I am so tired. There is so much I did not blog on that I wish I could have. But Oh My Gosh. It would be even longer than it already is! I fully expect many people will skim galore. IF they read at all!

Anyway, we pretty much just went to the venders and then checked out and left. Long ride in front of us! We would found several things for the kids to look at. They each had something like 14 bucks from various sources we would put aside for them for DC. They ended up buying some comics and some HeroClix. We tried to stop by to say goodbye to Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman but they were not there. Oh well. Email! We did take the boys to meet Peter David since Joram LOVES Spiderman so much. He talked to Peter David a little bit about Spiderman. Peter David was just great with the boys. He has a not quite 2-year-old little girl. I guess he is used to wee ones! He is a great guy.

OK, so here is my evaluation of DragonCon and the Hotel.

Hotel first because grr.. Must gripe some more! OK, the elevators were a NIGHTMARE. Ok, not Omni at Balticon double booked with Gideon status… but bad. I mean real bad. Once you got on one and they closed the doors? They MOVED. However, it was getting one to stop. It seems almost like they do not stop if the button is not pushed for that level. We defiantly saw several elevators at different times go by with plenty of room and NOT STOP where people were waiting. Everyone just took to pushing both buttons and whatever came first getting on. Otherwise, you would be forever. I can tell you that the elevators went down in the lobby more than up. This is insane because there are only three floors below the lobby it can go to. So it should come back up in a speedy time? Nope. What goes down must go up and what goes up must go down. Several times, I went to the top from our 12th floor room to go to the lobby. Bad on my vertigo, but got me there. This was definitely wrong. I actually got on once in the lobby and went down. Then started up. We had PLENTY of room, and even though we knew there were people in the lobby, it did not stop. What is up with that? Next gripe for the hotel. Ok, this hotel was completely booked. It was huge; it had convention stuff in it. Right? So figure, safe, CONSERVATIVE, guess… 3000 people in this hotel this weekend. Three nights. That is a right large amount of dough! Well even though everything else said that the internet was free, guess what? Ten bucks a day. On top of your bloody hotel stay. OK, hello, we stayed Thursday night in a hotel that was great but way less in price and we had free wireless internet included in the room. When we went to Kennywood? Free wireless internet with our room. Still less expensive. In Columbus, we stayed in that Marriott of whatever sort. Free internet. So what is with this 10 bucks a day? Tell me that is not a huge scam!! Of course, that is each computer, so for us it would become 20 a day. No freaking way man. Third? No fridge. OK, the hotel we stayed at on Thursday we got one. But here is the thing; this is a conference hotel… people staying for several days at a time. OK, still maybe so so. My parents? They got a suite. They had a bedroom and a common room with sofa and chairs and entertainment center and dining table and separate door and everything. No fridge. Now that suite definitely geared itself for executive stays of some length of time. Fourth! Yes, there is a FOURTH! They tried to get people bringing booze in to pay some fee of some sort for it. Say WHAT??? People told them, “No, I bought this stuff and am bringing it in.” People had to smuggle booze in inside suitcases. What next? On Pizza? Fifth! No kidding. They would not let people take pictures. Ok, these cons, TONS of people wear costumes. They do a freaking hall costume contest for crying out loud. So there is going to be some neat stuff. People are going to want to take snapshots. Nope, they had people spazzing out every time you tried to take a picture. I got a few, but not near as many as I would like. By the way, the pubic parts of the hotel were way too small. It was hard to get around even when no one took pictures, and the hotel security staff was making it harder because they kept routing people funky. This con does a little too much. It is great, do not get me wrong, but unfortunately that means it draws more people in so the place is more packed. Sixth and I swear the last. The lobby staff was as unhelpful as you could get. We wanted to take this walkway to the Marriot. There is no street crossing and there is a cheaper food court. Woohoo! They refused to tell us how to get there. “Nope, just go across the street.” Gaaah! Oh wait, the layout of the place sucked. Nothing they can do about that, but I would like to warn people who go there in the future for anything. It is a very ODD layout and stuff is separated and difficult to navigate the maze and get to. By late last night, I had finally figured it out and understood it fully. Still does not make sense.

Verdict? Tell the Hyatt to stuff itself. I am glad we had a place to stay and did not have to travel but this stuff was insane. Yes, I gave them a comment card. Very brutal comment card. Oh yeah, the housecleaning staff earned an A++ from me because I think they did a good job.

OK… next Con.

