Hello IAFAers!
At this point, our headquarters hotel, the Orlando Airport Marriott Lakeside, is almost entirely full–only a night here and there remain.
We are in the process of negotiating for space at the Sheraton Suites next door, the hotel we have used the last few years for this purpose. For those of you who are new, this hotel is within a stone’s throw of the Marriott.
I ask that if you who have booked a room at the Marriott but do not plan on attending , please cancel your room this week. We can only hold the block for this week. If you cancel after Friday, the room will not return to our block, but to the Marriott, which will then charge the rack rate (twice our special rate); plus, we lose the perks IAFA gets when our folks book into our headquarters hotel, such as room nights for our special guests.
Remember, canceling IAFA registration does NOT cancel your hotel reservation.
If for any reason you need to cancel your hotel room, and we hope you won’t because we want to see you at the conference this year, please let us know, so that we can alert people who have expressed a need that they still need to book a room!
While I have your attention and we are speaking of hotels, please be aware of a feature of staying in any hotel: LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE KEYS TO YOUR ROOM. Housekeeping, Electricians, Plumbers, Sales staff–just to name a few. For this reason, it is imperative that you not leave anything that someone might consider valuable in your room. We have had few complaints at the Marriott, but it pays to be vigilant. The hotel will be happy to keep anything for you in the hotel safe.
If you have any questions, please email me at iafareg@gmail.com.
See you all in March!
Valorie
“The lesson of history is that no one learns.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates
“We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned, T’lan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold. It must be given freely. In abundance.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice
“It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all – but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
“Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Them them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at those contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they’ll break themselves trying for what they’ll never achieve”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season
“What better way to destroy a civilization, society or a race than to set people into the wild oscillations which follow their turning over their judgment and decision-making faculties to a superhero?”
― Edward James, The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction