Fellow blogger Gary Crisci posted a blog yesterday about how to save costs to attend Kaleidoscope 09 in Monterey, CA and he specifically mentioned getting the hotel shuttle from the airport. I certainly concur if you fly into Monterey but my thought is that it may be a less expensive flight to go to an alternative airport. The two closest alternative airports are San Jose and San Francisco. Both of these airports are served by discount carriers and have decent driving routes to Monterey. The driving routes take you either over the coastal mountains to Santa Cruz, then around Monterey Bay or take you south through Gilroy, the "Garlic Capital of the World" and Salinas, where we have an customer in the produce business (and where I first saw broccoli in an Essbase outline.. really..)
I will probably fly into San Jose on Southwest and drive from there. If I booked my flight now, I could get there from Nashville, TN for about $400 roundtrip. My family is coming so my car will be full but perhaps we could setup a ride sharing post on Network54 and OTN if others want to fly into the other airports.
