MACNA coming our way

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/04/19/macna-2011-hosted-midwest-greater-iowa-reef-society-girs/

Well, it's kinda coming our way. It's only a 7 1/2 hour road trip! Who's in?

This may be a great road trip!

I'm tempted, it's about the same distance as it was for us to drive to F & S swaps and I'd love to hit MACNA at least once.

I think it would be awesome to go

Lets go

I wanna go to maybe plan a trip around it w/ family sweet thanks 4 sharing !

I.m gonna try my hardest to go. nice and close but rooms will still cost a little

Rooms will probably be gone really early too. If we want to go, we'll have to plan way ahead.

Sounds like a fun time but no way I could aford to go..

blennieluvr wrote:Rooms will probably be gone really early too. If we want to go, we'll have to plan way ahead.

lol lets start

Is anyone still considering this? I talked myself out of it but now I'm starting to want to again. Like Tiffany said, sure would be nice to go once and what are the odds of it getting this close again?

I would still love to go but it's still up in the Air for me, I have a lot of family coming to stay towards the end of the summer this year,

Currently it's out of the budget for me. I would LOVE to go, but I just don't think it will be in the budget by then.

I'll be there.

Anyone still considering this? There are still rooms available I think. Registration goes up soon. Right now, it's $125. I figure gas would be a bit over $200 there and back and could be split if we carpooled. Rooms right across from the event are $130 a night.

The room rate went up too? I think the rooms I reserved were only $110, and that was the more expensive option.

Gas at $200 round trip - let me put this in perspective by saying that I recently looked at airfare for 1 speaker, round trip, out of the list our club had been talking about. We're looking at about $500 just in airfare. The odds of having another MACNA closer than this one...well only club that even has the memberbase to pull off a MACNA around here is TCMAS. This is your best chance to go for the least amount of money - I would NOT pass it up.

I am planning on going still trying to save some funds !

This might be one worth charging. A self indulgent vacation for your brain, because 15+ speakers in 3 days...you'll learn something and be surrounded by fish geeks and more impressive manufacturer displays than you know what to do with. Anyone who comes away saying it was a waste of time isn't an aquarist

I'm going to have to roll the dice on it coming back close again in the future. Unfortunately there is no way it is in the budget even with charging it for me. Weddings are fricken expensive

Hopefully someone who goes can do a recap on the forums of some good points and pictures of the displays.

Well... we can ALL sleep in Cammies van. That saves hotel fees right there. and.. uhhh... if there's ten of us, that's only 20 bucks. >.<


ROFL kidding. Too expensive for me. I wish it wasn't.

What would be the plan, go down Fri? I don't know if I can get out of work because there's someone on vacation that week but I can ask. It would be nice to finally go to one. Better see if James is on board too though.

Yeah. Well, if I'm on the planning committee, we'd have to go down Friday or maybe to the cities and crash on someone's floor Thursday night and make the rest of the way from there? I may not be able to afford a darned thing when I'm there but my tank is full anyway. I still want to go if my hubby is OK with it. The more I can bring the price down, the more likely that would happen. I'd be willing to pack as many people in my van and in the hotel room as we have to without it being inappropriate. Sleeping in my van? Don't put it past me! LOL

I'll throw this out there - MACNA raffles are huge. Livestock purchasing is probably not one of the main highlights at a MACNA, but I'm sure there will be some choice stuff there. MACNA is NOT a frag swap...I'd make that pretty abundantly clear. It's a tradeshow with ongoing educational lectures, a banquet and such.

Also, I bet you can find some hotels in the area that aren't $100 a night...