Ticket & Hotel Sale Tips (Updated)

With tickets and the official hotel block both going on sale this Friday I thought now would be a good time for a simple guide to how the process ran last year. Scroll to the bottom for an update on this year's hotel sale.

TICKETS

If you're reading this then you almost certainly know that tickets will go on sale this Friday at 9am PT (which is noon ET and 17:00 in the UK).

If you want a 4 day badge then buy them on Friday!

Chicago was a game changer for Celebration, with weekend tickets selling out in less than 48 hours. For comparison Celebration Orlando tickets went on sale in May and the 4 day passes didn't sell out until December. At the moment we have no idea if this was due to the more central location opening the event up to more fans or if Celebration has just grown to that size of "must attend" event. We're not at SDCC level sell outs yet, but I would highly recommend buying your tickets on Friday if you want a 4 day badge.

If you're happy paying a little extra and getting single day badges then you have a little more time. Maybe not much more (Friday and Saturday still sold out in record time for Chicago) but you can use the weekend passes as a benchmark and keep an eye on Star Wars Celebration's Twitter account as they'll announce when tickets get close to selling out.

The link to the ticket sale will go live at the official site at 9am PT on Friday. You can also expect direct links to the sale to be posted on the official Twitter and Facebook pages. However, I wouldn't rely on them if you're wanting to get VIP.

You'll need the luck of Han Solo and the speed of The Flash if you hope to snag one of the elusive Jedi Master badges.

You will need to be on the site and ready to go, and hope you refresh at just the right moment when tickets go on sale. Most people don't even see the option to buy them. There's no real trick to getting them, a fast connection and refresh rate no doubt helps, but I would recommend going via the main page rather than waiting for the links to be posted on social media.

The only possible help I can offer is that for Chicago the direct link to tickets was https://www.showclix.com/event/SWCC19. So, assuming the sale is again run via Showclix, there's a possibility that the direct link will be https://www.showclix.com/event/SWCA20. There's nothing there at the moment but if you have a second browser open it might be worth trying on Friday. No promises, no inside knowledge, just something that could be worth a try.

There will likely be a selection of merchandise available to pre-order with your badges, from key art shirts to character pins (this year it turned out to be Rey), but you can add this at a later date if you want to so don't get distracted if you are trying for VIP.

HOTELS

Let's be honest. The number of hotels in walking distance for Chicago wasn't great. Because of the time of the announcement rooms at local hotels were already on sale when the dates were announced and anything within walking distance was snapped up instantly. So the official OnPeak hotel block sale became a bit of a frenzy.

Two big differences this time.

First, this is Anaheim. This is Disneyland. There are far, far more hotels within walking distance of the convention center, and at a much wider range of prices.

Ignore the pricing, that's just today's prices, here are the hotels just in the immediate vicinity of Anaheim Convention Center;

Now let's widen that out just a bit to show the Disneyland area;

Hotel availability is much better in Anaheim.

Second, we're only in June. The vast majority of hotels don't take bookings over a year in advance. So even if you don't manage to get the room you want through the official hotel block, just keep checking directly with the hotels as they open up direct bookings in August. Last time, if you missed out via OnPeak a lot of hotels were already booked up, this year they won't even be on sale yet.

This is a massively different situation to when hotels went on sale for Chicago so please don't panic over room availability. There will be plenty. You might not get the hotel you want, but you won't struggle to find a room.

The official Celebration Hotel Block goes on sale at 10am PT (13:00 ET, 18:00 UK). At that point the link should go live on the official site.

It's hard to recommend what's best here. If you're like me and planning on spending an equal amount of time at the parks as you are at Celebration then you might prefer something closer to Disney (which is still only a 20 minute walk), or at least in the middle, but I imagine most people will want to be in the heart of it and as close to the convention center as possible.

There's no sky bridges connecting the hotels to the convention center like there was in Chicago, but you won't get any closer to the action that the Hilton Anaheim and the Anaheim Marriott right on Convention Way. Those are the two that will really fill up fast when the block goes on sale.

But right behind them you have;

Hyatt Place at Anaheim Resort/Convention Center
Cortona Inn & Suites Anaheim Resort
Courtyard by Marriott Anaheim Resort/Convention Centre (just off the bottom of the map)
Clarion Hotel Anaheim Resort
Sheraton Park Hotel at the Anaheim Resort
Anaheim Portofino Inn & Suites
Residence Inn Anaheim Resort/Convention Center
SpringHill Suites Anaheim Resort Area/Convention Center
Red Lion Hotel Anaheim Resort (just over the road on the left of the map)
Hyatt House at Anaheim Resort/Convention Center (just over the road on the left of the map)

And I imagine most, if not all, of those will have rooms available when the hotel block goes on sale.

I hope this is useful, even if it just helps to reassure a little bit or give you some hotel names to consider.

May the Force by with you on Friday!

UPDATED!

Thanks to MotivateR5D4 over at TheForce.net forums for pointing out that the Celebration website has been updated and OnPeak is out! ReedPOP are partnering with Connections Housing for next year's hotel block. There's no link to the sale yet but it's likely that you will need to create an account to reserve your room(s), just like with OnPeak in previous years, so keep checking the official site for updates.

But that's not all! MotivateR5D4 visited Galaxy's Edge at the weekend and whilst he was in Anaheim he stopped by the Convention Center and now he's put together this fantastic photo gallery of the nearby hotels. Coupled with this Google Map, it really helps give the lay of the land. The hotel selection and locations really are fantastic in Anaheim. Big thanks to MotivateR5D4 for putting this together!