Clarion Hotel Stay

SIGCSE 2012 has three conference hotels: the Raleigh Marriot City Center Hotel, the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, and the Clarion Raleigh Hotel State Capital. The Marriott and the Sheraton are directly across the street from the Raleigh Convention Center, and both offer the sort of upscale hotel experience you would associate with those hotel names. The Clarion is a great discount option for those who are looking to save some money, and is accessible via a 15 minute walk or short free bus ride from the convention center.

For SIGCSE program meetings, the committee typically sleeps and meets in the "flagship" conference hotel. This is in order to provide quick and easy access to the meeting facilities and staff, so the committee can work efficiently on getting the event put together. Raleigh threw us for a loop this time around. It appears that this is a really popular convention site, and both the Sheraton and the Marriott were completely sold out for the week in which we'd promised we'd make decisions on accepted papers, panels, special sessions, and workshops! Luckily, the Clarion had space for us to sleep and to have our meeting. This actually worked out really well -- we can now report in detail about our experience staying at the "discount" hotel option.

The Clarion is a fine place to stay, and we really enjoyed it. The building is tall, narrow, and round, and has a restaurant at the top that overlooks the city. It offers by far the best view from any of the hotels, in fact. The rooms were clean and comfortable, and we can confirm that the walk to the convention center is easy and pleasant. Furthermore, the stop for the R-line (which is the free bus loop around downtown) is just on the far end of the parking lot across the street from the Clarion. There are also a number of nice restaurants and bars close by.

Internet access is included for free: each room supplies wired access via an included ethernet cable, and the ground floor lobby and top floor restaurant/bar offer wireless access. We'll manage expectations here: we found the bandwidth to be acceptable, but not great. The Clarion tells us that they hope (but do not guarantee) to have a new system in place by the time we arrive. We've described our crowd and our computer usage to them, so they know we're coming! Incidentally, the staff at the Clarion was fantastic to work with, and they listened to and responded to our needs.

The Clarion offered a buffet breakfast (cost not included in the room), which we found to be quite nice. They made omelets to order, and had available french toast, sausage, bacon, biscuits, cold cereal, fruit, and pastries. For the picky among us, they did also offer a menu with other choices, which were also very yummy.

For those of you who like the experience of staying really close to the convention center and getting the "upscale" hotel experience, you'll definitely want to check out the Marriott or the Sheraton. If you're looking to save some dough and do a bit of walking, the Clarion is a fine alternative.