FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

FIRST Championship Housing Registration

Dec 12, 2016 Written by Frank Merrick.

 

Registration for housing for FIRST Championship opens this Thursday, 12/15, at 1PM Eastern Time. Teams registering for Championship housing early will have easier access to the most desirable rooms, so we encourage you to think about your options soon.

 

There are two registration links, one for the Houston location and one for the St. Louis location. As we noted in this blog, you will only be able to register in advance for housing at your home Championship location, so you should only use the link for that location (the other link will not function for you). If you are unsure of your home Championship location, please  refer to this map. If you register for housing at your home location, then later are allowed to switch your Championship attendance to your non-home location, Experient will work with you to make new reservations.

Login information from Experient's site last year was not carried forward, so all teams will need to create a new login.

New (and exciting!) this year - the registration system will show room inventory levels dynamically. No more waiting a few days to see if you got the rooms you wanted, you will know right away what's available and whether or not you got what you wanted. You may notice a few other positive changes in the registration system as well.

 

Also, just as we did last year, pre-qualified teams, those teams who have already been invited to the 2017 FIRST Championship because of something they did in earlier seasons, will be able to register for housing a few days before non-pre-qualified teams. These teams did something extraordinary to deserve being first in line. You can see the list of pre-qualified teams here.

Remember, you won't be able to start registering until 1PM Eastern Time on Thursday!

Happy housing!

Frank
 

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Comments

When will volunteers be able to reserve rooms?

Hi Alex!

Experient will be open later in January for volunteers. We don't have a specific date yet, but we will be putting it out as soon as we get it.

Thanks!

It would be very helpful to get step-by-step instructions about how to use the system before it goes live.  In particular, instructions for a mentor or parent other than the Lead Coach/Mentor 1 or 2 to access and utilize the system on the team's behalf.  Travel planning is a function of parent booster organizations for many teams, so this would help overloaded teachers and mentors mangage the process more effectively.

Thanks!

Andrew Nichols

Team 1648

Please provide the details of the cancelation policy. Thank you --

Hi Kathy!

HOTEL CANCELATION Policy: All reservations must be guaranteed with a credit card valid through the event dates. Reservations canceled within 72 hours or failure to arrive as scheduled, subject the individual to a cancelation fee equal to one night’s room and tax. 

The policy is located in three areas 1) on the screen when you see the confirmation of your room block 2) in the manage room tab 3) email confirmation. We are updating the User Guide now, as we realized that the screen shots for the cancelation policy was not showing correctly.

Thanks!

I booked a block of rooms but can you confirm that this is not a non-refundable option meaning we can release the rooms later without a charge or cancelation fee if it turns out we are not going to St. Louis. Thanks

 

Hi!

The rooms may be released without charge until 72 hours prior to scheduled arrival. If it is after that time window, the hotel cancelation policy applies.

Thanks!

We used this group to find rooms for worlds last year.  We qualified in the second to last week, and by the time we got funding together many of the hotels were booked up.  They found us rooms at a great hotel close to the competition in St. Louis for a very affordable price.  We plan to use them again this year.  Many teams ended up at the airport and paid more because they did not know about this service.

Grateful,

Sullivan - Team #5726

The only housing available is near the airport 14 miles away.  Since our group will arrive from CT, is FIRST providing any shuttle transportation from the airport area?  Two years ago, our shuttle expense in St. Louis totalled over $3000.  shuttle from the airport   Also, is there anyway to get on a downtown hotel wait list, pending qualification status?  Please advise.

Hi!

FIRST will not be providing any hotel/airport shuttle transportation for 2017.  We do not have a waiting list for downtown rooms.  As teams travel plans change, rooms in the downtown location could become available so teams can check periodically for the latest availability.

Thanks!

Do they do any checking into the hotels put on the lists for the teams to be in?  We made it into one of the downtown hotels and are now seeing a lot of bad reviews on their site.  This is the first we have used this system and are just trying to figure it all out.

 

Thanks!

Yes, our evaluation of hotels includes tours, on-line reviews, and recommendations from local resources. We continue to evaluate hotels that are in the program annually and make adjustments if a hotel property no longer meets our needs.

Thanks!

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