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Tournacation / Vacanament
by Dave
Sunday, December 28, 2008
I received a promotional mailing yesterday which was sent out by DisneyFastpitch.com to promote four 2009 tournaments they plan to hold. At first, I started to just throw the junk mail away. But then I figured I might just as well take a look at it to see what the organization is all about. After looking through the mailing, I had to conclude that this sort of thing just doesn't hold any interest for me, my family, and my team. Then I thought about the concept of what I alternately refer to as "tournacations" or "Vacanaments." And then I decided to explain on the blog why treking to Disney, and all that entails, just isn't the sort of thing we'll be doing anytime soon.
The mailing itself was very professionally done. [; The front holds a picture of a batter looking like she is goinbg to take a hack at the next pitch. When you open to look inside, there is a great picture of the organization's softball complex. There is a quad of fields which are apparently in great condition. Each field has areas for batting practice as well as warming up pitchers. The lighting appears to be more than adequate - you could play games here all night long. There are dugouts, warning tracks in the outfield and in foul ground, and what appears to be a snack bar with bathrooms at the center of the quad. The place looks pristine, professional, and has everything you hope to have at a tournament except for one thing, seats for spectators.
Honestly, I did not notice the lack of seating, my wife did. I wouldn't ordinarily be concerned about this, and neither would my wife, when judging facilities. We usually bring chairs everywhere we go to play. Seatibng areas actually get in the way and obstruct spectators' views. But Disney is a bit too far for us to drive - we'd have to fly. And I'm not about to bring lawn chairs on an airplane! I imagine that anyone within easy driving distance, say four hours or less, wouldn't much mind this and that's understandable. I have to assume that this mailing is pretty much nationwide so that is one drawback I should note. But I have plenty of others.
Opening the mailing to the center yields the crux of what Disney has to offer (and/or requires) at their tournaments. The center showed what looks like a scene from a tournament game. What struck me here was this was a very loiw level game. There is a pitcher just releases what must be a change-up based on the location of the ball and the way her hand looks at release. The ball is about 5 feet out of her hand and the batter does not appear ready to swing. Further, there is a girl on second base and she is standing straight up, flat footed, not yet off the base and not looking as if she wil be off the base anytime soon. The only fielder visible is the CF and she is not in a ready position despite the pitch being already released. The pitcher's circle itself seems about right but at the two sides, on top, are two smaller circles, presumably Mickey or Minnie Mouse's ears! What kind of play is this? Is this the Disney version of competitive softball? I don't need no stinking Mickey Mouse operation running a tournament!!
I digress but let me explain that I'm not a huge Disney fan, never have been. To me, Disney can be summed up by a phrase I once heard at one of the studion theme parks many years ago. The tour guide kept using the following phrase over and over again, "facade or fake front." That is what Disney is to me, a facade or fake front.
Years ago, I spent my honeymoon in Orlando. First we went on a cruise aboard the "big red boat" and that was the poorest excuse for a cruise I have experienced. At the time, Dsney itself did not run the cruise line and I believe they do now. So perhaps the Disney cruise is better today.
After the cruise, we stayed at one of the in-park hotels which was very nice. To be perfectly honest, Disney knows a lot about running a very good hotel. The facilities are better than anything I have experienced at any softball tournament before. Everything is clean, fresh and very well maintained. The pools are wonderful. Transportation is extremely good. But who spends a lot of time in their hotel at a theme park? And you do pay for these exceptional hotels.
The parks themselves are something I'd rather not pay for. There are no really thrilling rides - I'll get to that in a minute. The restaurants are nothing to write home about. And while the parks are set up well in terms of placement of amenities and walkability, I always leave them hungry, with leg and back cramps, and broke. This is true of most theme parks. I'm really only willing to go to theme parks when the rides offer something thrilling - not for me these days but rather for my kids - and again, I'll get to that in a minute.
In short, Disney in Orlando is something I can certainly live without now that my kids no longer get off on the available rides. I should tell you that I have been to Orlando recently but we stayed outside Disney parks and did not get their expensive worldwide passes, etc. The most fun I had in Orlando was at something which I believe is called Gatorland. There you can see literally hundreds of crocs and gators in semi-natural habitat. There is a stand which sells turkey hotdogs to feed the gators and that is an experience I cannot describe. One hour spent at Gatorland is more entertaining than a month spent inside Disney theme parks.
The rub against the Disney softball tournaments is what is required of participants. The mailing I received said:"In addition to the team entry fee ... required to purchase a minimunm package ...
- Accomodations at Disney's All Star Sports Resort ...
- Magic Your Way Ticket and Park Hopper ...
- Length-of-event admission to Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex ...
All rates are subject to change ..."
In short, there are a ton of conditions which make the thing about as expensive as any other Disney vacation but presumably you won't be able to take advantage of the "amenities" as much as you normally would, if you plan to play fastpitch softball the way you would want to at a true away tournament.
Understand that even in these troubled economic times, I am an advocate for one true away tournament per year - one at which you have to lodge the team for one or more nights. But in terms of bang for your buck, I don't believe Disney cuts it.
