Nemacolin Woodlands Resort

SOSP 2013 will be held at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Southwest Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.

For more Information here is their brochure, and fact sheet.

Transportation

Note: Please keep in mind when arranging your trip, particularly if you are attending workshops, that Daylight Saving Time ends in the US on Saturday night Nov. 2 (technically, Sunday morning Nov. 3 at 2am).

Nemacolin is located about 75 miles from Pittsburgh, in the Laurel Highlands area of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Air Transportation

• Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT): The closest major airport is Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), which is approximately 85 miles from Nemacolin. If you are flying into PIT, there are several options to get to Nemacolin (see below). Please consider the distance and drive time when reserving your flights. For example, if your flight leaves PIT at 6AM, you will likely need to depart Nemacolin by 3AM at the latest.
• Other Airports: The Morgantown Airport/Hartfield and the Connellsville Airport are both closer than PIT, but have limited commercial service. Dulles International Airport is approximately 180 miles from Nemacolin (probably about 3-3.5 hours by car).
• Private Plane: Nemacolin actually has a small air strip directly on their grounds. With prior arrangements, it might be possible to fly a small private plane directly to the conference. If you are interested in this option, please contact us.

Ground Transportation

• Rental Car: The most flexible way to get from the airport to Nemacolin is by renting a car. The Pittsburgh airport has all of the major car rental companies. The drive is approximately 90 minutes. Parking is free at Nemacolin. Having a car also gives you the option to explore the area.
• Shuttle Bus from / to PIT Airport: We will provide shuttle service from PIT Airport to Nemacolin on both Saturday and Sunday. We will provide shuttle services back to the airport on Wednesday and Thursday after the conclusion of the conference. The cost to take the shuttle is $20 each way, but you must reserve a spot ahead of time so we can plan accordingly. You can reserve and pay for the shuttle service as part of the conference/workshop registration process. (Note: We are not currently planning to arrange bulk return service from Nemacolin to the airport on Sunday night or Monday morning for people who are attending only the workshops. If you are in this category and need return transportation, please contact us.)
• Shuttle Bus from Pittsburgh (CMU campus): We are also tentatively planning to provide shuttle service to and from Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh. You can also reserve and pay for this service as part of the registration process. The cost is $20 each way.
• Taxi from PIT Airport: Taxi service from PIT to Nemacolin is possible, but extremely expensive (around $350 dollars one way). We therefore recommend that you explore the other options, such as taking the shuttle, renting a car, or sharing a ride with another attendee.
• If you get stuck at the airport: As part of the conference registration process, attendees who request shuttle service will be asked to share their arrival details so that we can make sure to have enough shuttles and to have transportation available if your flight is late, etc. Please plan ahead to arrange your transportation, but if for some reason you get stuck and need help getting to Nemacolin, please contact Jim Wood (Transportation Supervisor at Nemacolin Woodlands) at 724-329-6800.

Detailed Directions:

Please see Nemacolin's Travel Directions brochure for more details, including driving directions from several of the closest airports and other cities in the area.

Visa Support Letters

ACM will handle Visa Support Letters directly. Their instructions are as follows:

The Association for Computing Machinery does not issue formal invitation letters for visas to attend ACM sponsored conferences. We can however issue a visa support letter. For visa support letters, please send all requests to the Office of SIG Services, supportletters@acm.org, with the following information:

• Your name as it appears on your passport
• Current postal mailing address
• The name of the conference you wish to attend
• Your Registration Confirmation Number
• If you have any papers accepted for the conference, please provide the title and indicate whether you are the 'sole author' or a 'co- author'

Please note visa support letters are issued via email by PDF and the original is mailed to your current postal address.

Accommodations

Update We are sold out of rooms at Nemacolin Woodlands. There are no single rooms or spaces in shared rooms remianing. All of the Luxury Homes have been sold. Please book a room in the overflow hotel (see below).

Rooms at Nemacolin Woodlands: Nemacolin provides a variety of accomdation types from luxury rooms and suites to town houses and individual houses on the property (please see Nemacolin Accomodations for details). We have blocked all available rooms for the duration of the conference, at the following special rates (nightly rate, includes resort fee, but not 9% tax):

Falling Rock (1 or 2 beds):	$239
Chateau (1 or 2 beds):	$179
Lodge (1 or 2 beds):	$139
Town Houses (3 beds):	$139

We plan to accommodate most of the attendees at one of the Nemacolin properties. When those rooms fill up, we will make off-site overflow hotels available. We recommend that you register early.

Note To more effectively manage the room blocks, and to enable the largest number of attendees to stay at the conference hotel, all of the Nemacolin rooms must be booked as part of the registration process. Please be aware, however, that the conference registration fee does not cover the hotel (as was the practice for SOSPs some years ago). You will have to present a credit card at checkin time and pay at checkout.

