So... Do we have any dates?

June 11th?

4 months away then

Sounds like some people have been beavering away behind the scenes...

Unfortunately that weekend is already taken

Say it isn't so

Edit:

Which date are you looking at by the way, Rob updated it from June to 8/9/10/11 July.

Linked the actual announcement thread.

Date on the web site needs correcting.

http://theultimateempegmeet.info/

Unfortunately the updated date. Elaine's nephew from New Jersey is visiting us here in Amsterdam

Sounds like someone who needs a weekend in Dorset.

Not sure I would subject a 16-year-old to that...

So... July then? I might be able to pull this off. How exactly does one get from London to Wareham? I see it's a 100 mile drive. Are there reasonable train connections?

It is just under 2.5 hours from London Waterloo by train, often with no changes.

http://traintimes.org.uk/london/wareham/10:45/2011-03-22

N.B. I haven't checked to see whether Wareham is the closest station to the hotel


Wareham is the closest, not much over a mile from the hotel.

I'm pleased to say that Rob has picked a venue a mere 8 miles away from possibly the best pub in the world.

http://www.squareandcompasspub.co.uk/

Though if it is a sunny weekend there is no way to get any where near it, far too popular nowadays

I'll be there. Still deciding whether to bring the kids (and, by implication, the wife).

I really want to be there, but its one week before I'm flying out for my wedding!

Hey, congrat's on getting hitched (soon)!
Where are the nuptials being held?

Thanks Mark! My fiancée is from Calgary so most of the ceremonies and the wedding itself will be over there.

Well, that's the second high-profile Brit I can recall from recent years that's found a suitable bride in Canada!

Umh... All I get from those links is a static logo (from a redirection to xs4all.nl)

Darn! That's the North Sea Jazz weekend, for which I already have 3-day tickets ...

Pim

Above the logo it says "June 11th, 2011: Where will YOU be? "

If I recall correctly, it's not the first time that Jazz festival gets in the way of the Empeg meet for you!

Coincidence: I've been invited to a workshop in Germany that's July 10-15. This is fortuitous because it means my transatlantic flight can now be a business travel expense. It also means I may not be able to make all four days of the empeg meet, but some is certainly better than none.

(Non-trivial travel question: my post-empeg German destination would be Schloss Dagstuhl, which is vaguely near Wadern. From the U.S., you fly to Frankfurt and spend hours on a train. From London, it appears that I can fly to either Zweibrücken or Luxembourg. Anybody done anything like this?)

You can fly from London Stansted (STN) to Hahn (HHN) (which is just 70km away from Dagstuhl) via Ryan Air. Have a look at Ryan Air's website - you can get good deals on flights for as low as € 19,- or so at times. Be aware of their hidden costs though...

Cheers,

Peter

But you won't be at Stansted if you've just arrived from the US -- you'll be at LGW or LHR. It's not worth transferring between London airports -- especially not to/from Stansted -- just to shave a couple of hours off the train journey at the destination.

Peter

I thought he'd be in Wareham...

Well, I was under the impression he would be at the empeg meet after he arrived from the US and would travel to Germany after that. But still - he would have to get from STN to either LGW or LHR upon his return from Germany...

Peter

or:
* US -> LHR/LGW
* empeg meet
* Stansted -> Hahn
* work event
* Frankfurt -> US

Not always do-able but worth investigating.

Right, that would be the best solution.

Peter

That's right. But the last time, the Empeg Meet was in Amersfoort, and I managed to attend both events. That's going to be hard this time.

Pim

Found on http://www.hook-a-canuck.com/ ?

Pim

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, my plan is first to attend the empeg meet, then to fly to Germany for my meeting. As such, places like London Stansted are very much a valid alternative if the flights are right. I'm asking for advice about making this particular connection.

Ryan Air... man the stories I hear about them frighten me. They make Southwest Airlines sound positively posh.

tanstaafl.

