TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
No Room At The Inn For Visiting Giants
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: January 4, 2008
TAMPA - Talk about being inhospitable hosts.
Tampa has turned the New York Giants away from the inn. The Giants are in town for Sunday's wild card playoff game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On such short notice, the team couldn't book a 200-room block at a hotel in Tampa, and had to go elsewhere for lodging.
The combination of a robust tourist season and a medium-sized convention in downtown Tampa made for the lack of a 200-room block at any hotel anywhere near Raymond James Stadium, said Travis Claytor, communications manager for Tampa Bay & Company, the county's convention and visitor's bureau.
"Of course what with it being our tourist season," he said, "it's going to be hard for anybody to find a 200-room block. There are enough downtown hotels and along the West Shore corridor to accommodate 200 rooms, but not at a single location."
This weekend, the Professional Photographers of America is holding a convention downtown. While it isn't considered a large convention, there are 5,100 photographers taking up rooms throughout the downtown hotels, some spilling into the West Shore area, he said. The convention lasts through the weekend and into next week and many of those rooms could have been booked a year or two in advance.
The late-booking Giants were just out of luck, Claytor said.
Besides the convention, this is Florida and it is snowing up North.
"This is our tourist season," Claytor said. "A lot of people want to be down here. We're having a good tourist season right now."
The Bucs drew the Giants as their first playoff opponents last weekend and there just wasn't time to get all those rooms together in Tampa, Claytor said. Hillsborough County has 20,500 hotel rooms.
"We have the ability to accommodate any group that wants to come into the Tampa Bay area," Claytor said. "They just might not be all in one hotel."
Giants officials said the situation doesn't pose a problem.
"We are staying in St. Pete," said team spokesman Pat Hanlon in an e-mail to TBO. "It is not a problem. We had trouble finding a hotel to accommodate our needs [approximately 200 rooms and plenty of meeting space] because of the uncertainty of whether we would be playing on Saturday or Sunday and because of the convention in town.
Hanlon said the Giants didn't know the day or the time of the game until Sunday night, "so we didn't know if we needed the hotel space for Friday or Saturday night."
The team settled on an undisclosed hotel in St. Petersburg that met the organization's needs, he said.
"Plus," he said, "the hotel has experience hosting an NFL team. So it worked out. Again, it wasn't and isn't a problem."
Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.
Post a comment
(Requires free registration.)
* Keep it clean
* Respect others
* Don't hate
* Don't use language you wouldn't use with your mom
* Use "Report Inappropriate Comments" link when necessary
* See Member Agreement for details
Reader Comments
Posted by ( nataS ) on January 4, 2008 at 4:25 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Hmmmm...where could they be?
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( azzhole ) on January 4, 2008 at 5:07 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Tampa the inhospitable city. Bucs are a bunch of losers just like their redneck fans!!!!!
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( BlackHorseman ) on January 4, 2008 at 5:14 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( pareed003 ) on January 4, 2008 at 5:50 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Yeah, a bunch of readnecks that are gonna kick some azz this weekend! Welcome to Tampa...NOT! ha ha, stupid Giants will probably get lost on the way to Ray Jay. LMOAO
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( pepe_santos ) on January 4, 2008 at 6:58 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Hey Azzhole: Why did you give yourself that name? Do you have a bad self-image? Go home jerk.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( CanofWhoopAss ) on January 4, 2008 at 7:16 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Didn't this also happened to the Bucs when they played the Eagles in Philly???
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( gina1108 ) on January 4, 2008 at 7:50 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Why didn't they think about this when the season first started? How about have some faith that your team might make it to the playoffs?
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( berlinil ) on January 4, 2008 at 9:14 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( Soonethanlater ) on January 4, 2008 at 9:15 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Nothing says redneck more than calling yourself an azzhole.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( tedh1112 ) on January 4, 2008 at 9:58 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
I am sure the Giants will find the Mons Venus despite their Pinellas location.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( Michael ) on January 4, 2008 at 10:10 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
What about the Mons Venue on Dale Mabry..or the 2001 Odyssey? Go Bucs!
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( rockie4218 ) on January 4, 2008 at 10:18 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
I may be alittle off here, but how many players and staff do the Giants travel with? They needed 200 rooms? That holds 200 to 400 people?
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( 5thGenTampaBay ) on January 5, 2008 at 12:22 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
i dont know how many they brought, but i hope they take them all back... and then some :p
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( brandysdad ) on January 5, 2008 at 3:57 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
We should have given them 200 pup tents and sent them to a local campground.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( masterzvoice ) on January 5, 2008 at 7:19 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
You won't hear the Giants complaining about what ends up being a far superior location to be staying.
The article is typical Tampa tripe spouting out century old nonsense as if Pinellas County is halfway across the world.
Hell, if I were the Giants I'd be begging to stay nearer the beaches.
The Tribine should be more concerned about the attempt by the NFL to extort higher prices for tickets for the game and almost keep local fans from seeing the game on TV.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( MrShrek ) on January 5, 2008 at 8:25 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Rockie4218....Once you start adding everyone up, 1st,2nd,3rd string ( first string gets their own rooms) Coaching staff, support staff, cheerleaders, security staff, hookers, etc, they can easily occupy 200 rooms.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( drdneast ) on January 5, 2008 at 9:14 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Someone find out where they are staying post it here and we'll all go down there tonight and make crank phone calls and other fun items. Someone call Strahan's room and tell him you have a team of dentists on call waiting for him.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( 5thGenTampaBay ) on January 5, 2008 at 9:48 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
i think he likes his gap... im not going to tell him it looks bad ;)
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( CanofWhoopAss ) on January 5, 2008 at 11:57 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
LOL 5thgen!! He can eat me up for breakfast! He is a super nice guy though.
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( rockie4218 ) on January 5, 2008 at 12:01 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Mrshrek, Thanks for the info. I had no idea. Although on short notice they could have doubled up some or split groups up at different places. Considering their profession you think they would know how to plan ahead. Or maybe our Inns should have said sorry to the conventions planned Months ago on the off chance the Giants would pick their Inn to stay at! Now that makes real business sense! LOL! I wonder do they get a whole airplane to themselves or do they own there own plane! LOL!
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( Doofy ) on January 5, 2008 at 12:24 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Are they staying at the "Izit Inn"?
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( berlinil ) on January 5, 2008 at 9:17 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
So you remove my comments but keep azzholes,what the hell is that all about? You guys suck!
Report Inappropriate Comments
Posted by ( flowergirl ) on January 5, 2008 at 11:08 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Good grief, it's not like the Giants are lined up along Dale Mabry in sleeping bags. Hell, they're probably happy just to be able to thaw out! A trip to Florida from the frozen north is ALL GOOD, especially with Hurricane season over with. The accomodations across the Car Strangled Spanner are probably just as sweet. So it takes them a little longer to get to Mons Venus . . . . half the fun is getting there.
Report Inappropriate Comments