It doesn't get any better than this, baby (errr...wait...yes it does)!!!

We rolled into town about 9:30, found our hotel with some difficulty (which is pretty nice and has a fantastic freakin' view, as expected from the earlier pics). We couldn't check in yet because it was too early, but we immediately caught the free shuttle from the hotel to the con and sought out the line for registration. Up the stairs we went because that's where we saw the line, which was between a quarter and half mile long at this point (about 9:50 or so?). We ask one of the attendants if this is the line for registration and he lets us know that we're definitely in the wrong spot. In fact, we need to go back down the stairs and walk towards the performing arts center, about a quarter mile down the street.

Okay, cool. Quarter mile, no problem. But he was waving his arms like you would when you tell your receiver to go deeper for a pass and laughing at us. This was our first clue that we were screwed. We had no idea just how badly yet, though.

So we find the performing arts center and there is someone dividing a line into two lines - pre-registered folks, and not. "Hey, where's the end of this line?"

"Keep walking that way. You should see it. Eventually." Uh oh.....

So we keep walking down that same street and see the line loop around the aquarium, then back to the street. Keep going about 5 more blocks down the street, plus the two that went inland, and we're at about a half-mile. We finally see what we think is the end of the line at the corner of a parking lot, only to realize that the line then starts to snake back through the parking lot.

If any of you have been to Disney and waited through their queues, you know what I mean. You work through this queue only to turn the corner and see...another queue. Except this was about 1.5 miles in length. Litterally. And it's only 10:15 at this point. Registration barely started fifteen minutes ago. And we're in the sun with no sun protection. WHEEEE!!!

Oh, and did I mention there is no food or eateries on the street at all? Or even within a half-mile?

After three hours we'd worked our way to the point where we split into two lines. It took us another 2 hours and 45 minutes to work through the second line. Nearly six hours in line for day one. Neet. All we had energy for after that was food, and checking into the hotel. We never made it inside the con.

Registration was so screwed that they had to postpone a concert for two hours because people could register fast enough to get their tickets, and even then they were still GIVING tickets away right before hand because people were too tired to enjoy it. Sadly, this was supposed to be one of the headlines of the convention but they screwed the pooch bigtime.

Now, we still had fun. There was about ten of us that met up and we were laughing and people watching, etc. I made a little Black Ops trip to get some drinks for us. Folks were chatting on their DS's. Good times were defintely had. It just wasn't nearly as good as it would have been if we weren't tired and hungry and burnt and needing showers and ankle replacement surgery after standing on cement for nearly six hours.