It is hard to say who is more responsible, the passengers or RyanAir themselves. RyanAir wouldn't do all the crazy stuff they do if the passengers weren't agreeing to do all the outrageous things they do for cheap airfare. A few years ago RyanAir was fined for having people in the lavatory during take-off and landing, since there were no empty seats. Who agrees to do that (and who thinks that is a good idea from an airline standpoint)?

Any more detail on program/schedule? I might be able to be there for *part* of the weekend...

I will be at the meet.

This is not a surprise

And welcome back ??? (hopefully!)

Cheers

Cris

I will not be at the meet. (And I swore I'd make this one.)

Gonna try.....

We'll be there.

I want to come, and most probably will.
But this is one week before I'm 4 weeks off, and leave for a motorcycle trip to the north cape. My boss won't appreciate it if I take even more days off, so it would only be from Friday evening (and night) till Sunday for me.

Ah, Nordkapp on a bike - great! Just take a full face helmet - protects against the mosquitoes and midges

Will it keep out the reindeer too?

No, but if you have high enough speed when you hit them, you'll just fly over... A collegue of me tested that a couple of years ago...

Stig

Good point. I realized that in the summer the reindeer prefer open, windy places as the wind keeps the mosquitoes at bay. Unfortunately the best open space is the highway...

Well, i'll have some american guy in a rental car driving in front of me from Oslo, so he can catch the reindeer first.

We'll be there, too

-Peter

This time I could be there as well, with my gf!

She needs to be in London on that same week, so maybe I can work it all out in the weekend, when more details are available.

Indeed, I guess we are all eagerly waiting for more details to see how we can arrange things.

Bumping an old thread... any new news on the agenda? I need to book my travels soon. Right now, my thought is that I'll fly in for the beginning and leave on Sunday, with the particulars to be determined by available flights and train connections.

Same problem - running out of time to make any arrangements

Have a look over here.

Excellent! Will see what I can do to drag my sorry backside there!

And for anyone browsing without Flash, the hotel link you need is http://www.thespringfield.co.uk/pleasure/default.aspx

Ok, flight and room's booked.
For everyone who hasn't booked a room yet - hurry up, as according to the receptionist there are only a view rooms left at that weekend.

Cherrs,

Peter

Just booked our room, really looking forward to it.

Room from Friday to Monday has been booked, now it's time to book some flights as well...

Stig

High-season flights are way too expensive from here, so do take lots of photos for us folk who are stuck at home!

Sign up page is online now:

http://empeg.sl.cm/initialreg.php

Please register ASAP so Rob S can review the numbers for each part of the event. You can change your details later if you need to.

Rob

Is there any information about which events that can be combined on Sunday? Or are they all excluding each other?

Stig

Hmm.. Still waiting for response from the hotel...

They got back in touch with me earlier today. Try them again?

Did you contact them using their contact form or email? I tried that and since I never heard anything back from them I ended up calling them by phone. It also took them three days to send me a confirmation email (only after I called again to remind them). Impressing service, really...

Cheers,

Peter

I just phoned the hotel and booked my room. Apparently, the magic phrase is to say that you're attending the Schofield birthday party, which then gets you a reduced rate.

Meanwhile, I now have to plan my travel to and from London. I'll be arriving at Heathrow sometime Friday morning. There's apparently a direct train from Waterloo station. Anybody have reservations booked already? Or is somebody driving?

Similarly, I'm leaving Sunday for my Ryan Air extravaganza to Germany. Anybody else have any particular plans for leaving on Sunday onto which I can piggyback?

That didn't work for me. Last Thursday I was told that only executive rooms where left at the regular price. When did you book your room?



We'll arrive Saturday morning.



We're flying Ryan Air too, but we'll stay through Monday


Cheers,

Peter

I booked only a few hours ago. She said they were out of regular rooms but had "superior" and "executive" rooms, so I'm now in the superior room. The price was 84 GBP or thereabouts.

RobRicc and I are ariving friday morning at heathrow too. You might be in the same plane as him.
Rob rented a car, i'm hitching a ride, and i'm pretty sure there's more room in the car.
We're both returning on sunday afternoon too, but to heathrow again, your ryan air flight is from another airport?

