Tourists at the Nationals...

[Ian W.]

MY grandparents and other relatives will be in florida durnig the nationals (i live in NY), and they wanted to come up to orlando to come and see me, and all the robots. they found the whole idea of FIRST rather interesting, but they have one question. If they come up to orlando, stay in a hotel off-site, and then come to the competition to see it, but never go into the disney parks, do they have to buy addmission tickets to the parks? i assumed no, because they don't want to go into disney, and the actually event is held outside, in a big converted parking lot, from what i've heard. so, do my relatives have to buy addmission to the park to watch part of the nationals, or do they only need to pay for parking? they wanted to know ASAP, so if they do need to buy tickets, they can get them right away.

[usagi1483]

im pretty sure all they have to do is say that they have come to view the FIRST competiton. Last year no admission was needed.
Holly

[Jessica Boucher]

Tourists don't need to buy admission into Disney to partake in all the glory that is FIRST. They may have to pay for parking, but that's all I can guess.

PLEASE.....make sure to tell your relatives what division your team is in (when the divisions are released) and your team number.

You would be surprised at the number of tourists who come into the media tent and expect to find their kid's team, when they only know the town they are from, which by the way, doesn't help....I flash back to moments of...

Me: May I help you?
Person: I need to find my nephew's team.
Me: Ok, what team number?
Person: There's team numbers?
Me: Ok, what state?
Person: Michigan.
Me (thinking): Oh, greeeeeat.
Me (out loud): Ok, do you know any sponsors?
Person: My nephew lives in Detroit.
Me (thinking): .....
Me (out loud): Ok.....(fade to noise of me rustling through pages and pages of information...)

(Hope noone takes that offensively, I love my job and its a wonderful challenge...but I also like poking fun at it)

And if they get lost, tell them to look for the Pit Administration table, which is almost always in the center-ish area of the pits. There they have a pit layout by team number.

[Jay5780]

All visitors have to do if they want to visit the event is pay $5 bucks to park (all day parking at all parks) and then walk over to the event from the tram drop off.

I would recomend the parks to them though


Jay

[tenthirtythree]

Jay-

Agreed. The parks are really something to see! Tourists, if you're coming to visit the FIRST teams, consider getting a parkhopper pass, is even for one day. You'll love it!

[AdamT]

These grandparents live in Florida....they may be tourists, but I have a feeling that they may have been to WDW once or twice in their lives...

Just my $.02

[Ian W.]

Yeah, my grandparent's have been to WDW (we had a family trip there a few years ago), so i doubt they really want to go. they actually liev in NJ, but they have a house in florida (near west palm beach), and by chance they happened to be going down the weekend of the nationals, so they said hey, why don't we fly into orlando, and stop by and see the competition. so, they don't relaly have the time/want to go into WDW, because they're going to drive down to WPB after they see a bit of the competition. now i can tell them they don't need a pass, and thanks for the info on telling them my team # and all that stuff. i probably wouldn't have thought of that .