Priceline Hotel: ID of 4* in Cape May-Wildwoods?

[kstrom]

I have 2 questions, one specific and one general

1) Specific question: Does anyone has a thought as to what the 4* hotel listed by Priceline for the Cape May- Wildwoods NJ area? As best I can tell, no hotels are currently listed on the better bidding Priceline hotel list

The Priceline list for Cape May-Wildwood for 6/20-6/22/06 are:

4* Suggested retail price of $145

3* Suggested retail of $91

2* Suggested retail of $81

1* Suggested retail of $72

When I check Priceline's non-opaque site, no 4*'s are showing up in Cape May. The only 3* listed is the Marquis de Lafayette hotel.

2) General question: If Priceline lists a 4* for an area, does that mean there is a 4* hotel with rooms for that region and that date? Or does it just mean that SOMETIMES Priceline has a 4* hotel in that region.

Many thanks!

-- KStrom

[thereuare]

1) See the related link in the PRICELINE FAQ regarding using the retail product to determine opaque availability. Wildwood/Cape May is a tough priceline zone, especially during the summer months. Pricline's retail product does rate the Congress Hall a 4* so that is at least one possibility.

2) The available star rating are determined by the class of hotels that Priceline has contracts with in the zone... it is not representative of availability on that particular day.

[dahammer]

School's out, so it will be a tough bid in this zone. I can't think of any hotel in this zone that is worthy of 4* with the exception of Congress Hall in Cape May. Nothing in the Wildwoods is even close to a 3*. The season here is about 10 weeks long so the motel owners have little time to make their year.

[kstrom]

Thanks for the answers.

Based on what you say and my perusal of an old AAA guide, going for a 3* in Cape May sounds a bit risky.

Around here, about half of the schools (including our kids' school) get out on Monday or Tues and a half get out Thur or Friday. We had hoped to beat the summer rush. Oh well, day trips can be great too. If we do try to get something on Priceline, I'll post what we did.

Best,

KStrom

(Apologies if this is a duplicate. There seems to be an incompatibility between this site and my browser (Safari for the mac) that causes the browser to crash.

[kstrom]

Update on our non-overnight trip to NJ shore.

We decided to just do a daytrip to Island Beach State Park on the Jersey shore on Tues 6/20/06. The weather was perfect but the beach was not very crowded, and the people who were there seemed to be many locals. We noticed driving in, that there were many not-very-appealing motels in the surrounding towns with vacancy signs or cheap midweek rates (<50 dollars). I would say that at least a 1/3 of the motels were not open. I would say that given what we saw, I would be quite reluctant to bid on anything less than 3* on the NJ shore.

-- KStrom

[dahammer]

if your return to Island Beach State Park, you could bid in the Toms River zone, however, this zone only has 1 and 2* properties. The 2* could be the Holiday Inn, Quality Inn, Ramada, etc. although nothing has been reported. A bit further north is the Tinton Falls zone, this is closer to Gateway National Recreation area and the beaches in Belmar and Spring Lake. Finally, there are a few zones surrounding Atlantic City (Absecon, Pleasantville, West Atlantic City) that would be an easy drive to the beaches in Ocean City or Brigantine. Alas, most of these beaches require a beach tag to sit on the sand that the state and federal government has paid to replenish. (Yet another pet peeve :) ) Atlantic City still has free beaches though.