2017 National Convention

Thanks Mark - your assistance will be sincerely appreciated if Branson is the chosen site for the 2018 convention. There is a MoPar guy employed at Presley's Country Jubilee where the Route 66 MoPar Club held their 2016 and prior year annual car shows. He indicated his support for a DeSoto National so possibly we can get things underway fairly easily and quickly. Sometimes it's not what you know but who you know that makes the biggest differences.

Please let me know what I can do to get things started if it's a "go" in Branson for 2018.

Thanks again,

Fred

"It's delightful, it's delovely, it's DeSoto"

I've e-mail John Boyd regarding the concerns about our 2017 convention. I've suggested that he includes a map in the welcome packet showing where other near-by restaurants are located. I know this doesn't help you with having to take your car to get there, but perhaps you can share a ride with some other members who will also need to go out to eat.

As for the parking, I assume (and yes, I know how the word assume is spelled; lol) that the De Sotos will have a section of the hotel's parking lot all to ourselves. Then each De Soto should have at least 1.5 parking spots in order to prevent door dings - and 2 parking spots per De Soto would be even better.

I did a quick check on a couple of web-sites about comments on the host hotel - the only problems I found is that the building is a bit old and beginning to show its age. I didn't see anything about bed bugs - but perhaps I just didn't look hard enough.

I don't know what the parking fee will be for those who don't stay at the host hotel - waiting for John to reply on that topic.

As for a 2018 NDC Convention in Branson, MO, I haven't received any convention bids from anyone suggesting our convention be held there. (As far as that goes, I haven't received any convention bids from anyone for our 2018 convention for anywhere!) I submitted an article last year for our club's magazine requesting bids for our 2018 convention - I honestly done recall if that article has been published yet or not. Regardless, I don't have any bids at this time for our 2018 convention.

Bill Noble
NDC Convention Coordinator

Good evening Bill,

I'm not sure how to go about placing a bid for the NDC convention site but if you will inform me of the procedure, I certainly am interested in doing so for Branson, MO in 2018.

Please advise.

Thanks,

Fred

"It's delightful, it's delovely, it's DeSoto"

Fred,

I've e-mailed you a message with an attachment on how to submit a bid for one of our conventions. If you don't get the e-mail, please let me know. And if you have any questions after reading the attachment, please contact me and we'll take this off-line of the message board and let the others get back to talking about the 2017 convention.

Bill

Well,

Sondra and I spent a week going over everything we could find out about the site for 2017. Nothing we came across contradicted the opinion we formed a few weeks back.

Given that Sondra has to set her schedule in stone for April 1st, 2017 to April 1st, 2018 no later than this next week...we cannot wait for the organizers to aggressively address our concerns. So, we have scratched this years convention.

I did write to the organizers with my concerns, and CC the club leadership, before I posted on this thread. The answer was basically that it was all about costs. My detailed parking questions were brushed aside.

Saving even a $100 a night for five nights by having a lower priced hotel (for California) is a savings of $500 for such a trip. One very serious door ding would cost more to fix if you have a first class paint job.

We would not have minded a $200 to $225 dollar a night place with a ton of dedicated parking. Then it would have been worth the trip. In addition, at the (again California) moderate price in the low $200 a night range one would also get a much better venue.

I do hope that everyone has a great time and that the nobody's car gets hurt. But, the choice of venue is such that Sondra and I will pass.

Too bad as I have all but finished the restoration of the 1949 Convertible and I am sure people would have liked to see it as much as I would have liked to show it.

As one person said in this thread, event planning is all about advance planning with a focus on details, details, and details.

James.

Just wondering why the show can't be held at a local park, fair ground or in conjunction with a local car show ? That would be much nicer surroundings than a crowded hotel parking lot.

Ron

I haven't logged into the desoto.org site for a couple of weeks, so I missed this extensive thread of responses to my convention announcement until now. I hope this additional information from the Crowne Plaza will answer some questions, and I apologize for the delay. I've visited the hotel several times, inspected rooms, dined in the restaurant, and attended a really nice buffet reception put on by their marketing department. Based on my travel experience, I would say this hotel is among the nicer Crowne Plazas I've stayed at. I relayed some of the concerns raised in this thread to the hotel, and they have responded as follows:

"We can provide a list of restaurants. We provide a shuttle to two nearby areas that have a wide variety of restaurants… Fashion Valley Shopping Mall and Old Town. Our bellstaff transport guests on demand to these two areas from about 9 AM – 9 PM daily.

"We do take pride in our restaurant operation and feel that the vast majority of our patrons enjoy their dining experience, be it in the restaurant, room service, or at our Sushi Bar, which is one of the more popular Sushi Bars in San Diego.

"We receive many reviews of a positive nature. In this age of social media, any individual who has a negative experience has a pretty public forum to air any concerns they may have. Many times the negative reviewers have booked their room through one of the search engines that guarantee a very low rate. Of course, the hotels offer the least desirable rooms in terms of location to the very low rates these guests obtain. Expectations are often high for these guest and may not be commensurate with the rate they booked.

"We will have the hotel back in top shape within a day or so of the conclusion of Tiki Oasis.

"Peyton has just confirmed to me that you and she discussed our blocking off a portion of our parking lot for the classic cars (not any large RV’s or Campers). We will do so.

"We have traditionally blocked more than one spot per car in the parking lot for car shows, so we will do so again here as well.

"The parking lot is gated. We have a contract security guard patrolling the hotel overnight every night. You may want to consider hiring a security guard if you want someone dedicated to monitoring only the classic cars overnight."

Parking for visitors is hourly, with a maximum of $13 per day. For our convention, the parking fee is reduced to $4 for hotel guests. If you would like to come to the convention but would rather stay at a different hotel, there are many, many to choose from in a wide variety of prices. This area of Mission Valley is officially called "Hotel Circle". Crowne Plaza is giving us meeting rooms and other amenities including a car show venue based on our room guarantee.

Classic Thunderbirds of America hosted their Sep 13-18, 2016 convention at the Crowne Plaza. You can see some photos of their car show and read the report at http://performance.ford.com/enthusiasts/newsroom/2016/11/t-birds-gather-on-the-left-coast--for-ctci-fun-in-the-california.html

Hope to see you all there!

Thanks John, for the update.

Thanks Mark - your assistance will be sincerely appreciated if Branson is the chosen site for the 2018 convention. There is a MoPar guy employed at Presley's Country Jubilee where the Route 66 MoPar Club held their 2016 and prior year annual car shows. He indicated his support for a DeSoto National so possibly we can get things underway fairly easily and quickly. Sometimes it's not what you know but who you know that makes the biggest differences.

Fred...might we not see your '59 in Branson? https://springfield.craigslist.org/cto/5941043871.html

Mark

Mark,

It's a scam. I went through an identity theft about a month ago. However, if somebody offered me $35K they would own it.

"It's delightful, it's delovely, it's DeSoto"