with one king bed for its Priceline customers. I asked them for a 2 double, which they said was only available at a surcharge of C$40 per day. They finally gave me a room with two beds at no extra charge because I was a member of their frequent guest program. I also received a complimentary welcome drink at the bar. Complimentary coffee in the morning and apples the rest of the day. Room: Like the rest of the hotel very modern and stylish. Not very large but enough room. Two very comfortable double beds with pillow top mattress and down comforter. Bathroom very nice in grey and black marble. Separate shower cabin and bathtub. Fancy French bath amenities and a candle. Two bathrobes, slippers. Minibar (Cave: If you remove anything from the fridge to cool something, you will automatically be charged. There are sensors within the fridge. So check your folio every now and then - can do that on the TV - and have any erroneous charges removed. I had about $80 of minibar charges because I had cooled some food. Removal of the charges was no big issue though.) One of the quietest hotel room air conditioners I have ever experienced. Service: Everybody I interacted with was very friendly and helpful. Absolutely no complaints. It was real fun to tip these people. Requested complimentary turndown service which resulted in two small bottles of Evian water every night. Very nice! Facilities: Exercise room with standard equipment and a sauna. No pool, which would have been really nice with the summer heat. Didn

That should be the Hyatt according to the hotel list. Nice hotel! If I should guess, the 4* is probably the Sheraton, which is not nearly as nice, although it has the better beach.

:) Well, I am glad you enjoyed the coffee and Seattle!