I am a long time attendee looking to bring my wife along for her first time. Right now it looks like we will be booking at Embassy Suites. I have never stayed there. It says it is connected to the convention center via skywalk. Does it connect directly to the convention center or does it connect to the mall parking garage? Also, what would be the pros and cons of this hotel. I am hoping to hear other's experiences here before I make a final decision. Thanks for any info you can share. 

I have attended 17 of the 18 Indianapolis Gen-Cons, and been at one downtown hotel or another since 2004, and to me, the Embassy Suites is like the best all-around choice for a hotel.

It is very close, meaning you can hit the hotel to drop off stuff, shower, nap, or otherwise recuperate whenever you like without taking up too much time; now, it is not literally the closest, but it is so close that only once have I ever been carrying so much stuff that I really wished my walk were two minutes shorter.

It has also always been a nice hotel, and they just renovated the interior and "refreshed" the rooms over the past few years, resulting in both a more functional lobby area and an overall nicer experience (one of the bigger complaints five years ago was that it obviously had not been updated in 20 years, so they fixed that).

And though the staff at every hotel I have stayed at is quite pleased with Gen-Con and extremely welcoming (except the Columbia Club, nobody should ever stay there if they have not changed in the last decade), the Embassy Suites staff seems just absolutely delighted with the whole thing, and it is always fun to see.