Weekends away are fun, but it is Good to be Home.

[etakyma]

Home from Orlando. The weekend had a bit of multiple personality going on - And we stuffed a hell of a lot into three days. Friday afternoon was lunch at the Royal Pacific Universal property. Then gwendolyngrace, jennclack, and I wandered the property to do a little preliminary space planning for Infinitus. There is a lovely outdoor area where the hotel does Luaus and it can be a great little party spot for the event.

Afterwords, we took the water taxi to CityWalk and wandered around and did a little shopping. I got a lovely sun hat in a pretty blue. Then we took the water taxi to the Portofino - the other hotel property we have a big block of rooms at. The Portofino is a lovely property - nicer, I think than the Royal Pacific. It was definitely Venice inspired, and has a lot of that old world charm, with courtyards, plazas, and terraces throughout the property. Really nice.

Then we took the water taxi back to the Royal Pacific (about twenty minutes - but we had to change taxis at CityWalk), where we left jennclack and took a taxi to our hotel where we registered for the event that brought us to Orlando.

That evening Gwen went out and I stayed in. It was a long day of travel for me, and I wasn't feeling particularly well. So I watched the debate with one of my roommates and another con attendee. They didn't last through the whole thing, and we talked through a lot of it. But I guess I got a little angry at the TV. Hopefully I didn't freak out the friend-of-roommate too too much. Why I generally don't watch anything political with anyone else in the room. I stress out, and I hate feeling stressed out.

I got to bed around 11. My roommates (we had two adjoining rooms, so there were six of us all together) trickled in between midnight and two am. Saturday, we were up and out early. heidi8 drove Gwen and I back to the Royal Pacific so we could have breakfast with jennclack, keytothecage, and sap_78. Then we went back to the event in time for the first Q and A session.

We snuck out of the last Q and A session of the afternoon because we had VIP passes to the client party at Universal Studios and "RIP Tour" for their Halloween happenings opening weekend. The party was a lot of fun, our sales rep is fantastic, and our tour group was the most fun (two different Universal folks defected from their tour groups to play with us, because we're so damn awesome). We were fast tracked through the events of the evening, so we wandered through three haunted houses, and the Bill and Ted stage show (this year's show? Bill and Ted Meet Hellboy). The Bill and Ted show was a mixed bag of pop culture references. Some of it was funner than other bits of it. The haunted houses were a hell of a lot of fun. keytothecage only lasted through one, but I am so proud of her for doing that one! We knew way ahead of time that haunted houses freak her right out, and she made it through a couple of rooms before tucking herself between me and Gwen and focusing on my back and nothing else.

I *loved* the theatrics of the haunted houses, and I am sure the wide-eyed excitement and compliments were not quite what the monster actors were going for. I didn't scream or shy away from any of them. I think the Zombie house was my favorite, closely followed by the Hallows. I thought the pack of traveling Prison Zombies were hysterical. And then we veered away from the tour group because we were all a little on overload. They tried to get back-doored onto the Mummy ride, but it was down due to technical difficulties, so instead we wandered down some of the streets and saw the flying monkeys - right near the wicked witch of the west's tower.

Sunday was up for some photo ops (Gwen and I got one only because heidi8 couldn't use one of hers), and more Q and As. Last night was mostly relaxing with new friends. The travel home today was uneventful, and I napped most of the afternoon to make up for very little sleep the last three days.

The con was... well, for me, kinda disappointing. I am used to a lot of things going on all the time. I am used to having to pick and choose carefully what you go see and do. I am used to lots and lots of people doing lots of different things all at the same time. I am used to way more bustle and less standing around waiting for an event to begin. So while it was an interesting experience, and I loved my roommates (wow, so damn fun!), I don't think I'll go to an event following this model again.

But I met some really cool people. And had some fun at Universal Studios. And saw some really good friends. So I count the weekend a great big win.