HotelChatter

Well, if you've got the patience, and don't mind driving an extra hour and a half to get there, we figured you could make do with the next best thing: Baton Rouge. And, no joke, even those hotels are beginning to fill up too. So you'd better act fast!

On a recent visit to New Orleans, we put ourselves up at the Renaissance New Orleans Arts Hotel, and didn't have any complaints (we even kinda dug the colorful sculpture garden in the lobby). 90 minutes west, the Renaissance Baton Rouge, has Super Bowl weekend rates starting at $259/night.

In a similar range, you'll also find the Radisson Baton Rouge ($249/night), the Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center ($249/night), and the more reasonable Hyatt Place Baton Rouge ($199/night). The latter will prove particularly attractive to high-tech Beyonce fans with gadgets to plug in (or bootleg vids to upload to YouTube...), as Hyatt Place boasts one of the flashiest outlet panels we've seen yet.

Of course, the sad news is that even with Baton Rouge being an hour-and-a-half drive from the action, these rates are still at a premium, marked up between 20%-40% of their normal seasonal standards. But it's the Super Bowl, and with a major international star like Beyonce showing up for halftime, it's going to be a free-for-all just trying to get into the state of Louisiana, let alone Baton Rouge.

Happy booking!

[Photo: Popdust; Renaissance]