Cotton Bowl 2027 Hotels: Four of Seven Arlington Hotels Turned Down a One-Night Stay for January 1

By Matt Spaulding · November 10, 2026

Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Three of the seven hotels we read in Arlington's Entertainment District would sell Friday 1 January, Cotton Bowl day, as a single night. Loews Arlington is an 11-minute walk from the stadium. Holiday Inn Arlington NE is 33 minutes on foot and Comfort Suites Arlington is 38, far enough that you'll want to drive or ride. The other four turned that night down: Live! by Loews, Drury Plaza, the Courtyard Arlington and Caravan Court, though the Courtyard and Caravan Court may sell it inside a longer stay. All nine Grapevine hotels we read sold 1 January, and so did the six in downtown Dallas. For Thursday 31 December, Loews Arlington, Drury Plaza, Holiday Inn and Comfort Suites sold.

If none of those three has a room for your nights, stay in Grapevine or downtown Dallas and drive in. It's about half an hour with no traffic. Every availability read here was one night for two adults on the hotel's own booking engine on 10 November, and availability changes daily.

The game is the 91st Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, a College Football Playoff quarterfinal at AT&T Stadium. Kickoff will be 11 a.m., 3 p.m. or 7 p.m. Central, and it gets set on Selection Day, Sunday 6 December. Tickets go through SeatGeek and weren't on sale on 10 November. Last season's game was on 31 December. This one is on New Year's Day. We found no official hotel list for this season, and cottonbowl.com's /hotels and /travel pages returned 404 on 10 November. A cottonbowl.com partner-hotels page whose address dates it to 2019 named the Gaylord Texan and the Hilton Anatole as official hotels.

Arlington, closest walk first

Walk times run to 1 AT&T Way, which isn't a gate, and don't allow for game-day closures. The full walk table and the other stadium dates are in AT&T Stadium hotels.

Live! by Loews is 8 minutes away and said "No rooms available" for 31 December, 1 January and 2 January. Loews Arlington, across the sky bridge, sold the first two of those nights and had nothing for 2 January. Neither tower adds a resort fee. Both itemize a Tourism Assessment Fee with the occupancy taxes.

The Courtyard is a 20-minute walk. Marriott's calendar read "Not available for check-in" for 31 December and 1 January, which can mean sold out or a minimum stay, and 2 January was selling. No fee line appeared.

Caravan Court is 22 minutes out. For 31 December and 1 January it said "There is a Length of Stay Restriction in place for the selected dates," without saying what length it wants. It sold 2 January. Its fee list is the longest of the seven: an $18 destination fee and a $4.75 state cost recovery fee per room per night, then a 2% fee and a $1.90 fee, and the hotel doesn't say how often that last one is charged.

Drury Plaza, at 27 minutes, would sell 31 December and 2 January but not the night between, when it read "There are no rooms available for the dates you selected." Its quote has no separate fees, just one "Room total with tax" figure that came to 17.3% above the rate.

Holiday Inn is the only one of the seven we saw sell all three nights. There's no resort fee, and IHG lists taxes outside the rate, 17.94% a night among them. Comfort Suites sold 31 December and 1 January; 2 January wasn't checked. Its rates already include a $3.99 Hotel Service Fee per room per night.

Drury Plaza parks you free, per the hotel's site. The Courtyard and Holiday Inn charge $10 a day to self-park, and Holiday Inn's outdoor lot is for registered guests only. At either Loews tower you self-park in the convention center garage, 0.25 mile away, for $29 a night, and a $1.99 one-time processing fee may apply. Loews Arlington adds tax to that. Live!'s own pages disagree on whether its $29 includes tax. Valet at either tower is $39 a night plus tax, and Loews Arlington says event-day rates vary. Caravan Court is valet only, at $45 a night plus taxes and gratuity. Comfort Suites has an outdoor lot, and no page we read gives a price.

Grapevine and downtown Dallas, by car

All nine hotels we read in Grapevine sold both 31 December and 1 January, and the five Marriott hotels among them sold Saturday 2 January too. With no traffic, the drive to the stadium is 30 or 31 minutes from every one we routed except Hotel Vin, at 25. Game traffic will add to all of these. Nothing in our records mentions a stadium shuttle at any Grapevine hotel, and no train runs from Grapevine to Arlington, so you drive or take a ride.

