Defcon 14 Information at DC 13 Closing ceremonies?

[big chopper]

Tuesday: Check in, no problems

So, for three days they kept giving me keys to a room that I wasn't assigned to, and it took the manager to realize that the room I was requesting wasn't the room I was in the computer under.

My opinion is that hotels with casinos take security more seriously because the Nevada Gaming Commission makes them have trained security presonnel, policies and procedures. Casino security is typically better than what one would find in a bank.

BTW: I was reading their web site and saw that the Nevada Gaming Commision has a job opening for a opensource network admin (http://gaming.nv.gov/documents/pdf/r...st_2005_05.pdf)
--bc,

[astcell]

That was supposed to be ITALIAN? Holy cow someone needs geography lessons. It looked like Tijuana after a firestorm.

[skroo]

It looked like Tijuana after a firestorm.

By that I assume you mean 'vastly improved'? :)

[vect0rx]

Sante Fe Vomit was what we dubbed it.

Also re: room key problems. It might come as a relief to some that the same thing was happening at hotels all over vegas as well. At the super 8 we ended up getting a key to a room that had people sleeping in it already.

That was supposed to be ITALIAN? Holy cow someone needs geography lessons. It looked like Tijuana after a firestorm.

[big chopper]

<SNIP> At the super 8 we ended up getting a key to a room that had people sleeping in it already.

This also happened to me with a recent trip to Denver--given a key to a room with a young woman fast asleep--bad situation. From that point on, I ALWAYS use the internal chain lock and put the "Do Not Disturb" sign up, just to let people know that the room is occupied.

Is hotel management software that bad? Are there opportunities here?
--bc,

[Adrenaline]

There were some good numbers for defcon this year, not only did the st tropez have a lot of overflow, but the comfort inn around the corner had a lot of defcon overflow as well.

[[Syntax]]

I arrived thursday, and I was given a key to a room already occupied. Ive either talked to of heard of 6+ people now that this happened to. Im wondering how many times they made the same screwup..

I imagine there were alot of people with non-working keys. Because after they issue new keys to people, the old keys quit working. So all of you that had key cards that suddenly crapped out.. Chances are someone walked into your room while you were'nt there.

[Voltage Spike]

I arrived thursday, and I was given a key to a room already occupied. Ive either talked to of heard of 6+ people now that this happened to.

Well I've already inserted my complaint into this thread, but your comment would explain why I got a phone call from the front desk confirming that I had "successfully moved from room x to room y". I was rather confused since I had never been in room x which just seemed to confuse the person at the front desk.

My wild-assed theory is to blame the fact that the hotel now outsources their reservations during off-peak hours, and, from personal experience, they don't share reservation information with each other. This behavior is made worse by the fact that the convention is treated seperately from normal bookings.

[TheCotMan]

My wild-assed theory is to blame the fact that the hotel now outsources their reservations during off-peak hours, and, from personal experience, they don't share reservation information with each other. This behavior is made worse by the fact that the convention is treated seperately from normal bookings.

Many hotels do not pre-block rooms at the time of reservation.

What has been done with many hotels is to only pre-block *long* reservations, or group reservations, or long-time customers, and then allow dynamic blocking at registration for everyone else. People are always extending stays, checking out late, or shortening stays-- it make little sense to pre-block most roms, and it's "better" to just assign rooms as they are available and as needed at check-in.

During slow times, confirmed reservations are pre-blocked on the day of the expected arrival, but unconfirmed reservations are left dangling.

Hotels will frequently oversell their rooms, with the assumption there will be no-shows. When I worked a front desk, we had from 1-5% noshows on unconfirmed reservations, but less than 1% on confirmed reservations.. Reservations would frequently over book by 2-3%.

Overbooking sucks for front desk people since running the odds eventually ends up with the customer as the loser.

I suspect they had new people and/or new software and/or "hacking" attempts and/or dataloss. Hotels with problems like this don't keep using software if the results are like this.

[roninmonkey]

Yeah, so back to the topic at hand...W[here]TF is DC14?!?!?!

[astcell]

Since I know I am going to miss it can we just postpone it for a year?

[mindstorm]

Out of any of those three, I'll take the Stardust. Fuckers gave me a case of food poisoning on an unrelated trip there six years ago and I still haven't forgiven them for it.

I get sick every time I go there, but its more frm the bill then the food. :)

[digital_dreamer]

I hope they pick a place by January, I'm trying to get my job to pay for me to go this time.

[astcell]

I have never seen anyone go homeless at Defcon.

[DISINGENUOUS]

I hope they pick a place by January, I'm trying to get my job to pay for me to go this time.

I can assure you it is picked.

We're waiting on DT to make the "Official" announcement about it.

--S