Contact the Innkeeper (@email) if you have a hotel question not answered here or if you need more information.
Key dates for Arisia 2022
- Early September - Hotel reservations open to public
- Sunday, Dec. 12 - Deadline to cancel Westin rooms without a fee
- Friday, December. 31, 2021 - Deadline to reserve a room
- Monday, Jan. 10 - Beginning of our special rate
- Friday, Jan. 21 - End of our special rate
- Reservations
- Room blocks, types, and categories
- Special Requests
- Waitlists
- Cancellations
- Limitations
- Getting Here
Dealing with Reservations
Don’t panic if your desired room type comes up as full! Although we ultimately fill the hotel, we block only enough initial rooms to meet our contractual requirements and avoid being charged for empty rooms. We request a smaller number of rooms on Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday. When the room types sell out, we gather up the requests and work with the hotel to add rooms and nights that we can offer to our attendees.
You can use the special request form to ask for a shift to your desired reservation. As we shift reservations to Suites and Accessible rooms slots open up for additional requests.
Room Info
Arisia has blocked most, but not all, of the rooms at the hotel. When making a reservation, ask for the type of room you'd like.
Westin Block Types
All our sleeping rooms at The Westin are designated as being part of a Staff, Standard, or Active block. All the blocks include Kings and Doubles. Suites are handled by a separate process.
We will have some floors that are all specifically Active rooms. Every hotel floor, including those that are mostly standard or mostly staff, have suites that might contain parties. We will be sharing some of the guest room floors with non-Arisia guests.
- Active Block
- These rooms are expected to be noisier because they are near parties or are part of Family Block or are near the elevators.
- Standard Block
- A normal hotel experience is expected here. We used to call this "Quiet Block" but that created an expectation that didn’t match reality. As noted, Standard block areas may have parties in them.
- Staff Block
- We select some floors of the hotel to be heavily occupied by convention staff. These blocks allow staff easy access to where they need to be to make the convention run, and operate with the understanding that Arisia staff may be on duty, or returning to their rooms, 'round the clock.
Room Types
The Westin has rooms called "doubles" but they are configured differently, as below. It has rooms called "king" with similar configurations. All Suites are in the Westin.
- King
- A single room with one king-sized bed.
- Double
- A single room with two beds. In The Westin, these are bed size 'Double'
- Suite
- A pair of rooms designed to be used together, generally with one sleeping room and one parlor room, which may have a pull-out bed. Allocation of suites is managed by the Party Czar team. See the Parties page.
- Connecting rooms
- A pair of rooms that share a common wall and doors that go through this wall without going out into the hotel hallway. In The Westin most of these connecting rooms are made up of one King room and one Double room. Please make a reservation for both rooms before submitting a request that they're connected.
Special Hotel Requests
The Special Request Form https://www.arisia.org/requests is the umbrella method for all requests to the Innkeeper, and to get on a waitlist. Examples include changing the duration of a stay, asking for a different room type or location, configuring a room a certain way, and making an accessibility need known.
Filling out the Special Request Form allows us to keep track of everyone’s requests and to process them in the order received. Requests are generally processed in the order received.
You will need your reservation number (or numbers, if you are asking about multiple rooms), when you submit the Special Request Form. Please have them handy. If you are on the waitlist and don't have a room number, see the next section.
Request Types and Actions
- Arrival Date, Departure Date, Room Block, or Room Type: Let us know what you want and we'll try to make it happen. Remember that there are a limited number of any given type of room, a limit on hotel dates, and the hotel has final say on who gets early check-in or late check-out. Within these limits, we'll do our best to meet every request.
- Connect multiple rooms: Fill out one Request form with both reservation numbers. Let us know (in the More Information field) if "nearby" is acceptable in case we can't actually give you connected rooms.
- Special location request: We can try to make one of these three location requests happen.
- Shabbat/Low Floor
- Request this if you need to be able to take stairs to your room so the lower the better.
- Near Babysitting
- Request this if you have young fans of the ages that are early to bed and early or noisy to rise or a Turtle Track member and would like to be near other similar groups.
- Open Party Floor
- Request this if you are willing to be in a room with parties all around and lots of people, or if you will be hosting one of those parties. For hosts, please also read all the things on the Party page and fill out their request form. See also "Party Buffer room", below.
- Room feature request: We can work with the hotel on adapting your room in these ways. Ultimately, though, room-setting is done by the hotel and may be limited by their supplies.
- Rollaway
- This is a twin bed that can be added to a King room. The hotel has a very limited number of these. We will review the requests in December with the hotel and update your status at that time.
- Crib
- This is a crib that can be added to a room. The hotel has a very limited number of these, too. We will review the requests in December with the hotel and update your status at that time.
- No feathers
- The hotel also has a finite number of feather-free bedding sets. A feather-free room has no bedding, pillows, or other furnishings that contain feathers or down.
- Unscented
- Unscented also needs some lead time but there are no capacity limits on this one.
If you have access needs
The accessible-designated rooms at the hotel have different features so we want to you in the room that has the features you require. Select the items that apply and use the Other field to give us more detail about what you’re looking for. Usually access requests take precedence over room block but we’ll do our best.
Early Check-in
Standard check-in time is 3 pm, Early check-in is noon. We can't guarantee your room will be ready early. The bellhops are able to store your luggage until your room is ready (please tip them). Early check-in depends on how many reservations the hotel has leaving on the day you’re checking in.
Late Check-out
Standard check-out is noon. Anyone can request a late check out of 1 pm or 2 pm by calling the front desk the night before you check out - no special request form needed. Whether the hotel can grant it is controlled by how many people are checking in that day.
Party Buffer room
We encourage party hosts to have friends and co-hosts take buffer rooms adjacent to party space to limit the impact on neighbors. If you are willing to be in such a buffer room, please fill out the Special Request Form and let us know that. Please include the reservation number of the party for which you are willing to buffer, if known.
Waitlists
If you are unable to get any kind of reservation at hotel, this is the choice for you. Do not despair! Although our room blocks fill up quickly, we do process many people off the waitlist and will work through the list throughout the Fall and December.
To get on the waitlist, fill out the Special Request Form.
Using Hotel Points to Book a Room
Our contract with the hotel does not allow paying for rooms with points during our event, although you will still earn them.
Cancellations
Rooms booked through the Arisia links must be cancelled by filling out the Special Request Form https://www.arisia.org/requests. This way we can assign the room to someone on the waitlist. Cancelling through the hotel makes the freed up room available to the general public at the rack rate and Innkeeper doesn’t get notified.
After Dec. 12, 2021, cancelling rooms will incur a fee equivalent to one night's room rate per room cancelled. The fee will be charged within one week of the cancellation.
Room Limits
The hotels (and fire codes) do not permit more than four people to share a hotel room.
Food in Room
All hotel rooms have a mini-fridge. When you arrive, please check that it is plugged in and set for the coldest setting.
Cooking food in hotel rooms is not permitted. Rooms do not have the necessary ventilation to deal with cooking odors. If you have medical needs, please email the Innkeeper (@email) to review your options.
No smoking
All hotels in Boston are smoke-free. The hotel provides designated smoking areas outside their buildings. Speak to the hotel concierge if you cannot locate the area.
There will be a $250 cleaning fee charged for smoking anywhere in the hotel, including guest rooms. This includes vaping and cannabis.
WiFi
The hotel has free WiFi in the lobby, but charges for WiFi in the meeting rooms. Hotel guests will be given an account number to use WiFi in their hotel rooms at no charge.
Getting to the hotels
Arisia encourages the use of public transportation whenever feasible. We have an extensive directions page that includes information on reaching the hotel via train, car, truck, and bicycle, including directions from local airports.
Parking
The hotel offers valet parking. See the parking page for information on these options, nearby garages, and alternative parking arrangements.