Interesting post on Facebook Group about Stay to Play

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Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
Stay to play hotels are often up to 50 miles away from the park. And I can virtually always find an AirBnB that is half the price PLUS I get a kitchen and more than one bathroom. So, you're never going to be able to sell me on the idea that it's easier/cheaper/more convenient for parents.
Bingo!
 
Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
I wonder what would happen if teams started to say "We will come to your tournament but we will find our own hotel thank you very much. If you won't allow that then we won't come."? I imagine if enough teams did that it could have an impact. BTW... This is also a thing in club soccer.
If one coach calls the TD and says "if you make my team STP, we aren't coming" and hangs up the phone. TD would shrug his shoulders and think coach was having a bad day. If two coaches called, TD might pause. If 10 coaches called and said "if you make my team STP, we aren't coming",and hangs up the phone the TD would think it was a movement. Thirty teams and we have a revolution.
Coaches get on the phone.
 
Last edited:
May 6, 2015
2,397
113
all the following happened in ONE stay to play experience (this was 10u team)

-everyone on team had different rates for same room
-breakfast was cold each morning and they never put enough of anything out.
-when I went to front desk to ask for extra towels, was told there was none. I asked how can you expect to be part of a tournament for a women's sport and not have adequate towels. we do have adequate towels, we are just very busy. my comeback was if you cannot give me three more towels, you do not have adequate towels, call the manager (eventually got my towels)
-hotel was undergoing rennovations, half built facade near our room held a bottle with an inch or two of Hennesy left.
-topper was the show we got leaving one morning contruction worker standing between two vans urinating (thankfully faced away from us).

with captive market, they know they gotcha, service is crap. let ALL the accomodations compete with one another, not just the ones giving you a kickback
 
Aug 19, 2015
1,118
113
Atlanta, GA
all the following happened in ONE stay to play experience (this was 10u team)

-everyone on team had different rates for same room
-breakfast was cold each morning and they never put enough of anything out.
-when I went to front desk to ask for extra towels, was told there was none. I asked how can you expect to be part of a tournament for a women's sport and not have adequate towels. we do have adequate towels, we are just very busy. my comeback was if you cannot give me three more towels, you do not have adequate towels, call the manager (eventually got my towels)
-hotel was undergoing rennovations, half built facade near our room held a bottle with an inch or two of Hennesy left.
-topper was the show we got leaving one morning contruction worker standing between two vans urinating (thankfully faced away from us).

with captive market, they know they gotcha, service is crap. let ALL the accomodations compete with one another, not just the ones giving you a kickback

OR, you (of course) draw the 8:00 AM game and, since your STP hotel is 30 miles from the park, you have to leave the hotel at 6:00 AM and they don't put breakfast out until 7:00. So, you get nothing.
 
Oct 3, 2011
3,478
113
Right Here For Now
I could tell you horror story after horror story about my teams' STP experiences. As @marriard said, we didn't go back the following year. They'd send an email saying 'We'd like to invite you back to the Last/Best Tournament X!' 6 months before the scheduled date of play. I'd send them an email back saying what exactly happened and why we weren't returning. Of course, nothing changed according to subsequent team posts on social media and the local FP sites.. Five years later, I think maybe one out of maybe a dozen are still active but that's only because they actually responded to the feedback and made it better. The ones we enjoyed and had good, if not great competition, hotels and facilities, we continued going to. Money talks folks.
 
Aug 25, 2019
1,066
113
I guess the organizers of tournaments get a cut from the hotels, otherwise why would they care where you stay.
 
Apr 16, 2013
1,113
83
Years ago our all girl baseball team did a Perfect Game event down in Atlanta. That's one of those pretty notorious STP events, but they do put on quite an event. Anyhow, the hotel bill hilariously showed the STP surcharge of 35 bucks a night. They listed everything, just like any bill, and right there in the line item was the added charge. It was a crap hotel too.
 

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