Royal Wedding Hotel Rooms Reportedly Going for Thousands of Dollars

Are you idly thinking about popping over to the United Kingdom for the royal wedding, visualizing snagging a deal on a cute little room over the route that Harry and Meghan will take to greet the public after making it official? Unfortunately I am here to brutally crush your daydream.

As early as December, People was reporting that “98 percent of hotel rooms in Windsor are booked for the wedding weekend, May 18-20, according to Booking.com.” Properties ranging from the Sir Christopher Wren Hotel and Spa to the Legoland Windsor Resort were already full. Now Hello!—the best named celebrity news magazine in the business—has checked back in with the latest.

“The moment the date was announced all the hotels sold out online but the hotels along the parade kept all their street-facing rooms back,” a “hotel source” told the magazine, adding that, “They’re being sold now for an absolute fortune—they’re all going to the media which makes life easier for everybody because of course those rooms have to be scrutinised for potential security issues too.” What counts as a fortune?

Harte & Garter, a four-star hotel located directly opposite Harry and Meghan’s wedding venue, Windsor Castle, has a going rate of £8,000 for a minimum three-night stay, for its rooms overlooking the castle.

Macdonald Windsor hotel has had TV crews pay a whopping £10,000 for suites with balconies overlooking the High Street, which will provide the best view of the newlyweds as they take part in a carriage procession down the main road.

Julia White, Visitor Manager for Visit Windsor, told Hello: “If anybody wants to come for the weekend and enjoy the celebrations then I would suggest they do book as soon as possible.”

Don’t feel bad, though! The Guardian reported that media organizations were reaching out to hotels as early as late November, when all they knew was the wedding month, trying to get provisional bookings. Nobody really has a chance up against an army of morning show producers. Those people are ruthless.