I've stayed there a few times, for both conferences and pleasure. Try to ask for a room facing the water - not so much for the view but its very noisy with the trains in the front. I actually got the hotel once through priceline, it was what I got with the 3* request. I'd imagine with a big conference it would be hard to get priceline. Honestly any hotel in the downtown area is fine, the public transit in San Diego is awesome.

Try the publicly available group rates in the forum, you may get lucky!