To this end, we are reserving room types with more than one bed for students (and other attendees who are willing to share a room). As a condition of the reduced student registration fee, students will be required to share rooms unless they apply for and are granted an exemption code. If you are a student and have any mitigating conditions or requirements that will prevent you from sharing a room, please email sosp2013-reg@acm.org to apply for an exemption. If approved, you will receive an access code to enter on the registration page. You will not be able to complete the registration as a student requesting a single room without a valid code.

The registration form will ask for checkin and checkout dates and room preferences. If you are sharing and know who you would like to room with, please enter the name and email address of your desired roommate(s) in the optional fields. Room sharing assignments will be based first on mutally selected roommates, and only then on dates needed and room preferences. So if you and roommate(s) that you specified do not have consistent preferences or dates, you may not get your preferred room type, and may have to cover the cost of the entire room on nights they are not checked in. Please coordinate with you desired roommates to avoid any surprises.

Luxury Homes at Nemacolin Woodlands: There are also 4 houses available for larger groups on property (nightly rate, includes resort fees, but not 9% tax):

Arden Estates (8 beds + 2 sleeper sofas):	$377
Garshak Treehouse (6 beds):	$278
Cottage at Grouse Glen (4 beds):	$199
Walden Pond (4 beds + 1 sleeper sofa):	$199

If you are interested in booking one of the houses for your group, please contact us (sosp2013-reg@acm.org) to make arrangements. Attendees who are staying at a house should specify that they do not need accomodations when they register. To maximize the number of people housed on site, please make sure you have enough people in your group to use all of the beds; otherwise, we may need to assign additional guests to avoid wasting space.

The luxury homes will be assigned on a first come, first served basis. Please note that Grouse Glen and Walden Pond do not have Internet access.

Overflow Hotel: We have reserved a block of rooms at The Summit Inn Resort at 101 Skyline Drive, Farmington, PA 15437, a few miles from Nemacolin Woodlands. The nightly rates are as follows (does not include 9% tax):

Summit Inn Single (1-2 guests):	$185 (Friday/Saturday)
	$150 (other nights)
Summit Inn Double (1-2 guests):	$185 (Friday/Saturday)
	$150 (other nights)

To book a room at the Summit Inn, please call their reservations desk at 1-800-433-8594, and mention that you are with the SOSP conference. Because of the room block, you must call to book a room, and cannot use their web reservation system. The room block expires on Sept. 20, when any remaining rooms will be released to the public. If you book a room at The Summit Inn, please select "I don't need a room" when you register.

We plan to arrange transportation between the Summit Inn and Nemacolin. Additionally, the shuttles to and from PIT Airport and CMU will make a stop at the Summit Inn. For more information about The Summit Inn accomodations, please see here.

Activities

We have scheduled some free time right after lunch on Tuesday (Nov. 5) for conference attendees to enjoy some of the activities that Nemacolin and the surrounding areas have to offer. We hope that it will also give attendees additional time to socialize and, weather permitting, spend some time outdoors. Here are some activities you may wish to consider.

• Trip to Fallingwater: Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is one of the area's more famous attractions. You can learn more at the official website. We are planning a group trip/tour that can accommodate approximately 100 people. We will arrange buses there and back (it's about 30-40 minutes drive). To return in time for the next session, however, buses will probably have to leave at the beginning of lunch; therefore, we will provide box lunches for the tour participants, which they can eat on the bus. The cost for the tour is $35, and we highly recommend that you sign up and pay during the conference registration process. Attendance is on a first come, first served basis. If spots remain, we will allow them to be filled at the conference itself.
• Nemacolin Activities: Nemacolin's website has a complete list of the activities that they offer. Some of these activities may depend on the weather. Just to list a few:
  • Golf or Skiing (depending on the weather--early November could go either way)
  • Woodlands Spa
  • Pools
  • Shooting Academy (sporting clays)
  • Other: Zip Line, Off-Road Driving, Ropes Course, Climbing Wall, Downhill Mountain Bike Trail, Target Paintball, Combat Paintball, Miniature Golf, Bowling/Arcade
  Most of these activities cost money; our contract with Nemacolin gives our attendees a 15% discount.

Some of the activities require a minimum number of participants, and some have a maximum. We believe there will be very high demand for some actitivies during the free time on Tuesday. For these, the registration form will ask you if you wish to sign up for the activity (though it will not ask you to pay as part of registration). The only activity that we need you to pay for as part of registration is the trip to Fallingwater, described above. You can sign up for most of the activities when you arrive at the conference itself, but everything is first-come, first-served, and will be paid directly to the resort.