My Tuesday night men’s team has decided to go Las Vegas in January 09 for the Military Bowling Championships. The tournament will be held inside the Gold Coast Hotel / Casino. Since I’ve never been to one of these I would like to know what to expect?

How is the hotel? We (myself and wife) are going to stay right there where the tournament is. The room rates look good and I like not driving from one hotel to the tournament site sounded good. It looks like they offer shuttles from the hotel to the “strip” so I’m not even thinking about renting a car. For those that have been there is that a wise choice?

My team of six consists of five retires and one active duty personnel. Reading the rules, it looks like we have to bowl the team event as ACTIVE since one of members is. That’s no problem. Actually, I think it would be to our advanced!

I’m going to ship my equipment out to the hotel about a week before we arrive. I’ve called them and was told that would be fine since I was staying there. One less thing to deal with when flying out from the airport.

Anyway, let me know what to expect and things to do / not do while I’m there.

Here is the link if anyone else interested:

http://www.militarybowlingchampionships.com/Default.htm

Robert

Berreez,

What you can expect is a great time ( no matter how you bowl )! The tourney is well run by the High Roller people.  The best thing to me on my first trip to this tournament( being a retiree myself ) was getting to see the people I had not seen in years, this is as much a reunion as it is a bowling tournament.

As far as staying at the Gold Coast goes, obviously it is very convenient but there are better options and the Orleans is one of them, I prefer staying on the strip.

Having one active duty member will put you in the active duty division for all events, not just the team event, reason being is there is a Team all events event. That was my circumstance as well for the past two years. One thing you should know is that the Retiree division is where the money is at.  The retiree division normally has more entries that the AD and Senior division combined. last year 175 teams entered and the Retiree division had well over 100 of those teams.

The PBA exempt tour will have two stops in Vegas during the time frame of the Military tournament ( The PBA Exempt Doubles Classic and the Tournament of Champions ) both will be held at the Red Rock Hotel and Casino.

One thing to know is you will always be on the go, remember Vegas never sleeps!

Have a great time.