Wow, I can't believe this is all the participation we got for the meet location poll.
Now I feel kind of silly for researching this....
Anyway, last year I attended a wedding here:
http://www.postcardinn.com/ and I remember thinking then, that this would be an awesome place for us to have a meet.... Their main banquet room is on the 2nd floor over the lobby and is well away from any rooms. (no noise issues). Plus, there is an outside balcony overlooking the hotel's courtyard and you can see the Gulf of Mexico from there. There is a good BBQ restaurant below, and the decor is surfer-cool. There is a nice pool area and a huge beach bar with live music at night. No shortage of fun for the entire family, unless you're just a total stick in the mud.
Even better, this is not a hotel chain with inflexible rules and such...
Well, on a whim I called them and spoke with their sales office. If we could sell 10 rooms for the Friday night before our meet, at $139.99 per room, then they would reserve the banquet room for us exclusively at no additional charge. No time limit, no tables or chairs to build or break down, etc... And if we book more rooms, or more nights (like maybe some of you want to come with family and make a real vacation out of this) then we could work a sliding cost scale that decreases the our group's roomrate. Say, for example, if we end up booking 15 rooms it drops to $125 per night. (Weeknights cost less, and they will send me some vacation packages if I ask).
St.Petersburg Beach is an awesome place, easy for the whole family to have a really good time. Easy to get to from Tampa or Clearwater/St.Pete airport.
The catch with the Postcard Inn is that they are already booked for a wedding that same weekend we are talking about, so we'd have to do the meet after July 4th, or before June 25th. Or, find another similar location (maybe a bit further up the west coast, or over on the east coast as Ed suggested). There are many such hotels in Florida, but not all of them have a banquet room that would easily accomodate us. Regardless of whether we do the meet at the location above on a different weekend, or if we go for another location that can match that price and give us a meeting room for the day (without time limit):... here are my questions to all of you:
QUESTION 1) Would having the meet at such a location make you more likely to be able to attend the meet?
QUESTION 2) If we did go this route and you come down for the meet, how many nights would you want to stay?
Despite the cost, I think this type of meeting location and arrangement might actually generate more interest among potential attendees. Especially those of you with families who really want to go on a vacation this year, but they have no desire to go to a boombox meeting. You can sell this to your other half (or whole family) as a long weekend (or week or two) at the beach! (And REALLY help us all get a much better room rate)!
If we do this, I'm good for a Friday and Saturday night stay and will bring my family/
Incidentally, the rooms have two beds in them, so those of you who are single and maybe put-off by the $140 per night room cost can maybe share rooms and split that cost....
My wife and I ate at the BBQ place on Friday night and I gotta say that the food was terrific and reasonable. Two of us for a very filling and tasty dinner, with a massive BBQ nacho appetizer, a glass of wine for my wife and couple of beers.... $50.
Just throwin' it out there.... let's see what sticks!
imp: :dog: 
