[Shannon Maloney]

Lets see, Nats at Disney couldn’t really happen at any other time except maybe November. Holidays don’t really get in the way, I mean some do but it’s not like Easter, a holiday that gets in the way now. If Nats was at Disney in mid November, it would be MUCH cheaper than it is now. That’s defiantly the down time with more vacant rooms that could be filled with us, resulting in less teams staying off property. Either way, disney’s profit from us comes from all the souvenirs and food that guests buy, not hotels and park passes (come on, a bottle of water at a Disney park is like three bucks, can you see the huge profit???!) So, the season could start in august, even though many New England schools aren’t in session yet, the teams would have to plan ahead and start before school, just like fall sports teams. Either way, Disney is less crowded and getting hotels for all of us would be easier and there would be even more of EPCOT’s huge parking lot available (not that that is the problem anyway) Disney would have more guests spending money (more guest than they’ve had in past off seasons), and we would have more room

I know Disney has a lot of land in florida and while I did read the idea of them building a location for FIRST is really never gonna happen. Disney does have this little thing called the Wide World of Sports Complex. Now, a lot of people would say that FIRST isn’t a “true” sport like basketball and football and they’re right, it’s not. But it’s still a competitive sport. If cheerleading can be considered a sport and can have there national competition at the Wide World of Sports, why can’t we? the parking lot is working fine, so if you're gonna complain about Nats location, complain that we're not there.

I actually don’t see where all these problems are coming from. Disney is huge and has plenty of space for all of us. New hotels appear all the time (the newest addition is the Pop Century one, which is similar in design and price to the All-Star resorts were many of the teams already stay). Anyway, Disney is built for crowds and knows how to deal with them. I think putting a max on the number of teams is ridiculous. 320 teams? Come on! Yea that would make things a lot easier because it's smaller and a little less complex (why not limit the number of pounds the robots can be to 50 lbs? it would be less complex!). But FIRST is expanding and Disney can deal with it.

Everyone wants more publicity and more recognition for FIRST. Well we must be getting it because it’s defiantly getting bigger (in case you haven’t noticed) more recognition and interest result in more teams. More teams means more teams at nationals. it's that simple

so i say we stay with disney (not that what i say has anything to do with it)

later!

~~Shannon~~
**Team 250**