<p>My DD just finished her first year at UA and we as a family are offically hooked on all things Alabama. My DH and I decided we must experience one home game while she is attending. As we live in CA, this is an insanely expensive proposition. We decided to try to go to the LSU game in November and are making a little anniversary trip out of it. My question is- what is the best way to get tickets? Is stub hub our best option or are there other ways? Because we are coming from so far away we need to make sure we have tickets. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>You can attend Family Weekend and get tickets to that game as part of your Family Weekend registration. The seats are not good, and the opponent is not good, but you will have seats. Your tickets will come from the university and they will be face value, maybe around 55 bucks.</p>
<p>For any SEC opponent, you will pay top dollar, and you’ll have more difficulty finding a hotel room within an hour’s drive, even if you’re willing to pay top dollar.</p>
<p>Family Weekend is a nice event. There is a pool party Saturday night, a tailgate before the game, and a nice Family brunch on Sunday. And of course, there is the football game Saturday. In past years,there has even been a tour of the President’s Mansion, very nice.</p>
<p>Of course, if you’re deadseat on going to the LSU game, you can probably find tickets through fan sites or stub hub. Since you’ll have an actual seat, you should be able to find a seat. </p>
<p>I know my son had student tickets to the LSU game two years ago, and after walking the entire stadium, he could not find a seat. Student tickets are just in a student section, not an assigned seat. He just went back to his room and watched it on TV with his friends, who wisely sold their tickets beforehand for big bucks. </p>
<p>Hope you are enjoying your first summer with a college student!</p>
<p>We went to the Ole Miss game last year for the long weekend before DD’s tour on that Monday. I found our tickets on StubHub and paid well over face value for them. They were nice seats. We only started looking for them and hotels a month in advance. I found a hotel in Hoover at the Embassy Suites, 45 minute - 1 hour drive away. The drive really was not that bad even when considering it was a late game. As for the price, very reasonable!!! Just looked on Hilton and you can get a room at any Hilton chain (Hilton, Hampton Inn, Embassy Suites, etc) in Birmingham for mid $80’s-190 per night for that weekend. Much better than prices for motels in T-Town that weekend. $250 for the Econo Lodge in T-Town and a few rooms in the $400 range as well for the same weekend.</p>
<p>Renaissance Ross Bridge is a beautiful resort in Hoover – great option for an anniversary!</p>
<p>If you’re a Marriott member, the Residence Inn Hoover is very nice and very reasonable. I doubt you could get as close as Bessemer at this point,but worth a try. </p>
<p>Hope you have a great trip!</p>
<p>And thanks for the Renaissance rec. That one always comes up and I was wondering what it was like. Will try that one in the future.</p>
<p>Thanks all for the tips! </p>
<p>Montegut- it costs us so much to get there I figure we might as well just suck it up and go to a “big game”. Most likely this is the only one we’ll get to. And yes it is nice having our student home :)</p>
<p>Renaissance Ross Bridge looks wonderful…wow!</p>
<p>You could also check for tickets with your local alumni group. I know that the Chicago group will be auctioning off a pair of tickets to raise $ for the scholarship fund.</p>
<p>I like your attitude, cd! Go for it! It will be a great game, very spirited, and I hope you have a great trip.</p>
<p>Join the Marriott Rewards program and earn some points for that nice hotel stay. </p>
<p>Enjoy your summer!</p>
<p>Tickets are sent to Tide Pride members in early to mid August, not very long before the first game. After that, you’ll see tickets posted on StubHub. Beware of eBay - plenty of phony tickets are sold there.</p>
<p>The LSU game is the most expensive game on the schedule this year. This is the week of my Sons birthday and we wanted to go to Tuscaloosa to see him and catch the game. Last year, his b-day weekend was the Texas A&M game. We paid about $200 for end zone seats. The same seats for the LSU game this year are listed for $435 on TicketCity. Hotel rooms during a SEC game weekend are through the roof if you can even find anything. I believe we are going to celebrate his birthday the weekend after. The LSU ballgame should be one of the most exciting games on the schedule though…</p>
<p>Yes, lodging prices are extremely high.</p>
<p>If you have a group, then doing VRBO can “save” you some (not a lot) by dividing the cost amongst several people. My already condo is rented for a few games (LSU game booked in January), and the cost is very high, but when divided amongst 5, 6, 7 people, the cost can be more bearable. I’ve had a few inquiries from couples, but the cost for a 2BR condo is just too high to justify for one couple on the weekend of home game.</p>
