Cal Ripken Myrtle Beach experience?

[raptor]

Has anyone's team played in the Ripken Experience week long tournaments at Myrtle? We are thinking of it this year for our annual trip.

[The Flush]

I don't know anything about it except that some local kids that are a little older than my son plan to go in 2013. It looks like a fun time. If I hear anything from the team that is going I will post it here.

[tg643]

We've only done the tournaments at Aberdeen. They were very well run.

[omg]

We didn't play in a tournament but just played games. Astroturf fields so weather is a minor factor. No complaints. Hotels reasonable and close. Great fields. A lot to do in Myrtle Beach. Good overall facility: cages, practice infields.

[AdamInNY]

Have no experience yet, but son's team is doing a weekend tournament in Aberdeen in Sept.

[tg643]

If you play in Aberdeen don't expect the small fields to be as much of a replica field as you might be led to believe.

[Roothog66]

If you play in Aberdeen don't expect the small fields to be as much of a replica field as you might be led to believe.

We've played a lot of tournaments on the replica fields of Big league Dreams Parks. They are interesting for about 30 seconds. Once the game starts, you don't even notice. It also seems that my kids continually are placed on Polo Grounds or Sportsman Park. I find it interesting, but my players have no idea what those parks are! They want to play on Fenway or Wrigley.

[tg643]

At Aberdeen the replica parks bear a resemblance to the MLB parks. There is a green monster at the Fenway Park. It's the only thing that would make you think it's Fenway.

[raptor]

At Aberdeen the replica parks bear a resemblance to the MLB parks. There is a green monster at the Fenway Park. It's the only thing that would make you think it's Fenway.

So you mean there are no urinal troughs in the john, no Gulden's spicy for the dogs? No smell of stale beer in the concourse? No vendors screaming "spooohrts baaarhhs?"
Disappointed...

[Rufus67]

We played Myrtle Beach a couple of years ago and it was pretty cool. Very professionally run, of course, between the tournament staff, field folks, and officials. We also picked them instead of Cooperstown for the exact reason someone already mentioned, lots of other stuff to do in the area. This made it more of a family vacation with a tournament thrown in as well. You usually won't play more than 2 games a day (at least until bracket play starts) so you've got time to explore the area and take advantage of the tourist-type stuff.

The fields are replicas of old time fields, scaled down of course, but that's a bit of an issue on some of them. Strange OF configurations sometimes result in short porches so fly balls turn into homers. Really deep fences mean that anything that gets behind your OF is a in-the-park homer (you couldn't realistically play the OF as deep as the fences or the majority of balls hit out ther would fall easily). Sliding takes some getting used to on the artificial turf but having the kids slide a couple of times helped them get used to it.

It was expensive but worth doing at least once in a lifetime. Not sure I'd be in a hurry to repeat it any time soon though.

[AdamInNY]

Others that have gone; I've heard most kids (in the 12 and under groups) are using big barrel bats. Did you find this to be the case?

Adam

[tg643]

We didn't travel to these in the preteen years. My understanding is it's what occurs.

[darivero]

Love the place, it's a great summer vacation as Myrtle Beach has lots to do. Stay at a beach hotel and not where Ripken recommends. We won the whole thing twice as 11 and this past summer as 13...My son even won the HR derby...he hit 7 out and the next closest hit 2....we are going back again next summer as 14's....the kids do so much there, jet boat, zip line, ropes course, mini-golf, great shopping, fireworks, minor league game, water park, go-carts, and more...do it!

Dave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcTAqSrOQlU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k98fjhh_sJk