The party had a great vibe; the music was generally feel-good, depending on the DJ, and the great thing was that it was not overcrowded.
I danced with many good dancers here. The numbers of attendees was relatively high. I noticed that about 10 dancers were particularly good at social dancing, but then I later found out that all of them were teachers in their own countries. Interestingly, they were not always good at immediate implementation of set routines by others. This taught me that sometimes, people who are good at social dancing can find learning new routines harder than those who are natural social dancers. Maybe this is down to their good attitude toward learning unfamiliar skills and moves.
Food
PCZ supplied lunch on Friday through to Sunday. There were no restaurants nearby, bar one, which was a 6 minute walk from the meat factory and their service turned out to be incredibly slow. The provided lunch, however, was actually very tasty and just the right amount!
Accommodation
Most people stayed in the Andel area, which is four or five stations by tram (taking around 8 minutes) and PCZ supplied the midnight transfer. I was assigned to stay on the opposite side, which is 15 minutes by bus from the venue (or about 25 minutes on foot). A downside to the accommodation location was that I had to use the taxi past midnight, as there were no buses running after this time. However, the taxi was cheap, between 79 and 146 czk (£2-£4) and I shared a taxi with my roommate on some nights.
Additionally, was there was no supermarket nearby, so I had to go into Andel to get food. As I am a real foodie, I think I would stay in Andel area next time. Yet, I was fortunate enough to stay with a lovely roommate, who I got on very well with, and it truly made the congress one to remember. I had never met her before, although she was also a Londoner. One of the greatest things about doing zouk is that we can meet great people, make friends and have a great time together.
Show
The shows were as lovely as others that I have attended, but they wanted to start pretty early! They’d start at half past 10 although the last workshop would normally finish at 18:30 or 20:30. This made it an impossibly busy day, as there was little time to travel back and forth from the hotel, to eat dinner, to take a shower and get changed. Power naps lasting 2-3 hours were necessary to function during the day! Ideally, the show should start at half past 11 in order for everyone to perform their best, in my view. My highlight was on the last day, when there were live singers on stage alongside dancers.
General Organization
The organisation of the congress was very good in general; there were no major problems over the whole time. They gave us a daily timetable at the front desk and the staff were friendly and worked efficiently. The only flaw that I found was about safety; I noticed that there were many nails sticking out of the floor in Hall 3, which would be dangerous if anyone happened to be dancing barefoot.
All in all, I totally enjoyed this congress and I am very happy about my decision to have taken part in the 6 day event, seeing as many others pulled out of participating in this congress. This was my first big congress (although still not too big, as there were 500-600 participants, in comparison to the 1000s that take part in Dutch zouk) and I really did enjoy my time in Prague.
Across this year, all of the congresses I attended have been great. Yet, this congress is the only one that I’d say that I’d definitely be coming back to next year. The one thing keeping me back is that we will never know if we can have same level of quality next year, or whether it may beat this years’ congress! The one I attended could have been a one-off, special and successful event, and I may be very lucky to be there. I sympathise with those who have attended up to PCZ till 2014 and missed 2015.