Just curious for those who attended.
Which worked better? It sounded like the parking involved a long hike from your car, plus the challenge of finding the vehicle later.
Where did the hotel/downtown shuttles drop off the passengers?
Even with the shuttle service to and from Spycoast, there was still alot of slogging around. The lot at Spycoast was huge and depending on the time od day one arrived, often we were parked in the far back. We discovered that one could go in through the campground entrance which accesses through the rear of the Spycoast resulting in a pretty quick walk, especially as you ended up near the lake and the stadium.
Our first event was the dressage freestyle and we ended up walking back from the main entrance to Spycoast. It made for a bit of a hike, but that was nothing compared to the delay in trying to get out of the lot that night. It took us 1.25-1.5 hours to get out of the lot that night.
Longest walk we had was from the Spycoast lot all the way to the arena to see the vaulting.
We had a car and there were two of us so it was cheaper to drive and pay the $20 to park as opposed to the shuttles at $15/each person. Tried to buy shuttle tickets but they were sold out said our hotel front desk person.
Our hotel shuttle was grand. Bought the tickets when they were $10/day, well worth it.
Though we could not find a time schedule, we generally just walked outside the Hyatt and there was a bus waiting.
After the freestyle, we started to get in the humongous line outside the gate, expecting to have to wait forever, but a volunteer was yelling to everyone that this line was for Spycoast, so we realized we just had to walk past it.
NO LINE whatsoever at our hotel shuttle. We just got on, waited till the bus left about 5 minutes later, and went home to hotel!
I would have liked a time schedule, though–or at least a sense that they would leave on the hour or half-hour or something. One hotel clerk seemed to have one but we never found anyone else who knew.
Thanks to the great powers to be - the COTHERS! - I picked up the tip to park off Newtown across from the Embassy Suites in the deserted IBM building’s lot (for free) walked across the street and picked up the $1 Lextran bus. The bus was sitting right there to fill up from that lot and it was a WEG party bus going on! Picked up the same bus $1 and it dropped us off and I picked up my car. No traffic, no walking!! Straight to the main gate and back. PERFECTION. TY cothers!! what an awesome resource.
The shuttles (actually LexTran bus) were easier and cheaper for us. Either $8 or nothing to park downtown. Then $1 per person each way. Parking was free downtown on weekends and was free one weekday when we exited after they left for the day and the exit gate was up.
We never waited long at either end. The notorious night of the freestyle, my traveling companion dragged me out of the stadium before the awards and we got right on a bus.
I used CarDar on my Droid phone to find the car when we did park at SpyCoast (or whatever the even-farther lot was on XC day).
The shuttle from Frankfort was fabulous. Far better than driving in for us, relaxing, easy to catch, plenty of buses. Very convenient.
I parked at Spycoast every day (no shuttle option from hotel in Richmond and I really thought it would be a bit much to ask the Austrian team contingent staying at same hotel for a ride.:))
Took the shuttle to main entrance first day (XC) and quickly figured out that it really didn’t save any walking for much of the park. Thereafter, we walked to the ‘back’ entrance which was really an easy walk. Did take the shuttle back a couple of times when we ended up on that end of the KHP at day’s end.
On the second Friday, the friendly driver in a van from one of the local churches decided business was slow enough that he could just deliver everyone to their cars. Awfully nice of him!
We parked each day (our hotel was dropped from the shuttle list this summer) and had no problems getting in or out.
Based on some of the griping here on COTH, I was expecting a much longer walk from SpyCoast parking to the Park. It took maybe 5-10 minutes to walk from the car each day to the entrance and maybe another 5 to get to the stadium from the entrance.
We never had a delay leaving the parking either but (1) we were not there on the final dressage night, (2) we shopped a bit after xc ended and so I think we missed some of the rush and (3) we boogied out as soon as Michael Jung went through the finish flags because we had a very long drive home ahead of us that Sunday.