At the Gaylord Texan you'll pay a $28/night Resort Fee, which Marriott builds into every rate, and parking is $29 a day to self-park or $49 by valet. Hotel Vin has no resort fee. Parking there is $24 a day, or $39 for valet.

The Courtyard DFW Airport North and TownePlace Suites DFW Airport North share an address on Bass Pro Court. The SpringHill Suites DFW Airport North is on Grapevine Mills Circle, and it's the one hotel of the nine with no routed drive. None of the three adds a resort fee, and all three park you free on site.

The Hilton Garden Inn, Embassy Suites and Homewood Suites each fold a Texas Recovery Fee into the rate Hilton shows, charged per stay: 0.65%, 0.98% and 0.53%, with taxes extra. Parking is free at the Hilton Garden Inn, $20 a day at the Embassy Suites and $12 at the Homewood Suites, and none of them has valet. Hyatt Place has no fee and free parking. The fees we've read across the metro are in Dallas and Fort Worth resort fees.

All six hotels we read in downtown Dallas sold 1 January, the only night we checked there. The drives run 25 to 28 minutes: Hyatt Regency Dallas and Crowne Plaza Dallas Downtown at 25, Omni Dallas at 26, the Magnolia Hotel and The Statler at 27, and the Lorenzo Hotel at 28. Downtown Fort Worth is 23 to 24 minutes from the stadium. For 31 December in either city, see Dallas New Year's Eve hotels and Fort Worth New Year's Eve hotels.

The Magnolia is the one downtown hotel that adds fees: for the night of 11 November it listed an $18.48 Destination Fee and two smaller ones. The Crowne Plaza showed state tax only, at 18.25% of the rate per night. The Hyatt Regency, Omni, Statler and Lorenzo showed no fee. The Lorenzo is the cheapest place to park, $20 overnight to self-park, and the Crowne Plaza's attached garage is $24 a night. The Hyatt Regency and Omni both charge $30 overnight to self-park. The Hyatt's lot is outdoors, with in and out for overnight guests, and valet at the Omni is $40. The Magnolia lists only overnight valet, at $45 a night. The Statler is valet only, $60 a night plus tax.

Getting there and parking

The Trinity Railway Express gets no closer than CentrePort/DFW Airport Station, and no train reaches the Entertainment District. The TRE runs Monday to Saturday with no scheduled Sunday service, and Trinity Metro's holiday table shows no service on New Year's Day, even though it's a Friday.

Arlington On-Demand, run with Via, covers anywhere in Arlington plus CentrePort Station. Friday hours are 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., so it stops while a 7 p.m. kickoff is still being played, and the city's pages don't say whether it runs on holidays. Fares are $3 for up to 4 miles, rising to $8, and a flat $3 to or from CentrePort. It doesn't help from Grapevine or Dallas. The Arlington Trolley carries registered guests of participating hotels, and its site says fare-free service to the stadium runs only on days with no major stadium events. It won't get you to this game.

AT&T Stadium's parking page sends buyers to SeatGeek for passes and prints no car-parking price. It says lots are "generally open five (5) hours prior to Cowboys games", and tailgating runs from lot opening to two hours after Cowboys or college football games. For the 1 November Cowboys game, the team advised buying parking before arrival and put rideshare at Lot 15, off Randol Mill Road and Web Street. We found nothing yet for the Cotton Bowl itself on lot opening or rideshare.

Arlington's Entertainment District has three No Parking Zones. Folding signs mark them, and while a designated event is underway they're enforced with towing or fines. The city's list of designated events includes the 1 January 2027 CFP Quarterfinal (Cotton Bowl) and every Cowboys home game. Look up the three zones on the City of Arlington's Entertainment District No Parking Zones page before you park near the stadium.

The Giants game two days later

The Cowboys host the New York Giants at AT&T Stadium on Sunday 3 January 2027, listed for 12:00 p.m. Central on FOX. The Cowboys' schedule page says some games are subject to flexible scheduling, so that kickoff can move. Saturday 2 January is a game eve too, and both Loews towers, the two closest to the stadium, had no rooms that night. Three of the four hotels that turned down 1 January sold it: the Courtyard, Caravan Court and Drury Plaza. So did Holiday Inn and the five Marriott hotels in Grapevine. Those are the only hotels we checked for 2 January. If you're here for both games, search the whole stay as one booking. Neither the train nor Arlington On-Demand runs on Sunday.