Help! Hotels for Champs

[nedwards28]

Hi teams,

We are desperate for help. Apparently, we don't know the system well enough to be able to do this properly. The Experient site is super frustrating and only seems to give us hotels that are out by the airport. I honestly don't understand how teams can book hotels for Worlds early.

Little background:
We surprisingly qualified last year and pulled travel together just a couple weeks before. The experient site couldn't even find hotels for us saying everything is booked. We ended up staying out at the airport and had a horrible experience with the commute on the metrolink. There were a couple times when our group was put in a significant amount of danger trying to travel home late after competition or roboProm. Not only that but, we were 1.5 hours away from the venue. We told ourselves that would never happen again. So, we have been calling hotels on our own since december hoping to just book something and nothing is available. We figured the experient site had them all booked so we waited. We have been told that you have to wait for a link to be sent to you to be able to book rooms. We thought rooms would open up as the weeks of play went by and teams cancelled rooms but, no, we can't find rooms. We are in experient now and it is putting us all the way out at the airport again! In fact, we are placed even farther away.

Is there a trick to this whole booking hotel rooms thing? We are frustrated to say the least and if it wasn't such a good experience for my students, I would consider just letting our spot go to another team if we qualify. We really feel like we are lost in this whole system.

What do you do to make sure you can get hotel rooms in St. Louis?

Thanks,
Naomi

[ehochstein]

My (FTC) team is in the same boat, we only need 3 rooms but experient is only offering rooms north of the airport, away from public transit and only with single beds. I called and they told me they were completely sold out of double beds already.

[EricLeifermann]

FIRST just needs to get rid of these booking agencies and let teams book themselves.

Its not hard to book hotel rooms stop making it so.

[GeeTwo]

We stayed in Pontoon Beach IL last year, and had about a 20 minute (charter bus or car) commute with moderate traffic, booking after week four. We were in a nice neighborhood, about a hundred yards each from a police station and a cornfield. I did not make the arrangements, but I don't believe we used Experient to book.

[MasterMentor]

When my old team would schedule rooms for St. Louis, we did everything ourselves - the events agencies FIRST provides for teams to use has always been absolute garbage and had failed us multiple times previously. We would book rooms only to find the hotel fully booked, had reservations cancelled on us at the last minute, and a host of other issues. We eventually decided to rent two vans and do our own transportation, and did our own hotel reservations outside the city. We stayed about 30 minutes away, just over the Illinois border. It was a really easy commute, the rooms were cheaper and helped offset the cost of the van rental and fuel, and we had awesome parent help who did all of the chauffeuring. We were the only FIRST team at the hotel, so we even were allowed to use the hotel's meeting rooms (for free) for our scouting and team meetings. It was quite nice.

-George

[JABot67]

Hi Naomi,

Last year 2930 stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites St. Louis/South I-55, and we rented 3 vans to ferry students between the hotel and the venue. The hotel is about 17 minutes away from the Edward Jones Dome without traffic. We did not use Experient or anything else provided by FIRST.

Last year 3322 stayed at the Days Inn Collinsville, and they had a charter bus to commute to the venue. The hotel is about 14 minutes away from the Edward Jones Dome without traffic.

These are a few of the many options within reasonable driving distance for teams who wish to book their own hotels. This may be the best option for cost-aware teams or those who don't have the option to book far in advance.

[EmileH]

Don't book with Experient. Book your own rooms by calling hotels and let them know you are a robotics team that is traveling on a tight budget to see if they can give you a discounted rate. Experient has a history (for me at least) of giving away rooms that teams already purchased to others, so if it was my choice, I would never go back to Experient.

[tobymc]

I also found the FIRST travel arrangements frustrating. I made reservations for us just in case in January - which we did use after we qualified at Week 6. This year, I made reservations in August, with a drop date of April 8th - just after Week 6.

Last year, we stayed at Super 8, Belleville. It was about 30 minutes by bus (our charter bus took us back and forth), though it was also a 15 minute walk to the metro. The rooms were clean but small, and really cheap (<$60/night). No pool. I thought the neighborhood was just fine - there was a great BBQ place nearby.

This year I booked Home2Suites Hilton, which is in (long) walking distance. It's more expensive, but the rooms are suites and have full refrigerators, so self-catering is easier.

If you haven't qualified yet, just be sure to watch your drop dates that go in your group sales contract.

[nedwards28]

Oh boy, I'm really disappointed that this system is even being used. After hearing from everyone else how bad it is, I feel better about going around the system. We finally found a hotel today The Drury Inn out on the blue line in Brentwood. (We are from northern Washington state and have no idea how we could get there other than flying. So, we need the metroLink.) I'm hoping that that neighborhood shopping area will be better than what we were dealing with last year. Between flights and hotels we are hoping to not have to rent cars. Our budget, like many of yours, is not going to allow for much.

Thank you for all the ideas we appreciate that so much. George, I think I'm going to look into your idea of staying in Illinois and rent vans. It may work out better than what we booked. I'm so glad hotels can be cancelled. Next year I'll book in August and never touch experient again.

[RoboTigers1796]

Be careful telling the local hotels you are calling for prices you are a robotics team, when we were in a similar boat last year many hotels would tell us they can't book us rooms and we should call experient. I was in shock.
I've expressed this in a thread last year about this topic how much I dislike the current reservation process FIRST uses(free for all in January for any team at all to and block off as many rooms as they wish, no restricitons, up until about 2 weeks before champs), and the experient company makes it even worse(I despise having to work with them). Avoid them if you can, many of their policies all you can do is laugh and jump through their hoops and ridiculous processes. Make sure to at least put in your "priority list" and call them to bother them you don't want any hotels on your priority list, you want XYZ. They will put it in the "comments" and "address them in the order they received them."
I wish you the best of luck finding rooms for your team and hopefully avoiding experient.

[jds2001]

This is the point where I get upset. My team hasn't ever qualified for CMP, but I volunteer there - it's a wonderful experience if you haven't done it. I just checked on Experient (where I got my hotel) using the link that I got, and every hotel that I've gotten is within walking distance of one of the venues. FIRST treats their volunteers well, I totally get that - but we're the folks that should have to schlep in from the airport, not teams (not that I'm objecting to having a close hotel.....) IMO.

A bit of a non-sequitur here as well - for the FTC East Super Regional last weekend, they arranged hotel blocks (not through Experient). I was assigned to volunteer late, so the negotiated rate was sold out. Went directly to the hotel's website, expecting to pay more assuming that the hotel wasn't ENTIRELY sold out. I actually wound up paying LESS! Just a reminder that the group negotiated rate isn't always the BEST rate.

For the future, whenever the rules for split CMP come out, make hotel reservations for next year ASAP when you know which one you might attend. You'll be able to cancel without penalty, and you'll get in before Experient does most likely, and be able to reserve hotels close to the venue. I realize that's a ton of advance planning, but it very well might be worth it.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by jds2001

FIRST treats their volunteers well, I totally get that - but we're the folks that should have to schlep in from the airport, not teams (not that I'm objecting to having a close hotel.....) IMO.

Yeah, I was shocked that I was being offered any hotel right at the center while teams are still working to even qualify for Championships. Last year I stayed with someone else, this is my first time booking. But it just seems wrong.