Women AAU Nationals in Florida

[gymnasticsluver12!]

Hey guys. I am so upset. :/ This is the first year our head coach is letting us go to nationals in FLORIDA and I can't go. :/ How expensive is it to go to nationals? My team and our our in Kansas. I have always wanted to go, and I just wish we could afford it. :/ Ugh. Sorry I just needed to vent about this. I wanna go more than anything. </3

 

[aerialriver]

Ugh I spelled out this big long message and it was deleted. Basically said you need to come up with each cost (travel, hotel, food, coaches fee) and see where you stand. Funny I need to go to KS city, MO for my Nationals and you need to come to FL and I live in FL maybe we can trade accommodations lol! I am thinking of having car washes and cheap dinners/demo nights to fund raise, maybe you can do something like this! Maybe someone else some has some better fund raising ideas!

 

[nicci1999]

Dont know what it costs as a team, but I am looking to florida nationals as well. Some of the hotels in Kissimee are priced pretty cheap, since it is so far in advance right now, and I think the registration fee is like 75 bucks. Hope you're able to attend!

 

[gymnasticsluver12!]

AAU Nationals in Florida (cont.)

Hey guys. I am so upset. :/ This is the first year our head coach is letting us go to nationals in FLORIDA and I can't go. :/ How expensive is it to go to nationals? My team and our our in Kansas. I have always wanted to go, and I just wish we could afford it. :/ Ugh. Sorry I just needed to vent about this. I wanna go more than anything. </3 Do youthink it would be cheaper to fly or drive where I am at? And as far as thedates being the 12-16, would it be all four days? Or just a few? Anything youcould tell me would be appriciated! And I was thinking about the fundraiserstoo! (Sorry for this repeated thread, I can't figure out how to delete it.)

 

[aerialriver]

It's a long drive, so unless you have a big car with several adults carpooling that can take shifts I would say fly. You can go to sites like Orbitz to see approx. what airfare will run.

You need to talk to your teammates and see who wants to go and see what you can come up with. Also your coach can give you a better idea of the schedule. If a big meet is running for several days usually you would only compete on one of them since it is National's for all levels.

 

[emorymom]

The required leo is like $85 and the entry is $75; that alone, yeah, is enough to keep my daughter from going to Central Florida in the SUMMER ... now if we competed fall and "nationals" was in January, I might do a 180.

Go rock your state meet and then move onward and upward, young gymnast.

 

[clark222]

DD's team went last year. You only compete one day so you really don't have to be there the whole time. However, you don't find out what day you compete until right before the meet. We did not know until 10 days beforehand. So anyone buying plane tickets really has little choice but to stay the whole time....or risk paying for last-minute tickets. The leo is not required. And they vary in cost by state. Ours was only $40. Many teams just used their regular team leos.

 

[gymmom1974]

My DD went two years in a row (and we didn't have the funds set back). However, here's some things to think about: like others said, you are only going to compete one day. We planned a family vacation around it: AAU has it set up that you can get reduced priced park tickets and hotel deals. We actually stayed on the Disney property the second time for $90/night, got park tickets (5day park hopper w/2 days of water parks) for under $200 per person, packed snacks....it is doable if you get creative. Without the discounts through AAU, we would have never been able to do it.

We also did "fundraising": we took orders for bierocks and sold them. This allowed my daughter to be a part of the responsibility and understand the financial side of life. She loved it, we raised enough money to go, and had a wonderful time!

Hopefully, things will work out!

 

[Gymmom495]

Fundraising is a must! If for some reason you are unable to make it this year (I hope that's not the case) I would get together with your teammates and parents and start brainstorming about fundraising. We do a lot of fundraisers to pay for meet fees and leo packages. Some ideas are: Sees candy, Worlds Finest Chocolate, popcorn companies, we had a gourmet Carmel apple company that we pre-sold decorative apples for $6.75 each and for every apple sold we got $2.00, I'm sure you can see that we made a ton of money for our account and we did this for pretty much every holiday, you can do a Bingo or Bunco night of even Texas Hold'em night. There are loads of fundraising ideas you just have to get on top of them early on and keep with it. Good luck!