This past year we travelled to a tournament at Busch Gardens in Virginia. We set up reservations at a pretty nice hotel. The price was close to what you would pay in Orlando. Still, we were not required to pay for a bunch of theme parks. Instead most of us paid for admission to Busch Gardens via a several day pass - because we wanted to go there, not because we were required to. We did some other things to entertain the girls, mostly occurring after competition was done for the weekend-long tournament, but we were able to do these things on the cheap, at least by comnparison to Disney.
More importantly, they had real rides at Busch Gardens and the water park wasn't bad either. Honestly, my kids are too old for Its a Small World, etc. My youngest is 12. She, unlike her father, rides the biggest available roller coasters at any given theme park. Anything that wouldn't scare the life out of her is not worth doing unless it is to accomodate a less brave friend.
All the girls on our team had a great time at Busch. They even managed to shame me into going on a couple ridiculous coasters, against my better judgment. The worst of these was something called Griffon and stands some 205 feet tall. I'm afraid of heights so I really don;t know how they got me on this thing but they did. I'll never go back but one time the kids were able to basically ride the thing four or five times consecutively. I don't know what possessed them to do that but I am considering putting them in therapy for a time to work out this madness.
Griffon was not the only good ride available. If I'm not mistaken, there are at least 6 thrilling roller coasters at Busch. There may be more. My memory fails me. I'm still having trouble getting over Griffon - I may be the one who really needs therapy. But my kids loved the rides and would like to go back as soon as possible. They liked Orlando - on a non-softball trip - but that had nothing to do with rides.
My point is, they have real rides at Busch Gardens, not the namby-pamby small-world-type junk you find at Disney. If you have small kids, maybe you'd still get something out of the rides in Orlando. But my kids would sooner steal my credit cards and leave me at Disney to ride any real roller coaster.
More to the point, the competition at the Busch Gardens tournament my older kid's team played was very good. The tournament was well run with two umps doing all games. It was real, competitive softball. We got smoked!
I have to guess that the photographs in the Disney ad are not indicative of the sort of softball played at their tournaments. In this day and age, one would expect any tournament in Florida to be at least fairly competitive. But for the money, I would be afraid of going there since I know I'm going to have to stand all day at the ball park. That'[s not a huge deal but I need the games to be fast and competitive to make it worthwhile. Once we return to the hotel at the end of each day, I can count all the money spent for theme parks we didn;t visit because we were playing. And even if we could go to the parks, my kids would not enjoy them. For me, for the money, Busch Gardens, Virginia is a superior alternative.
Finally, as I said, I am an advocate for leaving one's area to go play some softball rounament far away but softball is the key word in the phrase. I'm willing to forego any sort of real vacation in order to play highly competitive softball outside the area once each year. We stopped going on family vacations when we got involved with travel softball for that specific reason. But I don't wasnt to spend a couple thousand dollars in order to go play a meaningless tournament, against unknown competition, and pay for amenities I never expect nor want to use.
Our typical annual trip is to some sort of "nationals" tournament at some God forsaken crappy motel in nowheresville, USA. One year we were at a motel locted about a quarter mile from the only main highway in the area, close to a truck stop. One of the longer termresidents of themotel was a 50+ year old gal whose career had something to do with offering a personal service to truckers who stayed at the local truck stop. That was interesting and cause for a long discussion with my daughters as the gal frequently brought clients back to her room. Nonetheless, the competition was great and everyone had an outstanding time. We ate at Applebees, DQ, and some little hotdog stand nearby. The only real external entertainment was those race cars. Had we wanted to drive a bit, we could have gone to some very good theme parks with world famous rides. But in all truth, what the girls liked was there were several other teams crammed into the crummy motel the pool was decent enough, and we allowed them to run all over high heaven throughout the motel after games. The motel staff was apparently used to this and had a very long fuse about 12 year old girls running around screaming at all hours of the day.
In conclusion, I have nothing in particular against Disney per se. It is alright for kids say 5, 6, 7 or thereabouts. But I'm not a Disneyphile. And my kids do not find much about their theme parks to be worth the effort. I need more than pristine fields to make me dig that deep into my pocket. If you are looking for a long-distance trip on which to take your team, I suggest looking into Busch Gardens (via Virginia NSA) and/or finding someplace else with more age appropriate facilities and hopefully cheaper price tag, maybe better or at least known competition levels. As a final caveat, my comments have to do with the standard Disney tournaments in the advertisement and say nothing about the tournaments like FAST (perhaps other) nationals which are held on Disney fields - those are wonderful, highly competitive events which, if you have the opportunity to attend, I recommend you do.
Follow-up:
A reader of the blog writes in to say:
"May I offer an opinion on the Disney opportunities? Our team went there last summer and even though we had almost all the trip paid for by fundraisers, I felt that it was a waste of money, make that a big waste of money. The things you were made to purchase never got used, it was either too crowded or too hot or we just were too tired. The parks playing surface was perfect, when it didn't rain (what chance is there of that in Florida)? The only thing that was kinda cool was the opening ceremony and the pin exchange, where the girls got to meet literally dozens of teams. I would recommend that trip, if and only if, you are part of a team that just dominates your local 5-state area and wants to see how you would do against the better teams from across the nation. While we were there, I did get to see some terrific fundamental softball being played by some Elite teams but more often than not I saw softball being played at the same level you can find locally. Bottom line, I think your money could be better spent at a team clinic or hitting/pitching/infielder/catching clinic."Labels: Tournaments, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: Tournacation / Vacanament
 
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