Home again, home again…
MINI Takes the States was an awesome experience. It wasn’t entirely what I had expected, but for the most part it was awesome. Monday was our last day with MTTS. MINI stopped for the night in St. Louis and after the evening event Brian and I waved good-bye to our new friends and returned home. It was a bittersweet goodbye. We’d had a great time… but we were worn out…. we were both happy to be going home.
We’re already discussing MTTS 2016…. if we’d do it again and how we’d do it differently. Yes, I think we definitely do it again… MTTS was a great experience. MINI people are just a happy, friendly group of people and MINI USA throws an amazing event…. that’s a recipe for AWESOME.
Things We’d Do Different
Start near St. Louis and follow MTTS east. – You notice we’re not even mentioning ‘going all the way’? Coast to coast sounds awesome at first, but Brian and I were so tired after 6 legs of MTTS. Getting in late every night and getting up early to leave with the pack in the morning… it wears on you. It’s just too little sleep to be fun.
Skipping some Rise & Shines. – It is really fun to line up with all the MINIs in the great locations that MINI arranges and take off with a pack of 500 MINIs and a police escort….. but it’s really early. Most mornings we were getting up around 5:30 to get to the location on time and get lined up. It isn’t as much fun to be in the back of the pack and you get better photos if you get there early. I’m not sure how we’d choose which ones to skip…. I wouldn’t have thought the Texas Capitol Plaza would have been cool…. but the photo of Posh right in front of the Capitol is pretty cool. I’d have skipped the Cotton Bowl…. but I didn’t know that until we’d been there. This one will be harder to do.
Wander off on our own. – This is another that will be hard to know which days to wander and which to stick with the crowd. MINI does have some pretty great “surprise & dazzle” midday events…. and part of the thrill of doing MTTS is being with the crowd. There is nothing like zooming into a little town with 300 MINIs…. the look on people’s faces is priceless…. but there were some times and places that I wished we’d had more time to visit and explore. These weren’t places that we’d drive/fly back for an entire vacation…. but another few hours would have been really nice.
Things We Wish MINI Would Do Differently
Don’t get us wrong… MINI did an amazing job. I was blown away by their coordination and planning. MINI took amazing care of us while we were with them. There are just a few things that we think would be nice in the future.
Rallye Notes – Don’t bother. Just tell me where we’re headed and let us decide how to get there. Some of the roads that MINI chose to send us on were not the route that I would have chosen. It took us a few legs to catch on to that. I wish they would have just given us an address for the next events and let us make our own way.
Apps – Either make em work or don’t bother. I know… I know… its a computer program…. they have bugs. It just makes me insane when they don’t work. The Trivia Game and the Photo Challenges/Boards were buggy. Push notifications for the app would have been nice. There were a couple of times when MINI sent us a notice, (traffic or accident) and we didn’t get it until late that evening because we hadn’t known that we needed to check the notices in the app.
MINI Tour Guides – Have someone at the Rise & Shine’s with suggested points of interest/restaurants/events for each leg of the trip. (Maybe people from the local MINI Clubs?) They could help with driving directions if necessary (Google Map). I’m sure we drove right by interesting places because we didn’t know they were there. You can’t always count on signs and billboards to let you know that something cool is right down the road.
Food – MINI, it’s great that you fed me as much as you did…….but you really didn’t have to. There were a couple of times that I wish MINI wouldn’t have bothered providing dinner. In Austin, for instance. MINI said they would be providing food trucks… apparently food trucks are a huge thing in Austin… they were everywhere around town as we were driving to the evening event. I was SO excited…… and then there were only 3 trucks…. only one with anything gluten free…. and it was cold pizza. In St. Louis they did the food truck thing again and this time there were five trucks and MINI gave us each a ticket for one item from a truck… if you wanted more, you had to buy it. That allowed for so much more variety and the food was HOT. One of the things I enjoy about travel is getting a ‘taste’ of the culture. I realize that it is massively expensive to feed 500 people. I wouldn’t mind having more variety and options and having to pay for it. The “ticket” system would be a perfect compromise for the people who are trying to keep to a really low budget…. Just eat what you can get for your one ticket… And those who don’t paying a bit more…. we could buy other items.
Clubs & Dealerships – MINI did an amazing job coordinating the whole thing and many of the MINI dealerships and MINI clubs were awesome. Some of the dealerships and clubs need to think about stepping up their game for 2016…. It’s not like there is a MINI dealership on every corner… I wound’t mind driving back to MINI Sandia in New Mexico for our next MINI. (We’ve also gotten AMAZING service from Dreyer & Reinbold MINI…. I’d be willing to drive to Indianapolis for our next MINI). With a MINI, it’s not just buying a car…. it’s like adding a kid to the family. Some dealerships get that… other don’t. MTTS really gave the dealerships a chance to shine. Some used it…. others….. 😦
Media – MINI’s photographers and media people were wonderful! They were all so nice and fun…. they really made us feel like rockstars. I wish MINI would have had two teams of photographers…. or a separate crew that was uploading all the photos… there was a huge lag between when the photos were taken and when they hit the site. I know those poor photographers weren’t getting any sleep! They were up late at events and then up later working on the photos and then later trying to get them on the sites….. Then they were up early to beat us all to the Rise & Shines. (There was a definite lack of sleep all around.) They were all always so nice…. I don’t know how they managed. (MINI! Hire more next time and let some of them sleep!…… You guys should sleep some too, come to think of it….)
All in all, we had a great time on MTTS. MINI did an amazing job. Can’t wait until MTTS 2016!
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