[OZ_341]

I know that I have already responded in post #20 but I gave no reasoning.

Anyone that has been to Disney for the Championship will know what I mean!
For all its faults it was the most awesome experience. Please don't take this as a disrespect of Atlanta or Houston. We have had a great time in both cities and both cities have provided nothing but fond memories for our team.

Top reasons to go back to Disney:

* SECURITY! As long as you keep track of your students general movements and they stay on the Disney Campus you have a 99.9 % chance that they are safe moving around on their own. As a teacher this was a pleasure. You will always worry about your kids, but this went a long way towards easing your mind.

* EXPERIENCE! Disney is in the business of handling extremely large groups of enthusiastic kids. They know what they are doing and already have an environment setup for this.

*PUBLICITY! I feel that the media exposure for FIRST and the access to visiting celebrities was so much higher when we were at Disney. There were always famous people walking through the pits, talking to the kids.
Thousands of kids in team shirts walked around Disney for 4 days encouraging the general public to visit the competition and they did visit. People that had no affiliation with FIRST would bring their families to watch.

* MAGIC! When your team is at Disney for the Championship, you feel SPECIAL, in a way that no conventional city environment can duplicate. Don't get me wrong I am a city person and I love cities. I just feel that in the end there is no other place on Earth that can match this feeling of reward after a long hard season. I can remember being in the Einstein stadium, outdoors on a beautiful Florida morning, listening to inspirational speeches,watching the monorail pass the stadium and seeing how pumped up the kids were by the environment. I can remember thinking "Perfection"!!

There has been a great deal of feedback both here and other places that basically says "I should forget this dream". People keep telling me "Disney is Dead", "Let it Go". I can't! I feel like we have all been away from our home for the last five years. We need to go home to Disney!!

With all of the accumulated brain power of FIRST and its Teams we can find a way to make the Disney environment work for everyone. We can do it. For every obstacle presented, there are many solutions.

Sorry for such a long post!

Good luck to everyone going to the Atlanta Championships. It will be a blast!