GOFASTJUNKIE

Our family will be in Hampton over Memorial Day Weekend. Our son has a basketball tournament. Yes, I have one of the few white kids that play AAU basketball. He is only 9......What is there to do? Will it be crowded? We are used to Ocean City, MD. Is it anything like that? Traveling, would it better to leave early or late Friday? Any input would be great.

Any OSO people boating in that area for that weekend?

I was thinking of trailering mine down, I just think it will be a waste for me.......

seafordguy

Traffic on 64 East will be HORRENDOUS getting into Hampton on that Friday. Absolutely HORRENDOUS from the minute you get through williamsburg - you either need to leave EARLY as in plan to be there by noon or so, or LATE as in plan to be making it to the williamsburg area about 7ish.

Where abouts in Hampton are you staying? I'll try to give you some ideas based on that....

GOFASTJUNKIE

I am not sure of the hotel yet. The team has not let us know. We usually stay at nice hotels. Well I think they are nice to be staying at with a team of 9 year olds..........I hope I am staying close to where I can jump on your Cafe for a quick ride........

I should know the hotel in the next couple of days and I will let you know Seaford. Thanks for the reply.....

seafordguy

There aren't a lot of choices for decent hotels in Hampton.

The only two decent hotels I can think of are the Embassy Suites, which is in the middle of a massive construction zone right now. It is however located within about a mile of one of those "power plants" that have the Bass Pro Shops, and 4 or 5 bars/restauraunts. There are a fair amount of chain restaurants around there - Not local flavor but something....

The other decent hotel is the old Rennaisance Hotel which was bought out and renamed.

http://www.hamptonmarinahotel.com/

There is a cobble stone downtown area about a block away that they rope off and have a "Block Party" on Saturday night. Beer in the streets, fair amount of people - there is a great blues bar there called Goodfella's that has some great live acts. Not too many chain restaurants nearby, but probably a better opportunity to find some charisma.

There is boat dockage all around the hotel (this is where they host BAYDAYS every year) and they have an outside food deck that is pretty decent as well as a bar inside the hotel. Blue Water Yacht Haven is right across the canal and would provide some eye candy for you to go check out and they have food at a local chain called Surf Ryder and sometimes a DJ/live music.

The air and space museum is also within about 200 yards walking distance of that hotel for the kids to check out. Also if you are looking for kid stuff you could venture back to Newport News (about 3 or 4 miles back down the road) and hit the Virginia Living Museum or the Waterman's Museum. Norfolk has Nauticus which is okay - although I kind of felt the only neat thing about it was the battleship Wisconsin tour and even that was kind of mediocre since they really only let you on the top deck.

If you are thinking of trailering your boat down, the Hampton Marina Hotel is the place to stay - you can lauch for free at a ramp that is within a half mile, get a slip behind the hotel, then you can shoot across to Norfolk in about 10 minutes to hit Waterside, run out into the bay and shoot up to Salt Ponds Marina (again, about 10 miles away) - On sundays the marina has a Tiki Bar and a swimming pool and usually an acoustic solo type act (at the minimum some music), and they also have a nicer restaurant that over looks the marina and bay. Or you could come out of the hotel and head north up the James River and go see the "Ghost Fleet" which is probably more about 22-25 miles away.

Let us know where the tournament is held and what your time frame/schedule is and I can help you out with some of these locations that I mentioned above.

ERIC

Reckless32

Rock & Roll festival at Va. Beach that weekend. Should be lots of other activities. Downtown Hampton has a weekend block party every saturday night which be started by then. Waterside Norfolk has the Nauticus center and the USS Wisconsint o visit as well. Hampton has it's own share of centers to visit including NASA and it's own beach (Buckroe).

GOFASTJUNKIE

Staying at the Country Inn and Suites. I think it is exit 262 off of 64? Don't know much more than that. Sounds like we will not have a whole lot of time to get to far where ever the kids are playing. We usually play in the "rougher" parts of town. I was told we are playing somehwere call the Boo Williams Center????? 3 bracket games on Sat the double elimins on Sunday. As always AAU tournaments are rather long and tend to run late.

My biggest question is still traffic. We will be leaving between 5 and 7 pm from around Frederick MD. How bad will it be on 64? how bad on 95?

seafordguy

If I was making that trip at that time of day my biggest concern would be the D.C. traffic because you are goign to be hitting that area at a HORRIBLE time.

Once you get around D.C. the worst case scenario is I-95 is a train wreck and you get off and get on Rt. 1 - it runs Parallel to 95 and you can hop back on 95 just past Ashland, VA in time to get on 295 South headed to 64. I've done this many times.

There is NOTHING between Richmond and Williamsburg - it is all just vacant land. 64 begins to back up about mile marker 240 (right on the other side of williamsburg) but if you leave at 5 you won't be getting there until 8 or so and should be fine I would think unless there is something Catastrophic.

24skaterVA

Come the back way through Warrenton it will save you tons of time dodging traffic. All my family is from Hagerstown MD. & thats the way we always go.

GOFASTJUNKIE

I was planning on going around Leesburg and taking 17 down into Fredericksburg. We are, however, not leaving until Sat morning. Our 1st game was moved back to 12:40 rather than 9 am. That makes it easy, get up and leave. Thanks for the input everybody.

Will any of you OSO bros be in that area for Sat night?

I am leaving my boat at home. Just would not work out to take it.