Have you ever done something and, after the fact, discovered it had a name? I mean, I know YOU’VE never been gate lice (riiiiight?) or have ghost bagged (OK, I’m fairly certain of that one!). But maybe you took a pink eye. Maybe more than once.
Anyway, the other day, I heard a travel-related term I had never heard before – booking a “ghost room” in a hotel. And this one was funny, because, as it turned out, my husband and I had booked such rooms in the past…and never even knew it!
What’s a “ghost room?”
Although we’re getting pretty darn close to Halloween, a “ghost room” has nothing to do with ghosts, hauntings, etc. The term was made for when you rent a hotel room, but having no intention of actually staying in the room.
Why would you do that?
There are some hotels that offer nice benefits if you stay there. Case in point, Universal Studios Florida.
Universal has a bunch of hotels on property (note for you travel geeks: they’re all owned and operated by Loews). And if you stay at one of their “signature” hotels (Loews Portofino Bay Hotel, Hard Rock Hotel or Loews Royal Pacific Resort), you can get free Universal Express Unlimited 2-park passes for every guest registered in your room for participating Universal Studios Florida and Universal Islands of Adventure attractions. With those passes, you can skip the regular lines at participating rides and attractions.
The price of a 2-park Universal Express Unlimited pass varies, depending on time of year, day of the week, demand, etc. But they start at $159.00 per person to $379.99 per person (those passes are for all ages – they don’t break them down into kids’ and adults’ prices).
Meanwhile:
- Rooms at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel start at $693.00 per night.
- Rooms at Hard Rock Hotel start at $782.25 per night.
- Rooms at Loews Royal Pacific Resort start at $879 per night.
You see where I’m going with this, right?
Anyway, let’s assume that, because of reasons, the only time you can go to Universal is the busiest week of the year – that one between Christmas and New Year’s Day. That’s when the parks are crazy crowded, it’s wall-to-wall people, and you can expect to have 3+ hour waits for the most popular rides.
Anyway, a standard 2 queen bed at Loews Royal Pacific Resort averages $1,143.00 per night, if you reserve a night there on December 26th.
But if you’re staying there as a party of 4, those 2-park Universal Express Unlimited passes are worth $1,519.96 (before tax). If your family of 4 is staying at a significantly cheaper hotel, off site, but use the perks of that “ghost room” (read: make the reservation, get the bennies, but not stay there), you’ve just essentially bought 4 of those passes for almost $400 less than what they’d cost if you bought them directly from Universal.
Why not just stay at the hotel?
Sure, you could do that. But if you’re only going to be staying there for one night, having to “hotel hop” and switch rooms can sometimes be more trouble than it’s worth, to be perfectly honest.
Granted, you have to subtract however much your “cheaper” hotel is from the $400 you’re “saving” – but chances are you’d still come out ahead.
When this can be a really good deal
Universal isn’t the only hotel that offers benefits of “free” stuff for staying there. Other theme parks that have on-site (or near-site) hotels, such as Dollywood and most of the Disney parks around the world offer perks such as extra park hours (Disney, HersheyPark, Schlitterbahn), free water park access (Disney), skip-the-queue passes (Dollywood), etc. If you’re a guest of the Renaissance in Aruba, which owns Flamingo Island, you can visit the island as much as you want, whenever it’s open (if you go as a day guest, you can only visit on Saturdays, at a rate of $120 per person).
The Universal deal really seems to be the most valuable.
Of course, if you’re a local to whichever hotel this is, you could potentially not even have to get that “secondary” hotel, which could save you that much more…or you could stay there, instead of home, and make it a staycation.
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