downtown hotels offering vacations to frugal, reluctant angelenos
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High gas prices got you down? Not finding room for the summer vacation in your shrinking budget?
Then the Downtown Center Business Improvement District is hoping to target you with their new L.A. Stay & Play campaign — an effort to lure Southern Californians to the city’s core, presented as an urban retreat at your door step.
As part of the program, five hotels around the Financial District and Bunker Hill are offering special weekend packages ranging from $113 to $300 a night, all of which include some special discount on restaurant accommodations, museum and theater venues, and other little niceties.
And in order to experience the full effect of Downtown, the DCBID is encouraging visitors to leave the auto woes at home, hop the Amtrak to Union Station, and pilot the excursions around town on foot or via public transit. (Though no one is being idealistic — several of the hotels are advertising complimentary valet parking.)
Sounds enticing, but is it enough?
Yesterday, ABC News set out to interview several people across the city to find out if they would consider a weekend get-away in Downtown — some of the reactions are surprising (although I suppose they shouldn’t be). One woman actually thought Downtown was near the beach, another said there’s nothing to see here except scary homeless people. Others made similar criticisms.
Nearly ten years into the renaissance, are we still fighting this battle?
Sure, living in a grittier, inner-city environment isn’t for everyone, but there’s no excuse today for anyone living within driving distance to be so clueless.
As numerous new nightlife, dining and shopping options continue make our neighborhoods more appealing to everyone, these reluctant Angelenos need to reassess their opinions of Downtown by seeing it for themselves.
Spending a few hundred dollars to enjoy some of the most exciting parts of Los Angeles, probably for the first time, is worth it.
-Forget Vacation, Try a ‘Staycation’ (ABC News Video)
-L.A. Stay & Play (DCBID)
-Californians Wanted for Downtown “Staycations” (blogdowntown)
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14 comments
$200 - $300 a night isn’t a great deal. They need to discount their rates more.
FYI - Denver Pridefest was June 26 & 27. Booking through Sheraton.com, the rate at the Sheraton downtown was $249 a night. Booking through the Sheraton link on the Pridefest site, the room rate dropped to $119. That was a discount worth coming downtown for.
Just checked out the Stay and Play web site. You need to correct your post. The Wilshire Grand has rates much lower than $200 a night. The Wilshire Grand offers a two night package for $249, which comes to $125 a night. Or a 3 night package for $339, which comes to $113 a night. Now THOSE are rates worth coming downtown for.
^Tim, thanks for catching that.
Well, when out-of-town guests or visitors come Downtown and get yelled at by the shirtless shopping cart guy (you know the one), they go home and tell their friends what they see.
We can’t gloss it over — It’s still a crime-ridden, filthy place to live, and most people aren’t okay with that. It’s come a long way for sure, but it’ll be years before it’s to the level of acceptability that most people are aiming for.
If you’re all right with that and can brave the in-between phase (that’s the most exciting part), then it’ll all come in time.
I think I’ve had worse encounters with homeless people in Santa Monica. There’s no denying the under belly of Downtown, but it’s not all bad - in fact, we may take it for granted b/c we see them everyday, but Downtown’s got some of the most exciting places to see anywhere in LA.
Also, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, South Park, City West, Bunker Hill - these places don’t have a big homeless presence or high crime rate, comparatively speaking.
For the 4th weekend, instead of going out of town to Vegas or Palm Springs, me and a buddy spent the weekend at The Roosevelt in Hollywood. Believe it or not, there were many angelenos there for the weekend just relaxing.
We have such great hotels here in this city, sometimes it truly is a waste to go out of town.
Rich, the big problem with visiting downtown is not the homeless. It is the question: What do you do once you walk outside the hotel doors. Unless you have tickets to the Music Center or Staples Center, the general impression is that there is nothing to do.
Portland, Or. makes it easy. You go to the Visitors Center and for $35 you buy an “attractions pass”. It has tickets to the Zoo, the Forestry Center, the Art Museum, the Science Museum, the Chinese Gardens, the Japanese Gardens, and the Pittock Mansion. Tickets are good for 5 days from the first use of the booklet. Almost all are the attractions are accesible by rail, and in downtown, all transit is free.
Imagine a downtown L.A. where you walk over to the Visitors Center and pick up an attraction pass booklet with tickets to MOCA, the Japanese -American Museum, MONA, The Southwest Museum, the Hollywood History Museum and an LA Conservancy walking tour. And becaused we don’t have free transit, when you purchase the booklet you have the option of adding in a number of MTA day passes, so that you don’t have to think about having proper fare.
