USSSA Gulf Shores Nationals

[brooks1014]

My DD and her team are playing their first Nationals event this year, I’m just looking for some ideal on how much down time we will have And suggestions on what to do outside of being at the ballpark. 10u team it is scheduled as a four day event.

 

[jdint]

Only been once, and that was for 12u if I remember correctly. We had quite a bit of down time. The team did normal beach stuff. Rented a couple pontoon boats and went out for an afternoon. Went to the Hangout and LuLu's. We had a great group kids and parents at that time, so it was a really good trip.

Make sure and give yourself plenty of time to get in and out out of the ballparks. Traffic can get really snarled up. Be prepared for rainouts. We had several games rained out (this might be why we had so much down time). The park we played at was enclosed in trees so there wasn't much breeze and it got pretty warm.

This is a bit odd, but the condo we stayed at was right on the beach and quite large, unfortunately they only had 2 elevators, one which was not functioning most of the time. This caused a lot of headaches and some heated confrontations......just something to keep in mind.

 

[brooks1014]

Thanks for the input. We were thinking of getting a condo on the beach as well.

 

[JOHNN]

My DD and her team are playing their first Nationals event this year, I’m just looking for some ideal on how much down time we will have And suggestions on what to do outside of being at the ballpark. 10u team it is scheduled as a four day event.

It seems like they may have changed the format bc we went last year for 10u and it was a full week if you made it that far. We had opening ceremonies on Sunday, Monday- off, Tuesday- 2 pool games earlier in the day with rest of day off, Wednesday- bracket game #1, Thursday- Bracket game #2 and then you started playing alot more games on Friday if you made it that far.

As far as downtime, there was definitely a good bit. Id definitely get a place on the beach as the park was only about 20-25. minutes away

 

[rjgarcia76]

Gulf Shores is a great place to have the combo vacation/tournament. There's a good amount of downtime and lots of fun to be had in the area: beach, gator farms, tourist places like the Hangout, the Wharf,, Tacky Jack's, etc.

Traffic on the main road that parallels the beach can be horrendous at times, but there are often back ways to get around the worst of it.

Just be aware that the likelihood of rain outs/delays are very high in Gulf Shores in July!

 

[uncdrew]

Lots of downtime, lots of rain delays, lots of traffic.

You'll just have one or two games per day, often late afternoon/early evening. So the days are open, and there's plenty to do. But you don't want to get too tired/sunburned/water-logged so some coaches have rules and some families make decisions to lay lower than others.


I'd try to stay outside of the big hotels and big condos that rent VRBO. My goodness, my biggest memory of those Florida tourneys was traffic. It stunk.

 

[Lance Steckler]

my biggest thing about all these destination type events is the players and parents all want to do vaca first, play 2nd.... and tourney results for my teams have reflected same. Usually headed north on Friday or first thing sat. The starting pitcher than turns herself into a lobster, regardless of the 13x you told her to apply sunblock and get off the beach. The raging pool party to 3 am that had to be attended before the 8am game... standard teenager, tick off the parents and infuriate coaches stuff.