Never been to Ripken, but did do Cooperstown as an asst coach on my son's team. To tell the truth, I was dreading it. First year team with a couple kids who had basically been nothing but a pain in the you know what in the weeks heading up to C-town. I wasn't looking forward to babysitting these two kids all week. Got there, the one kid was a completely different kid...no issues. The other was his usual self. Head Coach pulled him aside along with his parents the 2nd day and basically said "he has one more chance or you can come get him". That seemed to do it. No issues the rest of the week. We were an average at best team, but put together a good run 4-2 during pool play to finish 34 for the week. Beat a good team that played out of the Mets facility in FL in the first game of bracket play before our arms just ran out. All in all, a great time. My son and I have actually talked about taking a team of local kids when he's done with his college career. I guess the difference I would see is that C-town is all baseball for the kids....no beach, nothing much to do in the park, but baseball, baseball and more baseball. C-town is a nice area....a lot of the families stayed at houses on area lakes and had a "vacation", which is more like what Ripken would be.