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Are There Hotel-Ticket Packages Available for the Olympics? Yes, but they don't come cheaply, and you're stuck seeing the events the package picks for you. You can save a lot if you're willing to roll up your sleeves and spend an hour or two online, booking your own tickets and accommodations.
HOWEVER, IF MONEY is no object, you have no particular sporting preferences, and you prefer the ease of one-stop shopping, I suggest you avoid all the profiteers and hucksters shilling $10,000 "Olympic Vacations." Stick to the simple tickets-and-lodging "Hospitality Packages" offered by the official North American ticket reseller CoSport. Their package prices aren't stellar, but at least their markup for the tickets (around 140%) is already built into the cost—and even if their hotels are astronomically pricey (we're talking around $680 for a double room), at least they're either in Turin or near the mountain resorts, which is convenient. The least expensive run $2,329.75 to $2,877.75 per person in a double room for four nights in a Turin hotel, but at that price you get only a pair of tickets to a single event. Folks looking to take advantage of the Olympic experience by attending three or four events will have to plump $4,025 to $4,292.25 for three nights and three events, or $5,340.75 for four nights and four events. Even at these price levels, however, transportation is not included (neither airfare to Italy nor buses to and from the events). The high-test packages that include local transportation (but not airfare), four or five nights at the Best Western Crimea Torino, and tickets to primo events (such as Alpine skiing, figure and speed skating, ice hockey, snowboarding, and ski jumping) top out just over $8,000 per person, which is fairly obscene. However, there is one that just might be worth it for die-hard ice hockey fans: the budget-busting $8,453 "Cycle 4" kit, which includes tickets not only to such blockbuster events as the figure skating gala, the men's slalom in Alpine skiing, cross country skiing, the closing ceremony, and seats for the coveted gold medal game in men's ice hockey—for which individual tickets are no longer available. Still, even at that, it's a rip-off. Sure, you also get transportation to and from the Games, lunch or dinner daily, and the rights to witness one (yes, only one) evening medals ceremony—and you don't get to pick which one—but if you break down the cost, the tickets themselves total $2,344, which means you're paying $6,109, or $1,527 a day, for the hotel room and those other perks.
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