Overall, I think the con was great. I loved the diversity. Lots of stuff to hold a person’s interest. Unfortunately, that was a big downfall too. I missed so much stuff I would have loved to see! Therefore, while this was a big plus, it was also a big minus. One of those horrible catch-22’s! I am happy though. I did a ton of stuff that was great amounts of fun. So that is good. Sir Megabyte had a total blast too. He really enjoyed the panels he attended. Thankfully he went to some I wanted to go to, as did Mum. We were all able to share and take advantage of that! One other problem is that there were just too many people. This made it hard to find friends. (That and the failing cell phones. This is not really a hit against the Hyatt because truthfully the worst place was the underground level(s). That is not THEIR fault. One problem is poor planning on behalf of some things. I am not sure this can be pinned on anyone group in particular. It could just have been bad luck. Definitely something that is a problem (though I have no solution) I would just like to make mention of it as warning to others and maybe as something people can think about. Things overfilled very fast. The worst I saw was when Brycen and I tried to go to see Harry Kim speak. The Trek Trak had to have had one of the smallest rooms around. It was so full the Fire Marshall was out and barring the way. We could not even get NEAR the room. This was unfortunate. I really have no better ideas how to assign rooms, but if anyone goes to DragonCon and it is still in this facility, you have been warned. There is a half hour between panels. Make your way as fast as you can and stake out a seat. Or, you might not get one. The Hall Costumes. I have no clue how they did this. Half the costumes I saw that I thought were great did not make it on the board. At no time were Byrcen, Sir Megabyte, the kids, or I stopped and snapped. I am not sure how that was going down. The picture thing was a mess. There were so many good costumes but once more, the space was tight so it was hard to get pictures. If you managed to get the ability to take pictures because no security hounding you, it was hard to find space. Or get to the people through the throng of people snapping pictures. The other bad thing was that the main lobby was horribly packed at all times and then there were no bans on pictures there. Not sure how to resolve this aside from setting up an official picture-taking corner on each floor lobby, but it was very disappointing to see so many costumes and not be able to take pictures and to also be held up due to pictures. The other gripe I had was I was on several panels where I am sorry but I felt more qualified. Need I say TREKTRAK to anyone who has read Saturday’s rant? The Charmed forum also had this feel to me. Then the My Hero forum, my mum and I actually corrected the panelists once! My only real gripe was those people kept getting WAY off tangent. I mean at one point they rambled about News Radio. Huh? They did keep trying to rein it in, but that was kind of a bummer.

Oh, the other thing was the AC… It died. It did not work. PANT PANT SWEAT SWEAT. This could be very hard. My recommendation is that every track/vender/whatever… TAKE FANS NEXT YEAR. Only idea I have. They actually brought in big huge temporary air conditioners and set them on the sidewalk. Did not do anything. The poor stars! The walk of fame was in a place where the ac did not work at all due to renovations. AUGHHH. I felt so so so bad for them! The only rooms that were comfortable were the huge ballrooms and that is probably only because of how large they were and how high the ceilings were.

The other thing was that I just personally have a gripe. All my stuff conflicted! AUGHH. Badly! Five panels in one time slot!!! EEEEK. That is great, means that they were meeting my interest. NO way to fix that. But wow… HEHE I do think if perhaps this con broke up a little bit, perhaps it would help. I mean they really do EVERYTHING. Programming, astronomy, art, sci-fi, fantasy, dealers, and so many sub sects of the above. Perhaps some of the larger fan bases should consider combining and breaking off or something. Do theirs in Easter or something. Just, I think that truly was the reason for many of the problems. I think what might have happened was 19 years ago someone said “I want a con here in Atlanta” but was afraid no one would come and just totally blitzed out their con. And it EXPLODED!! HEHE Good for the con, really! But wow, hard hard hard on the poor track leaders and the con itself! 🙂

I must say that some of the tracks I went to seemed WELL DONE. Some? Not so much. I am so dissatisfied with some things (need I say it? TREKTRAK) that it makes me want to call up Hal and go “Put me to work on the con because I don’t want this CRAP to happen again.” I am seriously afraid to email my Balticon people for fear I will find myself on about 30 panels and running like a lunatic during it next year! ROFL. Then again, that is what I always do during Balticon, is it not? Running like a lunatic and working the con? HEHE. I would love to see them do a Charmed and LJ and stuff there! I should mention it!

OK… this has been one more long long long entry. I am going to leave it for now. Feel free to comment if you made it through all of this and ask anything you want!

I am just so exhausted from the crush of people and the constant running and the cramming into places. It was really bad. I wish I had a better idea of how to help that. That was the biggest downfall of the convention, which is not really the convention’s fault. Unless they decide to cap how many people may attend which just would not be right either. Oh, I do think that the kid’s room should open up about 15 minutes before the panels start unlike the opening at the same time as the panels starting… just me. It should close 15 minutes after seven, not 7 because I know at least one dealer was keeping his child in there and the dealer room closed at seven. He had to leave early. Just my thoughts there.