Graduation

M

Missi9

5-Year Member
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Aug 19, 2014
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New to the site, was wondering about Graduation, daughter graduating in 2016 and need to know how soon to start preparing for travel, length of time spent at Academy etc. No military experience in this family and very proud of my daughter who did all this on her own!
 
Depending on how many people you plan on attending your daughter's graduation....it's not too early to reserve a house if that is your preference. Houses (particularly large houses) go fast. Most people that I've heard about stay 5-7 days....with graduation towards the end. Say Sunday to Friday or Saturday.
You should be able to access the 2014/2015 graduation activities/schedule to get some idea of what things you may want to attend.

Good luck to your daughter....she is over half way there!
 
We’ve placed a deposit on a house that’s within minutes of the Academy for our 2016 kid. There are a quite a few that we viewed that are already rented. I think it was Stealth 81 that had a good post sometime back about moving his son’s stuff out of the dorm early and storing it in the garage of the house they rented. After the hats were thrown, all he had to do was go back to the squadron to sign out and that was it. Other good posts about keeping extended family together, classmates hanging out at the house during the week, etc. Seemed like the best option for our family.
 
We rented a "suite" in the Quality Inn which is near downtown on Bijou St. It's essentially two large hotel rooms, but there are 2 bathrooms! If you ask for room 284 (I think that's the number, but ask them), there is a FULL KITCHEN in addition to the two baths. Free hot breakfast (real breakfast, not just bagels and frosted flakes), pool, nice gazebo picnic area, meeting area, and restaurant if you don't want to cook. Across the street from Dennys.

For our purposes, it worked out better because we didn't have cook/shop/clean up, had the pool & hot tub, and was about 10 minutes from USAFA. The best part is the 2 bathrooms. :) It was comparable in price to renting a house as I recall for our 2012 grads.

It is an older hotel so not exactly the Hyatt Regency, but adequate to our purposes.
 
Here is a link to a thread from last year. There are several other threads about graduation, too. Some of them are linked in my post in thread below.

Graduation Activities

I still keep in touch with the owner of the house that we rented. He is a 1969 USAFA grad from Texas and he keeps the house in COS as a vacation home. I am pretty sure that it is already rented for '15 and '16, but if anyone wants the contact info please send me a PM. He also rents it out for Parent's Weekend if anyone needs a place for that. The house is literally three minutes from the North Gate and has great views across I-25. It is especially nice to watch the Thunderbirds practicing the days before graduation.

Stealth_81
 
Can I suggest....

We had a smaller group (8 people.) We arrived in Colorado Springs on Friday and relaxed Sat and Sun. Monday was Memorial Day with a parade at USAFA. Tuesday was the final parade in the morning and commissioning in the late afternoon. Graduation was on Wed. (Many parties in between events!) We flew home on Thursday afternoon. We stayed at the Residence Inn on Federal Way in northern Colorado Springs. It's only 5 minutes from the North Gate (generally the preferred entrance point.) It's relatively new, comfortable, has kitchenettes, and overall a great place for graduation in our opinion. We booked it approximately one year in advance. Non refundable deposit was due about 100 days before graduation.
 
We attended the 2012 graduation flying in Saturday, leaving the next Saturday. We figured it would be our last time in Colorado for a long time and wanted to see some of the local attractions!
 
Stealth 81, I didn’t realize you made that original post in 2011. My memory is still intact for an old guy! Heck, when you made that post my kid was a Falcon Scholar at NMMI.

Everything you said in that post made an impact on me so I knew that when it came our time, we wanted a house close to the Academy so we wouldn’t have to fight the traffic during the week and he could make a quick getaway after the ceremony. The back yard of the house we rented looks down on the Academy so we also should have good ring side seats for the Thunderbird practices. Thanks again for the great info.
 
Mikeandcris said:
We stayed at the Residence Inn on Federal Way in northern Colorado Springs. It's only 5 minutes from the North Gate (generally the preferred entrance point.) It's relatively new, comfortable, has kitchenettes, and overall a great place for graduation in our opinion. We booked it approximately one year in advance. Non refundable deposit was due about 100 days before graduation.
Click to expand...

We have also stayed at this Residence Inn, and will be there in two weeks for Parent's Weekend 2014. It is a very nice place, the people running it are very friendly and helpful, and the rooms are new and kept up very well. It's amazing how much the rates change, though. We were there in February for our son's initial tour of the Academy (shadow a Cadet day), and we paid under $100 per night. We went back out for In-Processing, the rate was about $170. This coming weekend, it is $200. I am a frequent flier with Marriott, so a couple of times that we've stayed there, we have been upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite, which has a full kitchen with oven and a 2nd bathroom, which was very convenient. They have a full breakfast, which is passable, but certainly not worthy of Zagat recognition. And, it's one exit south of the North gate, which is very convenient.

We're a long way away from graduation, but we're considering bringing our RV out and staying at the USAFA campground. For those that don't mind a bit of roughing it, this also might be an option to renting a house or staying in a hotel.

Keith
 
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