::RFGL | Family Week Saugatuck::

Lodging Tips

These lodging tips were originally writting by Elizabeth Meadows on the RFGL web forum for Family Week 2006.

One possibility is to share a house rental with one or more other families. In themselves, the house rentals aren't cheap, but if two or more families are sharing it, it can be pretty reasonable. Families who wish to house-share can also use this bulletin board to make arrangements, although obviously that would be fully at their own risk, and RFGL could not take any responsibility for these arrangements.
There are many less expensive hotel options outside of the immediate Saugatuck area. Holland is really just a 10-15 minute drive from Saugatuck (and is even quite nice on its own), but offers some huge savings over Saugatuck lodgings.
Hotwire.com often has some reasonably good deals, and you can see the amenities (such as whether the place has a pool) before committing to it. Today, there was only one option in Holland, a 2.5* hotel (with a pool) for $81/nt. I have definitely seen more options available in the past, for the summer months, so I'd guess that on a different day there'd be more hotels listed - it's probably worth checking periodically.
Priceline is another option. It won't work for Saugatuck, because almost none of the in-town lodgings participate (although AmericInn appears to), but again, for slightly-out-of-town options you can get great deals on Priceline. If you haven't used it yet, you'd probably want to do some research first (such as on www.biddingfortravel.com or www.betterbidding.com) so you get familiar both with the process of bidding itself and with the idea of how much you should bid (so you can get the best possible price). I'd be happy to help with that if anyone's interested - I love Pricelining rooms. On their "shop and compare" page, they're showing, for example, the Holiday Inn Holland at $88/nt today (for July), but if you go to the "Name Your Own Price" page and bid, you'll get much better deals.
If you don't mind being a bit farther away, there are even more deals. Grand Rapids has a ton of cheap hotel options (and thus, even better deals on Hotwire as well - many in the $40-50/nt range for 2, 2.5, and 3* hotels), and is really only abt a 30-minute drive. Priceline would be an especially good option for GR, because there are so many participating hotels there.

I hope this is helpful, and will allow more families to enjoy Family Week to the fullest.