Chief Delphi - **FIRST EMAIL**/Important Information Regarding Hotels

Greetings Teams:

At this time, for the 2007 season, FIRST will not be offering hotel reservation services for the FIRST Robotics Regional event season. We would like to provide FIRST team members some recommendations of the best way to place hotel reservations.

Google and the Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) in the city you are competing (such as www.atlanta.net, http://www.visitdetroit.com/, http://www.orlandoinfo.com/) can be great resources. We find that hotels that are members of their local CVBs tend to be more reputable properties.

Pick out three or four hotels that you like, that are within 3-5 miles to the venue. You can use Mapquest, Yahoo, or other online driving direction services to confirm the distance to the venue You can get the venue address by going to http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2007/2007VenueAddress.pdf

In most cases, it is best to contact the hotels reservation department and ask them directly. Choose hotels that have the following features:

24 hour security
Free Parking, or at least secure parking if it is in a city environment
Interior entrance rooms - rooms that have exterior entrances are the ones that have inherent security risks, plus the fact that any team member can wander off at any time.
Hotels that have been renovated within the past 4 years
Hotels that will disclose if they have groups in house that are not consistent with or are in indirect opposition to FIRST values, including no sexually oriented groups, gun shows, fantasy groups, or any other groups that tend to stay up late and can affect your sleep.
Call and make your reservations as soon as possible. What rates you may find available now, are not usually the same closer to the event when the hotel is close to it's capacity. Usually the rates are higher the closer you book.
If you cannot get a larger block from a third party website such as Travelocity, or Price.com, contact the hotel directly during normal business hours to speak with a reservations representative. They are better suited to make larger blocks.

Other items to consider are:

Shop three hotels in the city you are attending in the same proximity to confirm approximate pricing for the marketplace
Talk to the hotel reservation department to make sure that they will block your rooms together on the same floor/areaHotels that offer complimentary breakfast
Hotels that offer free internet access (about 50% of all hotels do now).

Please remember that cheapest should not be the only qualifier. If the quality is poor, or the location poor, it can lead to an overall bad Regional experience. Without the proper sleep, you will wish you would have paid a little more for a better quality hotel.

Important Championship Hotel Package Information: FIRST is currently working on the Championship Packaging and will post the information as soon as it is available.

Go Teams!