I love how they give ZERO advanced warning but here’s the link.
Here’s a preview of what’s available downtown:
Edit: I also love how names are due Week 2. What?!
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After all these years, still no advanced notice. Maybe next year…
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So JUST got my housing confirmation email and despite picking only hotels downtown my block is at a hotel by the Medical Center. Did anyone else just get their housing block confirmation? I don’t get it. Now I have to figure out how to get my team to the convention center and back every day. Ugh.
I never have and never will use FIRSTs team housing assistance. I don’t think it’s of any use to me.
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We were by the medical center last year and took the public bus system. The stops were convenient and there was a special discount pass for robotics teams. The busses didn’t always run on-time so we made sure we were early and never had an issue.
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About how long did it take to get downtown via the buses?
I’m curious what do you do instead?
Do you not use volunteer housing either (basically the same system)? For Houston this year, identical hotel rooms were $200 vs. $500 when using the block, or $100 vs $300, etc. It took looking ~15 miles from the venue to escape the blocks at which point I wouldn’t be saving much time or money anyways.
I’m generally resistant to room blocks/conference rates, but when they book up the entire downtown area, it’s kind of the only option. And I’m told by some tweens that there’s a Taylor Swift concert or something too, which I’m sure doesn’t help.
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Mostly I use Hotels.com and occasionally I use certain hotel chains directly like Drury.
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And you get how many rooms? Most hotels don’t do group bookings through third party sites.
I get rooms for my volunteering tour. The only time I get more than one room is when I take my team to an off season event.
About 15 min early to the bus stop, 30 min bus ride, 15 min walk to venue. 1 hour (max).
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I stayed (individually) near the Medical Center last year. There’s a trolley system (Red line) that runs down Fannin and then Main St. Depending on what stop, it’s about a 20 minute ride on the trolley and then a 10 minute walk to the venue.
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I’d like to chime in and say that we use airbnb to great effect each year. We will usually get a few houses that fit like 12+ people in each, and it ends up being quite a bit cheaper than hotels iirc.
As for transport, we hire a few of 12 seater vans for the week and use them to transport everyone around. We’ve done both of these for every champs since 2017 and it’s been great.
Both Google Maps and City Mapper say bus is the only wya to go, no trolley. And it looks like we’re on the wrong side of the medical center for the trolley to work.
Also I should say I have no idea if we’re even goj g this year but after having to plan this once on 2 weeks notice…i always plan ahead just in case.
The connected marriott and hilton were half off on their booking system (like you pointed out)
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