Anybody look for a national or regional listing of casinos/resorts rather than "just" a convention hotel? Might find something just the right size in a more rural area...
been waiting for someone else to bring this up.....
Last summer my wife and I, along with another couple, spent a night at the Belterra Casino and Resort, located on the Indiana bank of the Ohio River and half way between Cincinnati and Louisville. If anyone watched the NASCAR race from Kentucky Speedway last night, this is located about 10 miles north of the track and is a very rural area. The closest towns are Florence and Vevay, Indiana and Warsaw, Ky. The resort is a 4 Star hotel with 6 different restaurants and a lobby bar. it has plenty of (nice!) rooms, parking, and meeting rooms. I can't remember exactly how many rooms it has, but there is also a small motel across the road and hotels in Vevay and by the Speedway if we needed more. Pretty sure it has a banquet room big enough for our group (9500 sq feet) There is plenty of good riding on both sides of the river in Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky, along with the Markland Dam crossing about a mile from the resort. This may be considered too far east to be a "central" STAR, but it should at least be considered a possibility. I passed along the contact information for the resort to another member that asked me to check it out.
In addition, here's something I hadn't realized....those meeting rooms and the audio/visual equipment is NOT free......these places charge considerable amounts of money for it, and for such things as "free" coffee and refreshments in these rooms. So if you ever wondered why the cost of attending a STAR is so high, this is part of the answer. AND....those costs have to be considered when choosing a host hotel. Some places just cost to much to allow them to be break even, let alone profitable, facilities.