I'm also arriving Friday morning (09.20) and planning to take the train, unless someone is offering to let me hitch a ride. I'm staying until Monday.

Dan, was your quoted price with or without breakfast? I was quoted £93 with breakfast, which would only be needed on Saturday, for a Superior Room.

Stig

I assume those prices are per night?

I reserved a Passat, so there should be plenty of room to take a couple more from Heathrow. Just PM me with your details and Bas and I will meet-up with you.

My flight gets in at 7:50AM on Friday.

Yes, they are per night.

Per person, per night. With a ~£20 premium if you are a single person in a double/twin room.

The rate I got, including breakfast, was £79 per person per night for an executive room.

I never asked whether I got breakfast or not. Somehow, I imagine no two of us will end up spending the same price at this place.

I will now gripe about Ryanair. Oh. My.

A one-way ticket from London-Stansted to Frankfurt-Hahn is nominally 36.99 GBP. However, there are additional fees which I must pay:

EU 261 Levy 2.00 GBP
1 x (1st Checked Bag (20kg)) 30.00 GBP
1 x (Web Check in ) 6.00 GBP
Administration Fee 6.00 GBP

And, on top of that, they wanted to charge what amounted to a 10% currency conversion fee on top of that. All said and done, I'm paying somewhere around $136 for the one-way ticket.

They're charging me for web checkin, which saves them money, and I have no idea what an administration fee is. And then they're constantly trying to upsell you on travel insurance, car rental, hotel, and on and on it goes. And that 20kg allowance on the bag... if I end up above that, there are per-kilogram fees.

For contrast, a flight on, say, Southwest Airlines, one-way from Houston to Oklahoma City, would be $69 at the "web special" rate without any additional fees or assorted crap.

No wonder folks dislike Ryanair. Amazing stuff.

So... how should I best get from the empeg meet to London-Stanstead for a Sunday 15:25 departure?

Did you check other airlines? I'm planning to go down to Spain for a week in November and I checked 3 different airlines, Ryanair being one of them. They did turn out to be the cheapest, but not by much and the departure time from Spain was 07.00 in the morning... The airline I expected to be most expensive, was actually close to Ryanair in price.

Edit: Don't forget your boarding pass when you go to the airport, otherwise you have to pay £40 extra. I just checked Lufthansa. They would have flown you from Heathrow to Frankfurt for £87.78, so not much more and I expect the service to be higher.

Stig

Whenever I fly, which is not that often, BA always seems to be within a few tens of pounds of the budget airlines prices. I always pay the extra and avoid the awful budget experience.

Life is too short to be treated like scum by Ryanair.

The only real option, unless someone can give you a lift, is a train into London and back out:

http://traintimes.org.uk/wareham/ssd/14:00a/2011-07-10

The other option is if someone else is going back to Heathrow on the Sunday you could get a lift and then a transfer to Stansted by coach:

http://www.nationalexpress.com/coach/Airport/London-Stansted-Airport.aspx

But given that the transfer can take nearly two hours, the train all the way there is probably a better bet.

Sunday is of course the day that they tend to rip up parts of the train network, so you need to keep an eye out on whether your journey is likely to be lengthened/delayed at all.

I don't think Cris and I are going to be able to attend. At £84 pppn, it's just too expensive.

For those of us in the US, it would be more like £700.

I can't make it either.

I guess me and RobR got lucky, we're in a normal room for 52.50£ per night.
There's no reason you have to sleep at that hotel though, is there?
Maybe bring a tent and stay at this campground?
http://www.ridgefarm.co.uk/

edit: or this one, even closer: http://www.caravan-sites.co.uk/page3.html

For now, I'm not going to book any train tickets. When we get closer to the day, I'll see if there are any scheduled train outages or (if I'm lucky) a ride I can snag in somebody's car.

As to Ryanair vs. other carriers, my destination isn't Frankfurt-Main (i.e., the actual city of Frankfurt), but rather the middle of nowhere (as mentioned earlier), and Frankfurt-Hahn, which is nowhere near Frankfurt, is actually the closest airport to my destination. I did investigate flying into Luxembourg, which would be comparably close, but that was a much more expensive flight.

