SDCC Day ONE

Let's get this party started! 

Aside from having to sleep on my brother's couch the night before and be attacked my his stupid dog all night, we had an event free trip down to San Diego. Since we arrived too early to check into the hotel, we grabbed the rental car and headed down to the Gas Lamp to pick up our badges and scope out downtown. 

 I love love love how the whole city embraces Comic Con. Every thing from the comic wrapped hotels, to the outside events, and endless parties, there is always something to see and do here. 

Where else in the world can you find an
Adventure time booth in front of a hotel advertising
 Sean Bean AND the Simpsons?

We grabbed our badges and took a seek peek inside as they were setting up the convention. ( Sorry no pictures are allowed before it opens) Then we checked into the hotel and took a much needed siesta before returning for preview night.

Preview Night is small by comparison to the rest of the week, and I think this is the best time to walk the exhibit hall, purchase your merchandise, get familiar with where the big booths are, and create a game plan for the rest of the week.

And we didn't have to wait in line
 for over and hour for this photo op

When the crowds get bigger, it can be difficult to navigate the exhibit hall. Knowing where things are ahead of time really helps you get from point A to point B. Plus this is the best time to get photos of the booth displays -sometimes there are just too many people in the way to get a picture of that huge display- I have yet to go and enjoy the TV shows that they premiere here ( I really had hoped to catch the Flash when they showed it), but like everything here you have to pick and choose what you are going to attend.

And I still have people in the frame..

75 years of Batman exhibit was pretty awesome.

There is Smaug looking over the crowd

Then we were off to enjoy the night life. Wow the Gas Lamp is hopping. I was having fun just walking down the street and watching party after party spill out onto the sidewalk. Lucky for us, we got invited to the Deviant Art party. It felt pretty cool to get into an invite only party complete with free food and drink. It was a good time. I got to chat with fellow staff members and meet up with some very talented people. I'm glad I paced myself and we didn't over do it. I certainly didn't want to crash and burn after just one day.  We were back to the hotel and in bed before midnight. We had a long event filled day to look forward to the next day.

SDCC 2014

Better late than never

I was going to stop blogging ( because let's face it, no one really reads this), but I think I like having a place to share my story and so what if it's not read. 

So I want to talk about my trip to SDCC 2014. It was beyond awesome. Every time I think about it, It makes me smile. 

Let's start with my lodging nightmare

OMG It really was a nightmare. My brother lives in San Diego and the plan was to stay with him again this year. He is also in the Navy and had been deployed for the past 8 months or so. He was supposed to be coming back a few weeks before Comic Con. I got a message from him 5 weeks before I was leaving that he would NOT be coming back in time and that he didn't have an apartment yet. Ummmmm HOLY CRAP.

We all know that the hotels are pretty much booked solid - in a matter of minutes- when they release them in April. Here it was JUNE and I had to 1- find a place to stay and 2- figure out how the heck I was going to pay for it. The few rooms that I did find were crazy expensive, I almost got scammed by someone "renting" out a condo (turns out he didn't even have a condo and was just taking people's money), and there were even Craigslist adds renting out couches for $200 a night!  I was just about ready to drop $100 a night to stay in a downtown Hostel, or just sleep in the Hall H line every night. 

Who cares what the panels are the next day,
 I've found an affordable place to sleep! 

Thankfully I was able to get something through Priceline, it was WAY over priced, but at least it was a legit place to stay. I ended up in a small Hotel near Qualcom Stadium. I rented a car and we decided it would be fastest to drive to spot near Mission Valley, Hotel Circle. Thank NBC for hooking us all up with round the clock buses. It was about a 5 min drive to the bus stop and about a half hr by bus to get there. 

A nice comfy ride at that

I didn't get this all settled and arranged until 2 weeks before I was leaving. I was so relieved to not have that stress anymore! Since Andrew wasn't going to be able to make it this year, I also had to find a new friend to go with. I would have gone solo, but it is much more fun with a buddy. So I decided to bring Brandon, another brother, to fill in for Andrew. Brandon is mellow and just wanted to go to take pictures. Perfect! Someone to follow me around, and document the trip. 

Just landed in San Diego, one of the few together picts we got.