SARA 2009

SARA 2009: The Eighth Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation and Approximation

Travel and other Local Arrangements

Local Transportation

A map of the Los Angeles airport (LAX) as well as the different signs can be found at:
http://www.lawa.org/uploadedImages/LAX/images/GT_mapF.gif
The contact person for all questions and enquiries before and on your day of travel until at least 3:00pm is William Yeoh, a graduate student volunteer. His email address is wyeoh (at) usc.edu.
Rendezvous Point: to board the bus to Lake Arrowhead, meet under the "Flyaway, Buses and Long Distance Vans" green sign on the Lower/Arrival Level islands in front of either Terminal 2 or Terminal 6. There will be student volunteers (William and his clone) holding up a sign that says "SARA/SoCS" at those two points. You need to get to either of these two locations before 2:30pm, at which point the shuttle bus will sequentially visit the locations, pick people up and depart for Lake Arrowhead. The student volunteers will be there from 1:30pm to 2:30pm. The shuttle service is provided by Gold Coast Tours.
To get to either of the two rendezvous points, you can take the free airport shuttle between terminals. Board shuttle "A" under the "LAX Shuttle & Airline Connections" blue sign on the Lower/Arrival Level islands in front of each terminal. It is recommended that you start waiting for the airport shuttle no later than 2:00pm to ensure that you arrive at the rendezvous point on time. Ensure that you board the correct shuttle (Shuttle "A") as there are shuttles serving other routes (such as to long term parking) that stop at the same sign. For more information, see http://www.lawa.org/welcome_lax.aspx?id=1878.
For those who arrive after 2:30pm, it is likely that the bus for Lake Arrowhead has already departed. It will be then your responsibility to get to SARA venue on your own. Below we provide information that may help you doing so. The destination address is:
Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa
27984 Hwy 189 Lake Arrowhead, CA 92352
Phone: 909-336-1511
Fax: 909-744-3088

which is roughly 100 miles away from the airport. You have several options to get there:
Option 1: Shared Ride Vans (Primetime or SuperShuttle). You may share a van with other passengers using either SuperShuttle -http://www.supershuttle.com/ - 800-BLUE-VAN Prime Time Shuttle - http://www.primetimeshuttle.com/ - 800-RED-VANS. You can board the vans under the "Shared Ride Vans" orange sign on the Lower/Arrival Level islands in front of each terminal. There should be an attendant from each company at the island to help you. It is highly recommended that you contact them in advance if you plan to use their service since Lake Arrowhead is not a typical destination from LAX. Otherwise, the wait time for the shuttle will likely be long since the companies will need to organize an additional shuttle for you. The ride should cost approximately $130 per person according to SuperShuttle's website. For more information, see http://www.lawa.org/welcome_lax.aspx?id=1298
Option 2: Rental Cars. You will need to take one of the rental car shuttles under the "Rental Car Shuttles" purple sign on the Lower/Arrival Level islands in front of each terminal. Each rental car company will have its own shuttle that shuttles you to their office. The rental car companies also rent out GPS devices which are highly recommended if you are not familiar with Los Angeles. The companies should also be able to provide maps and directions to get to Lake Arrowhead. It should cost approximately $90 per day for the cheapest car according to Enterprise's website. For more information, see http://www.lawa.org/welcome_lax.aspx?id=1294
Option 3: Taxis. You may board taxis under the "Taxi" yellow sign on the Lower/Arrival Level islands in front of each terminal. For more information, see http://www.lawa.org/welcome_LAX.aspx?id=942. Since the ride is long and the fare will thus be very high, discuss your destination with the driver before boarding a taxi.
Option 4: Sharing Rides with other Attendees. SoCS folks provide a publicly editable wiki at http://idm-lab.org/wiki/search/index.php/Main/TransportationBBoard. We hope that this wiki can be an additional tool for those of you who are interested in finding other conference attendees to share taxis/car rentals/van rides with. If you are renting a car and are willing to give someone a ride, for example, it would be great if you enter your information on the wiki. The wiki is not moderated.

Registration

Register for SARA and SoCS online, including arrangements for any accompanying persons as well as a seat in the charter bus(es). The form does not reserve a hotel for you so you will have to do so separately as described below. The registration site is at:

https://www.events.unh.edu/RegistrationForm.pm?event_id=5785

Contact Wheeler Ruml at ruml (at) cs.unh.edu if you have problems registering. Please register as soon as possible.

Student Registration

Students will register at the full rate. Depending on the number of participants and conferences expenses, we _may_ be able to subsidize student registration via post-conference refunds.

Meals

Your meals starting with a dinner on Tuesday and ending with a dinner on Friday are included in your registration fee.

Lodging

The symposium will take place at Lake Arrowhead Resort (www.laresort.com). Their website does not allow you to get SARA/SoCS group rate so you have to make a reservation over the phone. Their toll-free phone number is 1-800-800-6792 (from overseas, you might need to dial +1-909-336-1511). We have a block of rooms reserved under "SARA and SoCS Symposia" for US$189/night + tax (single or double occupancy). Please make your reservations right away, as they tend to fill up quickly during the summer.

Sharing Lodging

Siddharth Srivastava is organizing a matchmaking service for sharing rooms. If you are interested in sharing a room with someone at SARA 2009, please send email to sidsrivast [at] gmail.com specifying your gender and preferences for a roommate (e.g., male/female). Siddharth will propose matches (and you can always say "no") and if acceptable, the pair sharing will make their own reservations.

Please respond as soon as possible - matches will be done first-come, first-served (subject to preferences). As an initial deadline, please contact Siddharth before May 22, 2009.