Besides, at least once, I need to experience the depths of airline hell so I can more properly appreciate the, umm, blinding good design of American discount air carriers.

(Sigh.)

EDIT: I went and checked again, and it seems there's a £107 flight on BA from Heathrow to Luxembourg. Naturally, I checked and Ryanair offers no refund mechanism of any kind.

The only rooms they had were the executive ones. Despite the woman telling me yesterday she'd reserved a normal room for us.

I don't think camping with Cris is an option.

After some searching, it looks like we're going to spend Friday night in a B&B nearby, then we'll be heading back Saturday night after the evening do.

Do we have any idea what time the Bovington tank museum outing ends on Sunday? Might have to head out on Sunday evening. Depending on the timing I will either get a rental car from the airport, or have time to pick up the Vampire on Friday and return it on Sunday...

Ah, and does anyone have the email for the hotel? I still haven't gotten the promised confirmation for the booking I did over the phone.

You'll find the email address here, but I recommend calling them as they never replied to my emails.

Peter

If anyone is flying into Gatwick on Friday morning and wants a lift, let me know. I'll be driving down on Friday with an empty car, starting from near Gatwick (and driving back on Monday).

After reading stuff like that, I'm feeling less annoyed about not being able to stay there. Given my so called 'reserved' room went from £42 pppn to £84 pppn in less than 24 hours.

I phoned the hotel and got the same "limited availability" but I don't feel like stressing over it

I'm *far* more concerned about what to do on Sunday

So ... anyone know which of the events combine?

Ice-cream, Pooh sticks with ducks and model aircraft sounds like a good mix.
Question is ... will the Harbour trip fit in too ???

If we all arrive at the hotel and they stare at us blankly, I wouldn't be altogether surprised if we solved the problem with a mass outing to a camping goods store to purchase tents, which we would then pitch on the hotel's front lawn.

Would your route perhaps pass 51.013458,-0.422603 (that's where the Vampire lives currently), and how early in the morning are you planning on setting off?

I would be perfectly happy to go via that location. And back via it on Monday if that helps.

I have all day on the Friday, so I can pretty much leave when ever suits you.

I am pondering coming, is anybody in a twin room and needing somebody to share? I am house trained, don't snore, and have ample earplugs so snorers are not a problem

Andy, that would really be great! Let me check on what time on Friday I can get access to the storage!

I'm in a twin room with a spare bed. I'm not in a need to share, but I guess I could save a few pounds by sharing...

Hi all.

RobS asked me to pass on the message that he's hard at work resolving any problems and questions arising from the meet and this thread, but has been away for the last week and unable to respond directly. He should be active on the BBS from Wednesday.

See you there...

Patrick

I wasn't really sure which events were mutually exclusive, so I've put my name down for them all at the moment!!

Hi everyone, I am here and things are going ahead, but I will confess to being a little busy sorting a few things out. Please be patient and I will try to post a bit more often than I have been doing.

Rest assured, the party events are (nearly all) on and I for one plan on ensuring you all have a DAMN GOOD TIME!!!

I just booked a standard room at laterooms.com but I fully expect to get an email telling me there are only superior ones available. At that point I'll have a chat with them about bait and switch and see what can be done.

Rob

I just met with Rob who asked me to explain that most of the Sunday activities are mutually exclusive, so you should choose one. You can go back to edit your itinerary using the link that was emailed to you when you submitted it.

This party is looking pretty damn epic, I'm looking forward to seeing you all!

Cheers

Rob

If you still need accommodation for the party, one option is the Poole Centre (Holes Bay) Premier Inn which is £80 - £90 per night. Rob will be running a mini bus between the hotel and the party venue.

http://www.premierinn.com

Rob

Any chance of swinging the minibus by our B&B on the Friday night? Map

This would at least allow Cris one night on the sauce.