Like Los Angeles, Portland has its share of homeless downtown. But they don’t deter the tourists when the tourists know where they are going and what they are doing next.
I am booked at checkers for next month. They have the deal with the spa .
Greatest idea ever to do the staycations downtown.
Hmmm, this seems like a stretch
Even living in the bay area, I hardly knew of anyone staying the night in SF if they lived within 50 miles of the city!
AS for DTLA’s renaissance going unnoticed, I think this is to be expected. Hollywood arrived almost overnight, and the same will be true for downtown when it happens, but until then, it will go largely unnoticed.
I know downtown has greatly improved, but most common folk cant SEE or FEEL the changes yet. It has too many isolated pockets and no one area that has reached a critical mass that the masses can gravitate to. The pockets are getting bigger and bigger, and some are fusing together, but it will take more time.
Even the critical mass of art galleries is hard to notice when the artwalk is not on.
When I take friends to spring st, they don’t notice a collection of super hip art galleries, wonderfully reconditioned historic buildings, or a cool wine bar in 626. They see a slightly creepy st that sorta smells like urine with far too many homeless people for their comfort. That sums up the difference between how WE see downtown and how the masses see it.
To overcome the inertia of a terrible reputation, homelessness, poverty, dirty streets and deadness, it will take A LOT of critical mass. That critical mass IS developing, but its not there yet.
I’ve already done this several times and will likely take advantage of these deals being offered. I really enjoy discovering DT one street at a time. I’m in DT Santa Ana, and we book a room on a Fri and Sat night and take Metrolink up to Union Station. This plan should be pushed to OC and San Diego folks (however, the Amtrak from SD isn’t cheap). Sometimes during our stay we take the Red line over to Hollywood. As mentioned above, some education should come with the package about sites/restaurants/transportation.
More people will discover DT once LA Live is open, like the lady that thought DT was near the beach, but then do we really want people like her discovering DT ;)
“More people will discover DT once LA Live is open, like the lady that thought DT was near the beach, but then do we really want people like her discovering DT ;)”
I agree. Any branded collection of shops and entertainment clustered together in a branded district will help with recognition of the area.
As for the lady who thought it was near the beach, I can one up you.
I have a coworker, that is highly educated (masters in engineering from a major university) who didn’t even know LA was a city. She thought LA was only a county/idea and that there was not an actual city with that name. I have another coworker that thought LA was less than 250,000 people, and that the entire region combined (LA/OC) was 4 million people. Again, highly educated.
Both happened to be from Texas, so….
Downtown has so many different “areas”…. today we were in Little Tokyo and it’s a totally different downtown than the financial or the jewelry districts. I think there is something for everyone. We have so many museums downtown that could easily fill a weekend. It could also be a “culinary tour” type of weekend where stay-cationers have the opportunity to experience some world class cuisine that are unique downtown experiences (The Palm, Roy’s). There always seems to be something going on at Staples, Nokia or the Convention Center that finding things to do downtown wouldn’t seem that it would require much effort. Of course, I would love, love, love to just hang out in a killer hotel room for 2 days with my man and order room service. I’ve lived in South Park for going on a year now (grew up coming to L.A. & went to FIDM 88-90, I’m familiar with downtown) and I’ve only been yelled at by homeless on 2 occasions, but most people would just ignore and move on…. chalk it up to the experience. If you do your research a good time can be had in downtown, we love that it’s “dead” on the weekends. Everyone have a good one!!
“If you do your research a good time can be had in downtown, we love that it’s “dead” on the weekends. Everyone have a good one!!”
Which is exactly why I am always in downtown and always being a tour guide for everyone else. If you know the spots, how to get around,the the best streets to walk on to impress people, downtown is great. Really to me, it is just a cool/exciting place that is evolving. I just don’t know about those masses, but in due time, in due time.
Even though im a native angeleno, I have stayed at various hotels downtown in the past few years.
The Hyatt now Sheraton ( before and after change of name and owners) at Macy’s Plaza.
Also at the Sheraton now Marriott (also before and after)and the Bonaventure Hotel- love the elevators.
Also the Standard Downtown- and i got a few pictures on my blog of the roof top and inside the room from 2004.
My version of a “staycation” is Santa Barbara..the California Riviera, and I’m by no means well off, I just choose wisely and look for deals and offers and also I don’t drive now, so no car worries.
I can allocate my resources to my other desires :).
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