WAG Determining which meets to attend

[gymmomtoo]

I'd vote Chicago Style, WOGA and Gasparilla, in that order--mostly because I have never heard of Gasparilla Classic, so I put that last LOL! I know Chicago Style and WOGA and good competition and I believe both get college coaches attention, if you are interested in that.

 

[wallinbl]

How/when do you book airfare? This will be our first year dealing with out of state meets. Without knowing the session schedule (or at least a generality of when her level might be), I'd be stuck booking Thursday/Monday flights, which seems excessive for what's really only going to 3 hours of gymnastics.

 

[gymmomtoo]

Our coach suggests to us when we should fly there and come back. She always requests certain days to compete--and usually the meet host is able to accommodate. Usually we are there at least an extra day though.

 

[bookworm]

We went to WOGA a few years ago and it was terrible....I would never go back there

 

[bookworm]

And with the WOGA meet my expectations were high....for a well run meet, competition etc. We competed in the Dr. Pepper Arena and there were only 3 teams in our session, the entry fees for spectators were high and it was expensive to get to so it's not something that I would attend again...

 

[MeetDirector]

Agree with Bookworm on WOGA; our gym hasn't been back there in years. Chicago Style didn't fit our schedule this year either (plus Chicago in Feb didn't appeal much after freezing last year); all of our meets are out west and most are Nastia Qualifiers. As for booking travel, it does get a little easier at the higher optional levels since it s more predictable. The 9's and 10's at a meet typically are always on Sat so we do a late Friday out and a late Sunday return and then fill the time around her session with "stuff" in the local area since we treat each trip as a mini vacation. We have been to several places because of gymnastics that we would never have gone to otherwise (Bartlesville, OK, for instance - nice place by the way). I will book our airfare about a month or so out from the meet as that seems to be a sweet spot for fares starting to creep up for a particular city.

 

[htimcj]

Have three meets that require flying.we are doing only one fly away meet unless she makes the state team at judge's cup. At this point at 11 I can't really see spending the time and money . We will probably go to all of them when she gets closer to college. Another factor for us is that our meets tend to be back to back to back.