Just for clarification, Harbour boat trip from the itinerary page, is that the River booze cruise to secret destination? It's the only one I couldn't quite match up with the listed events.

Should be possible, please mail me to remind me on film.night@xs4all.nl with details. Note that the film night starts at 5PM for food and drink, the show begins at 18:00, with the main film starting at around 21:00. See you there!

Yes, this is the secret (!) sea voyage. This one is still in flux for various reasons, will firm this up soon.

Well, I'm staying at the Premier Inn, just booked the room. Anyone else there?

pca

Everyone, sorry I've left this very late but we need to know your required T Shirt sizes. The booking form has been updated so you can enter how many you want of each size. The shirts will be cotton polo shirts with embroidered logo, and should cost around £10 - £12 each depending how many are ordered.

We need to place the order very soon due to lead time so please update your form now - you should have a URL in your email to take you back to the registration page.

If you can't make it to the party but would like an empeg shirt anyway, please post your requirements. Sizes are available from Small to XXL.

Rob

I can't find the email, any clues on how to get back to update my registration ?

Ditto.

For what it's worth, I tend to be between L and XL on shirt sizes. If it's a "Beefy-T", I go with L, otherwise I typically grab XL.

It would have emailed the link to whatever email address you gave it. Otherwise, just post here.

What reply to address would the email have had ?

caspervend@sontaran.casperdns.com

Subject line was "Your Empeg Meet Itinerary".

It came from caspervend@sontaran.casperdns.com and that is also the reply-to address.

Thanks, not quite sure how I failed to find that

There will be a distance travelled competition at the meet so don't forget to set your odometers! Here are the rules:

If you are driving (by car/motorcycle) all the way to the meet then the rules are simple: note your odometer mileage when you set out, and the miles driven during the journey can be submitted as your entry. Accurate google map mileages are acceptable.

If you are using public transport (e.g. plane, ferry, train or bus) for part or all of your journey, then your competition miles will be half the number of miles travelled as the crow flies for that stage of the journey. Note that the starting point of your journey is considered to be the place from which you set out specifically to attend the meet - in other words, if you live in Iceland but happened to be in France on other business, then your competition mileage will be calculated from your starting point in France. If, however, you set out from Iceland primarily to attend the meet and stopped over in France en route then the full distance will count. We will rely on your honesty!

There will be a prize for the longest distance travelled.

If you are travelling in a party (i.e. sharing a car, or travelling together by public transport) then only one member of your party can enter the competition. In the event of a dispute, the meet organiser will slap troublemakers with a wet fish.

Good Luck!

Rob

SWMBO has refused to let me have the car this weekend. Something about needing it to ferry the kids around.

Is anyone else travelling down on the train from London? Is it easy to get a cab from the station to the hotel?

Would anyone have some small, simple powered speakers they could bring to the meet? Looks like I won't have enough time to splice in the empeg in the Vampire harness, but the sound from the empeg is essential - it will only be extremely bandwidth-limited voice (radio traffic), so small speakers (or actually just one speaker, as it is mono anyway) will do just fine, but it needs to be powered by 24/12V or battery. Would bring a computer speaker myself, but I am trying to avoid having to pay for checked in luggage on EasyJet.

I'll have a couple of X-Mini II speakers with me, they might do at a pinch (they are louder than they look). I'll bring a phono to mini jack lead as well.

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electron...er/Product.html

One more thing - we're having a show and tell session during the meet. Anyone who wants can talk about their interesting project (which doesn't need to be empeg related, just geek friendly) for 5 mins during the session and then demo it further over the lunch break if folks want to see more.

If you want to bring something let me know.

Rob

Perfect! Thanks!

I'll bring one of my latest projects. But it won't fit inside. I need something like 15 m x 10 m space outside, preferably on hard ground, and with easy vehicle access. Preferably a place where a few drops of oil won't cause an issue, and where the stuff can stay for the whole day. Oh, and with free air above

Yes Julf, I think we'll push your show and tell out to lunch time

Rob

?

Nothing like having a rapier battery tracking you as you walk past...