We also never hit any traffic coming into KHP but we were pretty die hard and were there quite early each day.
Since there were 4 of us, parking at Spy Coast was cheaper than taking one of the hotel shuttles (but not Lextran).
I think we got him too on the second Thursday. Very nice!
On the second Thursday the line for the Lextran shuttle was the long one, we left at roughly 5PM. I could see as we left in our truck that the busses were backed up at the actual park exit, trying to turn left to head to Spycoast and those of us leaving and leaving from Spindletop were impeding them. We weren’t permitted to make a left out of Spycoast which would have been quicker to get to my work.
You know, I’m sorry I never did see that IBM building when I was scoping out the bike trail or I’d have said something about it sooner. It’s a little embarrassing to live somewhere and never go certain places, however they are hoping for an uptick in Lextran ridership around town now that locals have tried it out and seen how convenient it can be.
Coordinatng mass transit is harder than it looks, they did well in general.
and p.s. I promptly spend the money I saved w/ free parking at the Trade Fair. 
And no one (here at home) is the wiser :winkgrin:
[QUOTE=pony grandma;5155990]
Thanks to the great powers to be - the COTHERS! - I picked up the tip to park off Newtown across from the Embassy Suites in the deserted IBM building’s lot (for free) walked across the street and picked up the $1 Lextran bus. The bus was sitting right there to fill up from that lot and it was a WEG party bus going on! Picked up the same bus $1 and it dropped us off and I picked up my car. No traffic, no walking!! Straight to the main gate and back. PERFECTION. TY cothers!! what an awesome resource.[/QUOTE]
I did the exact same thing after reading a post on COTH. It really worked out well and I was happy when I learned I didn’t have to go all the way downtown. It was fast and I only had to pay $2 a day for transportation/parking. After the first day I really didn’t have to wait that long for the bus and if there was a line to go home it went very fast. Plus I really liked talking to other people on the bus. A nice volunteer gave me her radio to listen to the commentary and I was also offered an extra ticket from someone else. Lextran was a lifesaver.
Good for you (unless they read the BB)! :lol:
Thanks to this forum found out about parking at Spindletop and taking their shuttle to KHP. I drove down from Ohio for the driving marathon and parking there was a snap! Easy in. Easy out. :yes:
Originally we had planned to park the first day and then take the shuttle the next. But since parking was so easy for us we ended up doing that that whole time.
We parked in the “WEG Office” lot which was across Ironworks at Research Park Dr or something like that. They had shuttles to the main gate that parked right along with the hotel shuttles. We didn’t wait in a single line for our shuttles and had absolutely no trouble with parking. Getting out was a breeze as well. Leaving they fed us all out the other way to a different freeway on ramp. It worked and went much better than I was expecting after hearing the horror stories from here.
I was really surprised none of the cothers had mentioned the office lot. IT was defiantly the way to go if you weren’t doing the shuttle thing.
We got the hotel shuttle wristbands when they were $5 per person and they worked out great for us. We never waited long for a shuttle, and our waits involved cheerful conversations with either volunteers or other people in line. One unforeseen advantage was that our party of 5 could split up as needed - so the people ready to go early in the morning could just go, the people who wanted more sleep or time for breakfast etc could catch a later shuttle. When part of our group scored reining tickets, they could, while the tired went back to the hotel. We always knew that even if we split apart and couldn’t find each other (we always found each other easily) we would be able to get back AOK individually. No stress, no drama. I think $10 was too steep but I was mostly okay with $5.
On our last day (the middle Sunday), we knew we’d need to make a break for the Cincinnati airport immediately after SJ, and our hotel near the airport/downtown was 35 minutes in the wrong direction from the horse park. So, we researched the routes and found a hotel on the Georgetown route, parked there Sunday morning, took THAT shuttle in, and then coming home we saved well over an hour of travel time, plus we knew that we’d be past any WEG-specific traffic. Our plan worked brilliantly!
