FIRST Championship Housing Available

[Tyler Olds]

Good evening everyone,

I noticed on the FIRST Championship page that the link for Championship housing preferences was posted.

I went through this process and it is quite different. You will need to select eight (8) hotels as preferences.

Here's the Championship link.

Here's the direct link to Championship Housing Registration.

[Doug Frisk]

I just got the information a couple of days ago, unfortunately the hotel I want isn't available for volunteers. Yeah, I said that right, there are rooms available in the FIRST block, but volunteers aren't allowed at the Marriott Renaissance next to the convention center.

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by DareDad

I just got the information a couple of days ago, unfortunately the hotel I want isn't available for volunteers. Yeah, I said that right, there are rooms available in the FIRST block, but volunteers aren't allowed at the Marriott Renaissance next to the convention center.

I'm a volunteer. I booked there.
Perhaps it filled?

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

I'm a volunteer. I booked there.
Perhaps it filled?

I'm going to posit that you may have registered as a member of a team who also volunteers at Championships, where I register as a volunteer unassociated with any particular team. It turns out the process of hotel selection is significantly different depending on which group you fit into.

[RoboMom]

They are all my teams. I am not affiliated with any one team.

[Koko Ed]

I don't like booking with FIRST. I don't think what they have to offer is very helpful at all and I wouldn't recommend volunteers booking via FIRST.
I do it myself through booking sites instead.

[jds2001]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I don't like booking with FIRST. I don't think what they have to offer is very helpful at all and I wouldn't recommend volunteers booking via FIRST.
I do it myself through booking sites instead.

I booked through FIRST (as a standalone volunteer - at the Hilton at the Ballpark) because if I didn't book in the FIRST block, the hotel was completely sold out, and I'm HHonors Gold at any rate

I used to live in STL (many moons ago), this will be my first CMP event. Looking forward to it!!!

[Dave Campbell]

We just qualified for the CMP event! So excited! One problem, Experient only has hotels >30 miles away from the EJD...Seriously? With 1/6th of the capacity already registered for the FRC CMP (99 teams registered as of this post) and ALL of the local hotels are completely booked? Not right. The teams that qualify should have priority booking privileges, imho.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by Dave Campbell

The teams that qualify should have priority booking privileges, imho.

Over whom?

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Over whom?

I'm assuming he means teams that book hotels with hopes of qualifying for St. Louis before they actually do qualify.

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by Dave Campbell

We just qualified for the CMP event! So excited! One problem, Experient only has hotels >30 miles away from the EJD...Seriously? With 1/6th of the capacity already registered for the FRC CMP (99 teams registered as of this post) and ALL of the local hotels are completely booked? Not right. The teams that qualify should have priority booking privileges, imho.

The reason most of these teams do this is because, if they qualify at a later regional or district championship, the teams that qualified at earlier events would get priority, so that's not really fair either. I.e. ALL of the district teams will be stuck 30 miles away, and the teams that qualified week 1 will be walking distance. We usually pre-book rooms for this reason. This year, we waited until February, and we are staying further away. But, as more events happen, and those teams that pre-booked and didn't make it drop out, rooms will open up. So, we are checking back every week to see what rooms have become available.

I.e. if we wait until our week 6 event to book, we may not get anything remotely close. So, we book early, and if we end up not making it, we give that block of rooms up, and another team can have them.

So, just keep checking. Because even after you book with your 8 choices, you can pay a small fee and you can get a different hotel. That is what we plan to do. We'll pay the fee if it means getting a walking distance hotel.

[Dave Campbell]

Agreed Alex and Caleb. I see your points. There are also awesome presentations at the conference for teams who do not qualify or get a slot via the standby list...My apologies, I'm just frustrated with the process of booking rooms this year - it seemed easier before when we could get rooms with more than 1 bed per room, which seems to be all that is available for now. I'll have to keep checking back.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Dave Campbell

Agreed Alex and Caleb. I see your points. There are also awesome presentations at the conference for teams who do not qualify or get a slot via the standby list...My apologies, I'm just frustrated with the process of booking rooms this year - it seemed easier before when we could get rooms with more than 1 bed per room, which seems to be all that is available for now. I'll have to keep checking back.

Hopefully they can improve the process next year.

I'm still trying to get into the Marriott Renaissance as a single volunteer and have been for over a month. Speaking of which it's time for my Monday afternoon call to Experient to remind them I still want a room in that hotel.

[jds2001]

It seems somewhat unfair to me that as a single volunteer, I got in the Hilton at the Ballpark (in a room with 2 beds, which I don't need, no less!) before week 1

However, does anyone know how this works? I have HHonors Gold. so was somewhat concerned that I didn't see the reservation online in my HHonors account. I called Hilton and they can find nothing by my name as having a room at that hotel. Does Experient only provide the list later to the actual hotels?

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by jds200

It seems somewhat unfair to me that as a single volunteer, I got in the Hilton at the Ballpark (in a room with 2 beds, which I don't need, no less!) before week 1

However, does anyone know how this works? I have HHonors Gold. so was somewhat concerned that I didn't see the reservation online in my HHonors account. I called Hilton and they can find nothing by my name as having a room at that hotel. Does Experient only provide the list later to the actual hotels?

If the last couple of years are a guide, the information doesn't make it to the hotel until 2 or so weeks prior to the championships.

Volunteers are in a weird place this year as far as hotels go. It seems they blocked off space in 8 hotels specifically for volunteers but with that they're restricting volunteers to only those 8 hotels. But with that, you can feel fine about having a 2 bed room since it was carved out for volunteer use.