Book a hotel that will allow you to cancel dates. The competitions either don’t care or are in cahoots with the hotel owners to try to milk every dime out of you that they can. They won’t put up schedules in a timely manner and it’s hard to book hotels and/or plan your vacation dates from work when they won’t even put out a skeleton. (I do give Masquerade some credit. They put out a skeleton when they announce their schedule for the year.)
Pack lots of sunscreen. Put in on your kids first. Repeat often. There’s nothing worse than packing a sunburnt 8 year old into an itchy costume that’s covered in sequins.
Anxiety Relief - this one’s up to you. Ask your doctor for some Valium. Bring wine. (I don’t recommend mixing those.) Do yoga at sunrise. But chances are, you’re going to be stuck in close proximity with THAT mom for about a week.. Not to mention, you’re going to be stuck in a hotel room with your dancer and/or family for a week. You’re going to need stress-relief. All of these options are probably cheaper than bail.
Don’t stress out over the word “nationals.” First of all, there’s about 30 going on around the country on any given week. Secondly, I’ve never seen someone NOT qualify. And finally,regionals have gotten so ridiculously long (4-5 days) that a nationals is nothing more than regionals with higher entry fees.
Don’t plan on doing anything outside of the competition. Well, ok, do. But be prepared that when they get around to giving you a schedule, it’s probably going to poo on all of your plans anyway. I think they have some sort of formula that creates the schedule to be as inconvenient as possible for each individual family.
Back to that everyone qualifies thing - everyone qualifies. Even that number that was so painful to watch at regionals. Bless their little hearts - but their parents’ money is green too. So, you’re not going to get the super top of the line you would expect with such a fancy title as “national finals
