DLCon Texas Prologue: Schlitterbahn?

[Halbarad]

Floating (har) the idea out there for interested parties. About an hour's drive south of Austin is one of the best waterparks in the country, called Schlitterbahn. Given that we'll be in the perfect time of year to enjoy such a thing (and it's closer than any other theme park), would folks/how many folks be interested in possibly arriving a couple of days early to head down for a day?

The park is very busy on weekends so trying to do a trip during the con itself would be a bad idea to say the least, but if folks were to arrive Tuesday we could take a group down on Wednesday and spend a day at the park before the rest of the group starts arriving on Thursday.

This isn't a definite "yes we're doing this" at this point, just trying to gauge interest for now.

MORE INFO: Tickets are $36 discounted at the local grocery. Would be best to set aside $5 for gas for your driver (whoever that would be), and another $5-10 for food - usually the best idea is to take a big cooler full of sodas/cold cuts/chips, then do a picnic-style lunch rather than buy food on-site. You're looking at around $50 total for the trip (not counting souvenirs if that's your bag), plus tacking on a couple of extra days for housing/food expenses in Austin.

CONFIRMED IN:

Gatewalker
Yakumo
Talaysen
Yakumo
Halbarad
Snow

[Cmdr_King]

Interested in the abstract, uncertain if I should really say I'd be able to take a full week in Austin rather than the weekend though.  So uh probably something to chew on then.

[Captain K.]

Haven't been in about 20 years, but it used to be fun so is probably still decent.

[Taishyr]

Sure. I can likely get there during this time period.

[superaielman]

Interested in the abstract, uncertain if I should really say I'd be able to take a full week in Austin rather than the weekend though.  So uh probably something to chew on then.

[Yakumo]

Pfft.  Pansies.  If a Michigan native can survive in Guam for six months you can take a week of Texas.

That said, sounds like a cool idea, and unless my schedule changes I wouldn't even need to take extra time off for it since I normally have M/T/W off anyway.  We'll see how funds go but finding out I'm getting a 500 Euro end of year bonus certainly helps with that. <_<

[superaielman]

Full week as in taking the time off.

[metroid composite]

Mildly interested, but I worry about scheduling for the Con in general.  Like...say you're going on Wednesday, you need to be very clear to people not to schedule their flights to arrive on Wednesday, as there will be nobody in Austin to receive them.

[Halbarad]

Alex will very likely not be going, so there'd be someone in town to do pickups. Granted, if we do this we'd probably want to discourage too many folks from arriving Wednesday, but as it's probably a trade between airfare and hotel costs for folks that do come in a bit earlier, there's probably a bit of leeway.

[Ranmilia]

Anyone who does go out on this is going to be exhausted for a couple days afterwards, yeah.  (If you aren't, you weren't doing it right!)  But I'm not too interested in going, so I can handle pickups and driving that day/day after/etc.

[Talaysen]

I'll probably tag along.  Will have to make sure I can get the days off but it should be okay.

[Lady Door]

Schlitterbahn yessssssssss.

I am totally in for this if I can get the schedule to work.

[Captain K.]

btw, make sure you have sunscreen if you go there.  You can get crispy rather quickly.

[Ranmilia]

Yes, very.  Sunscreen EVERYWHERE.  Including your scalp.  This is important enough to be noted six months in advance.

[Halbarad]

My personal recommendation is a baseball cap and a T-shirt that you don't mind getting wet. If you go without a shirt, you -will- get sunburned. Some form of waterproof footwear is also a good call - the park is okay in bare feet, but the pavement can and will burn if you get caught on it barefoot. Crocs, aquashoes, sandals, or canvas shoes all work for this.

[Yakumo]

So, what's the status of this idea?  Are enough people interested to make it worth going?  Are there enough interested people that we would need hotel rooms, or is there just a couple of us that can crash at Hal's the first couple days?

I'm trying to budget for the trip and knowing for sure if I'll be there a couple days early and what I can expect to be paying for would be really handy.

[Halbarad]

Snow at least is confirmed in if there's a trip, and I'll be going as well. Tal and Tai look like the closest to 'confirmed', so if they're good you could split a room three ways for a couple of days (assuming they're the only two).

[VySaika]

I'm down for arriving early and doing the waterpark thing as well. Prolly shoulda said something earlier, I just have a habit of not making plans until I have the money in hand to get the tickets etc squared. Which will happen later this month.