Houston or EPCOT?

[Jack]

Well... what I'm about to say allready has been said more-or-less, but this is going to be another 20 page thread, so oh well...

This is my second year in FIRST, so i've been to disney once and now houston once.

I'm leaveing aside all calls made by refs (who have a really hard job and do the best they can, just as in any other sport) and the game, because they are two different topics.

I'd say that the actual buildings were much better in TX than FL, and FIRST is just too big to hold in tents any more. As said 100 times, the distence between pits & stands was crazy, but hey... they might be able to work something better out next year.

Having AC'ed buildings was very nice, and from a scouting standpoint, not haveing to move from stand-to-stand was a plus.

As for food, nothing is great or cheep at events like these, so i have to stand here.

The security was a total joke. At all three events 201 attended, this happened. (each event searched people) I would have a backpack on my back, and then carry another cloth bag full of stuff in my hands. Every time, I'd open the cloth bag, they'd take a peek inside and let me go. Never took the time to look at my backpack. So, yeah... very useless. Personally, I think they should totally drop it. There is no way you can screen that many people in a timly manner. (Not sure if they can do that though because of legal reasons.) BUT... they shouldn't go to a six flags approch which was totally crazy; makeing everyone go through metal detectors.

However, I would agree with people, it seems to lack something that last year had. It might just be my memory, but I seemed to remember nats as sooo much cooler last year. It may have been the fact that everything was put up on a parking lot, places for teams to come down to watch your team during competiton, the packedness of the fields, or the hugeness of the einstin field... don't really know.

Lastly, face it... houston is not disney. Disney is totally designed for toursits and has endless things to do. While there are cool things in houston, it just doesn't have the "disney magic" to it.

As for next year, well, we'll see what next year brings. I think that from a "fun" standpoint, Disney is better hands-down. But, from an infostructure standpoint, tents won't cut it any more. Unless Epcot is willing to make bigger changes, which is hard for them to do, nats will be some where else.

Jack