Steele Meetings Reservations-another mess

[Adrienne E.]

Originally Posted by dcarr

I am curious - how does the reservation process work for teams who qualify for CMP later in the season? Is it difficult to find rooms?

You would still go through Steele Meetings, but most hotels within walking distance of the convention center do not have many (if any rooms). You should be able to find rooms easily you will just have to figure out how to get to the convention center (Metro, Bus, etc.) which can sometimes be a pain especially with bigger teams.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by Adrienne E.

You would still go through Steele Meetings, but most hotels within walking distance of the convention center do not have many (if any rooms). You should be able to find rooms easily you will just have to figure out how to get to the convention center (Metro, Bus, etc.) which can sometimes be a pain especially with bigger teams.

I'm wondering if, like regional registration, they hold some rooms back? I know last year we booked after Week 1 and there was still room as several hotels within walking distance.

[Adrienne E.]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

I'm wondering if, like regional registration, they hold some rooms back? I know last year we booked after Week 1 and there was still room as several hotels within walking distance.

They might. I guess I'm speaking from a "big team" mentality we always need 15+ rooms, if you are only looking for a few rooms it may be much easier.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by Adrienne E.

They might. I guess I'm speaking from a "big team" mentality we always need 15+ rooms, if you are only looking for a few rooms it may be much easier.

We booked 15 or so rooms, we traveled to champs with 55 students/mentors/parents.

[Adrienne E.]

Weird, maybe they do hold rooms then because by the time I finally got into Steele Meetings this morning there was only one downtown hotel that had 20 rooms...

[Steven Donow]

They definitely hold rooms, because I was able to get a room at the hotel around the corner from the convention center(don't remember what it was... 341,254,1503 were some of the teams there) with no problem less than two weeks before championship.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by stevend1994

They definitely hold rooms, because I was able to get a room at the hotel around the corner from the convention center(don't remember what it was... 341,254,1503 were some of the teams there) with no problem less than two weeks before championship.

Ramada Plaza

[Cory]

It would have been awesome if the fact that Steele was opening their system for Champs reservations today had been mentioned in any official FIRST communication to the teams.

One single mention on 11/1 and all it said was see this website for information about regional/championship hotel arrangements, with no date shown.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by Cory

It would have been awesome if the fact that Steele was opening their system for Champs reservations today had been mentioned in any official FIRST communication to the teams.

One single mention on 11/1 and all it said was see this website for information about regional/championship hotel arrangements, with no date shown.

There was an option on Steele's website to receive an email when the site was going to open. But unless you opted-in for this notification you would be in the dark.

[OZ_341]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

There was an option on Steele's website to receive an email when the site was going to open. But unless you opted-in for this notification you would be in the dark.

I opted for the email notification and then did not receive one.

So, we signed up for hotels that are not really what we want for fear of losing our spot. Maybe FRC is getting too big for the system that is in place to manage it. It just seems like everything that used to be easy, is now another opportunity to scratch and claw for what you need.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by OZ_341

I opted for the email notification and then did not receive one.

So, we signed up for hotels that are not really what we want for fear of losing our spot. Maybe FRC is getting too big for the system that is in place to manage it. It just seems like everything that used to be easy, is now another opportunity to scratch and claw for what you need.

I received the email. Did you check your spam folder, just in case it went in there?