Houston or EPCOT?

[Cumulonimbus57]

Originally posted by Rurouni

3. The last is one I can't really describe but if you went to nat's in previous years, you can sympathize. It just didn't feel like nationals, but I can't pin down why.

I agree, it was missing something. Im not sure what it was.

I missed the publicity of Disney. I remember riding on buses at disney and meeting a couple from Canada who had gone to disney the year before and saw FIRST. When they asked my group why we were at disney i explained to them it was for FIRST. Unfortunately, it was the day after nationals, and they missed it. They told me that they were disappointed that they had missed it. Experiances like that did not occur at Houston. There was no explaining what FIRST was to complete strangers, because there wasn't a lot of people that just saw the event and investigated. At disney, people saw the venue as they were entering the park and stopped to investigate. I really enjoyed that publicity.

Also, i liked how einstein was used last year. You only had 3 matches there so it wasn't like you were in the heat for long. The big stage that was the focal point of the competition was exciting, this was missing at Houston as einstein was only used for finals.

Also, there was no options for food. At least at disney there were multiple places for finding food outside the area where your passes were good. And the FIRST provided food at the arena at Disny wasn't half bad. At houston there were no choices. Several members of my team were vegitarians, and had to have bags of chips because that was the only meatless food their vochers bought. At least at Disney they had cheese pizza.