2012/2/8 Gunnar Wolf
<gwolf@gwolf.org>
> Advantages:
> * Price: It's going to be a lot cheaper than the Crowne Plaza.
Can you define "a lot" in numbers? :)
The rooms are going to be at least 50-75% cheaper than Crowne Plaza (and about same cost as El Conquistador and triple rooms at Teodolinda). Around ~$20 per person/day.
The conference rooms costs from $450 to $1000 (each, per day) at Crowne Plaza. At Ticomo the most expensive conference room costs $250 per day.
> Difficulties:
> * The venue is not located at the center of town, as the Crowne Plaza.
> * To leave the venue people would have to walk four hundred meters or take
> a moto-cab (only during day time) to the pan american highway. There you
> can find a super market, karaoke bars, pizzerias, a drugstore and a few
> restaurants. But, surely, you will not find the variety of places like
> close to Crowne Plaza.
Not a big deal IMO. As long as we can go to the town if we so want,
even by taking a taxi (which would be a cheap option for most
foreigners). And the hotel is almost inside Managua.
It's difficult to get a cab there, specially at night (imagine Estelimar). But I guess we could arrange something with some local cab company.
> * Accessibility is a difficult, since the auditoriums are spread out all
> over the place and a lot the terrain requieres quite a lot of steps, but
> the owner of the hotel promised us to build the conditions so that the
> hotel will be completely accessible in July. We probably would have to work
> hand in hand together with them to assure a successfull work on this quite
> difficult task.
This is also fundamental. Please look into the hotel's promises. I am
sure (answering to your other mail, to which I already replied) that
there _will_ be a price increase for this, but if it's still doable in
time, and still reasonably below the CP price, I'm all for it. Of
course, the hotel ends up winning as they will now have a fully
accessible setting! Make sure that somebody with knowledge in this
field can work with them and supervise the work is properly done.
Yes, we'll make sure to do this.
> * Connectivity: Since it is not in the center of town, we will have to
> check that the needed internet connection is available at this place.
Fundamental issue to solve.
We have a meeting today to look into this... will update later.
> * Hotel Ticomo is a pretty big place and providing a wifi network there is
> going to be more work and requires more cables, routers, etc...
We don't need to cover wirelessly every last room. Of course, it's
best if we can. But if the place is too big, the priority would be
cover all of the work areas, then the lounges/halls where we'd be
having our food and leisure time, and finally the rooms. Yes, it's
nice to have Internet in the bedroom, but IMO it's the place where
it's least used.
The working spaces are spread all over the place and it will require more work. Obviously, the natural obstacles won't help much (anybody loves climbing trees?). ;)
> * We will not have same luxury as Crowne Plaza, there are rooms for 3 to 8
> persons, sharing same bathroom and in some rooms the bathroom is inside of
> one room. Maybe some people would even have to sleep on mattresses. The
> hotel is a little bit a youth hostel style (from a comfort view), the air
> conditions are pretty old and beds and rooms are not very new and to get
> all people there we would have to pack up the rooms (and some would have to
> sleep in double beds). Please have a look at the photos to get en
> impression.
We have had less luxury. We really don't need CP-style
accomodation. Of course, it's not like all of us are grass-eating
hippies who sleep on just any spot (although some of us are). Please
try to get a list of rooms and facilities. If detailed floorplans are
available, much better!
I don't know if there are detailed floor plans, but we will ask the owner.
Please bear in mind that it's a quite old hotel (+40 years?) and not so well maintained.
> * DebianDay: If we make a Debian Day outside of the center of Managua, we
> would get less people to attend and we will need transportation for
> visitors.
We could have DebianDay in downtown Managua, in a university or
something like that, as we did in Argentina. That's something that can
be even deferred a bit.
If we do it outside the main venue we won't be able to stream/record the conferences? Are you suggesting in doing Debian Day before/after DebCamp/DebConf?