<p>Montegut, some advice for our new freshman DS would be appreciated. When you wrote,</p>
<p>… my son had student tickets to the LSU game two years ago, and after walking the entire stadium, he could not find a seat.</p>
<p>How long after the gates opened did he arrive?</p>
<p>Do the gates open when the band marches from Gorgas?</p>
<p>And as a newbie here, should I say band or MDB?</p>
<p>We are traveling to Bama Bound right when the Family Weekend registration opens at 10am CDT on Monday June 10. ([Parent</a> Programs](<a href=“http://parents.ua.edu/fwRegistration.cfm]Parent”>http://parents.ua.edu/fwRegistration.cfm) says 10am CST but it seems unusual to use standard time instead of daylight time in June.)</p>
<p>If we wait to the end of that Monday to register & buy the associated football tickets, are we at risk of missing out?</p>
<p>No, you will not miss out. It seems to me that the family weekend package is available through most of the summer. I guess the football tickets could technically sell out but that will not happen immediately. You should be fine. I went 2 years ago and really enjoyed the whole experience.</p>
<p>my son had student tickets to the LSU game two years ago, and after walking the entire stadium, he could not find a seat</p>
<p>She must mean walking to the stadium. I don’t think her son walked around the entire stadium looking for a seat because with a student tix, he would have been restricted to looking only in the student section which is maybe 5% of the stadium or less. </p>
<p>The gates open a few hours before kick-off, so kids wanting good seats in the student section usually go early. I wouldn’t try going around kick-off.</p>
<p>Son did walk the entire student section, not just the lower bowl, but also, the upper bowl.</p>
<p>He did go when the gates opened.</p>
<p>If you have assigned seats, you should be able to get your seat.</p>
<p>I think the problem was that friends who had assigned seats actually sat with their Bama students friends.</p>
<p>He wasn’t going to be a jerk about it, so he just left.</p>
<p>His friend, a little bit lighter on his feet, did the same thing. He found a seat at the very top of the student section, but left, as he knew no one else around him.</p>
<p>In hindsight, the boys should have stuck together and maybe been a little pushy and may have found seats, but it was crazy that day, and they’re nice guys, so they just let it be. We were more upset about it than they were. </p>
<p>I think for the LSU game, people were lined up hours before the gates open to be the first ones in. The boys got there an hour before the gates opened, so they had a long line before they could even get through the gate.</p>
<p>I know when Shaquille O’Neal was playing basketball for LSU, kids would camp out in a line a week before home games so they could get student seats at the P Mac (basketball arena). They’d swap out for each other when they had to go to class, eat, sleep.</p>
<p>We do a similar thing here in NOLA at Mardi Gras time.</p>
<p>In fact, that’s what I liken football season in Bama to, Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Only thing missing is the topless girls. (We hope).</p>
<p>Part of the issue with finding seating in the student section is that since the seats are unassigned and the space which constitutes a seat is relatively small, people will often take up multiple seats.</p>
<p>Student seating is modified every year and sometimes during the football season in order to get more students watching the games. Still, one often needs to arrive at popular games two hours early.</p>
<p>Instead of buying tickets for family weekend through UA, I would suggest buying tickets from season ticket holders. Our NJ friend was great at finding tickets on the Bama football forums, though one can also find tickets elsewhere. Since family weekend is against a “cupcake” opponent, tickets will often be sold for less than face value closer to gameday. My family was able to get excellent seats in the lower bowl for face value last family weekend.</p>
<p>I concur with sea_tide. Last year S got the package without the family weekend game, so I found 4 tickets together on the 1st tier of the stadium at about the 35-40 yard line for only a few dollars more than the tickets through the package. The only problem with the seats was that they were facing into the sun for the first half of the game - next time I’ll have to get seats on the other side of the stadium! Of course I didn’t get to sit with all the other parents, but my son was able to sit with us and we were surrounded by some VERY enthusiastic alumni, which always makes watching the game a bit more fun. Tickets for the family weekend game are very easy to come by, so if you are there to watch the game, I’d buy your own tickets. The tickets that come with the family weekend package are WAAAAYYYY up there on the top deck in the end zone…bring some good binoculars.</p>
<p>Should anyone need a pair of tickets, contact me via private message. I am a season ticket holder. Others here can vouch for me. Thanks!</p>
<p>Thank you everyone, we’ve learn a lot from your replies. Much appreciated.</p>