NHC Philly

[BDawg]

Registered, and hotel booked, now just need to work on the flight, now since the Mrs. is staying home, I may come in on Tues. so I can fuck off before BNA8....

Speaking of...any word on BNA8? I booked Wed night entirely b/c of it--can't wait to put some faces (ugh?) with names& voices!

Speaking from first hand observation-

The BNA party is always pulled out of Justin's and Moscow's ass the last week or two before the conference.

[brewranger]

all the center city hotels will be <10 cab ride. anything along market will be a quick subway ride.

also the workers at the mutter museum are kinda jerks.

[mach5]

OK, so I'd like to comment on a few things with the registration process to see if anyone had the same issues.

I carefully read the reg info on the AHA site, for the hotel it said the rate block is opened at 9 AM...not a problem for me, but maybe for the west coasters, it was also wierd to have the hotel open before the conference registration, it should really be the other way around. Anyhow, the AHA site stated there would be a link provided there for hotel registration. When 9 AM rolled around, no link. I tried calling the hotel number on the AHA page (probably the front desk number), it was just busy, they were probably getting hammered with calls. So from the hotel webpage, I saw the booking number, I called that and the person who answered transferred me to a special booking agent for the conference. I did get the room booked but not until I had some panic over it.

OK, fast forward to 3 PM EST. Time to register for the conference. At 3, I clicked the reg link in the e-mail from the AHA...no dice. I kept letting it time out then reloading the link until I got through at around 4 PM. By then, the "full" conference packages were sold out?!?! Really, 1 hour, that fast? Anyhow, I got the "Almost Full Conf" package. So, I was wondering what am I missing with the Thurs seminars, it seems kinda odd that they would charge $10 extra for another 2-3 hours of seminars, but they are repeating them on Fri and Sat anyway...just wierd to me. Can anyone shed light on that?

Anyhow, bottom line, I am all set up but the process was less than ideal. I'm really not complaining because I got everything I needed done, but some better communication or a better process from the AHA would have helped out a little...just some constructive feedback for future years. It was a little frustrating and stressful going through the process.

[TheDarkSide]

I carefully read the reg info on the AHA site, for the hotel it said the rate block is opened at 9 AM...not a problem for me, but maybe for the west coasters, it was also wierd to have the hotel open before the conference registration, it should really be the other way around. Anyhow, the AHA site stated there would be a link provided there for hotel registration. When 9 AM rolled around, no link. I tried calling the hotel number on the AHA page (probably the front desk number), it was just busy, they were probably getting hammered with calls. So from the hotel webpage, I saw the booking number, I called that and the person who answered transferred me to a special booking agent for the conference. I did get the room booked but not until I had some panic over it.

It is a lot easier to cancel a hotel reservation if you don't get registered for the conference, than it is to refund your conference payment if you can't get a hotel room, so I think the order is right. Last year they both opened at the same time. Thankfully the hotel allowed online booking 10 minutes early, so my room was already booked before hitting the overworked AHA servers for registration.

I don't think you'll miss too much by not going to a seminar on Thursday. The only potential problem would be if you want to go to two seminars that were at the same time on Fri/Sat, and Thursday was the only other option to get to the other one.

I too was looking for the online link, but after 5 minutes decided to call the number. I finally got through to the hotel and they gave me the 877 number ( which I shared AFTER I got my room). I got right through on that number and booked my room. It was funny because the booking agent didn't seem to know why the phones "blew up" at 9am that morning. Maybe they should have been pre-warned?

Now just waiting for Feb 26th at 3pm EST to register my competition entries.

[NervousDad]

I can't believe that I didn't buy tickets. I hope I don't regret it...

[CRBrewHound]

Holy crap, conferece is sold out already!!!
Less then a day, sounds like it is time to move this thing to vegas and increase the capacity by quite a bit. If it sells out in one day they could probably double the capacity and still sell the thing out.

[TheDarkSide]

Less than 20 hours...amazing!

[Hessian Lake]

Yeah, that sucks. I was lucky enough to get a ticket for Fri & Sat however I'm on the waiting list for the ceremony/dinner. And that was what I was hoping to attend the most.