Celebration 5

Day 4

Woke up and headed over to the dealer room. Ran into James who reminded me of the gift basket he was organizing for Gary Smith. Since I had some free time before the panels began, I went around and got all the free swag I could find and delivered it back to James for Garry. Ran into Mike, and we decided to go over to the McQuarrie exhibit. He had already been there a couple times, but indicated that it was so cool, he wouldn't mind seeing it again. On the way, Derek delivered a special "Carbalon" item to him. Laughter ensued when Derek revealed it was plastic that was ironically the exact same color as carbalon.

The McQuarrie exhibit was amazing. Some truly spectacular art in there. Mike and I just wandered around basking.

Spent the rest of the day in the panel room.

After the panels, some of us were going to head off to Disney for Last Tour to Endor. Alyssa made us all custom R2 Mickey ear hats, which were AWESOME!

I ran into problems, because I still had my backpack which contained the camera I was using to record all the panels, as well as all the DVDs. I couldn't put it in my room, because I had loaned the key to my roommate the night before and had never gotten it back. So, I had to quickly run around and try to find someone who could watch it all for me. Just when I had utterly given up hope and resigned myself to carrying the heavy thing around Disney for hours, I ran into MicroRob who was nice enough to say he'd take it to his room. REALLY nice of him.

Met up with everyone else going to Disney, and headed over. Disney was a lot of fun. No lines, and lots of friends. Surprisingly, not even Star Tours had a line. I mean, if there was ever going to be a line on that stupid ride, you'd think it'd be then. But no. Eventually we ran into a few other collectors, and after a brief trip to over to a Disney restaurant to try our hands at drunken hula-hooping, we all went to the Indy stunt show, which had been retooled for one night only into an Indy- SW hybrid show. I don't like the Indy stunt show, but the chance to see what will probably be the closest to the George Lucas Super-Live event I'll ever see, was too good to pass up. The show ended up being entertaining. Mark Hamill even showed up.

Got back to the hotel, and picked up my bag from Rob.

Day 5

Spent the day in the panel room. After all the panels were over, we did a give away of all the extra boxes. A TON of people showed up, and we had very few Akbar boxes left since it was the most popular. I was the one in charge of telling the assembled masses that supplies of their beloved Mon Calamari breakfast cereal were sadly gone. This news was not welcomed. I think a lot of people blamed me.

In any case, once the give away was in full swing, I ran back to the hotel and grabbed my stuff. Since a few of us were all going to Disney after C5, we had organized a group ride. We got all our packing done the night before, since things had to be coordinated in order for it to work. We were all there, but the van was not. Finally, we just got in another van that happened to be there and headed over to Disney's Pop Century resort. We all had to check in first before we could eat, because we were on Disney's meal plan and without the card the hotel had to give us, we'd have to pay cash. Everything went fine and we got to our various rooms.

As it got closer and closer to dinner though, things started getting hectic. I had spearheaded the dinner plans, and was talking to people on the phone, texting and giving frantic directions to the restaurant everyone was eating at. In my haste, I TOTALLY forgot about telling Graham's room that we were leaving for the restaurant, and left without them. I didn't realize this until we were sitting down for dinner though. Totally my fault. :(

Took the Disney bus over to the Magic Kingdom, and ironically ran into my mother and sister who were on the same bus (It IS a small world after all). Got on the monorail, and headed over to the Polynesian to eat at OHana's. I was expecting 49 collectors and their families to show. We ended up with slightly over 30 showing. There were a few frantic moments in the lobby as I tried to coordinate with Disney on the status of our party. For a while, I was convinced that some of us would not be eating, since they will not seat partial parites. Thankfully, we all got seats though. The food was awesome, and despite the fact that there was loud live entertainment for a little while, I had a good time. We all posed for a group shot, but the waiter cropped Jeff out of it for some reason. You can just make out half of his face on the left there in front of me. Oscar got one too, so maybe he'll be nice enough to post it.

After dinner, Mike and I went to the Magic Kingdom. Since we were hotel guests, we were allowed to stay late, and the place was deserted. Good times.

Day 6

Next day began with trying to coordinate the lunch at Hollywood Studios for everyone at the Sci-Fi. By this time, I was getting a little better at figuring out what to say to Disney to get them to hold the table till everyone arrived. About 30 collectors showed up. Sadly, I have no pics of it because our "car" was seated so long after everyone else's. Spent most of the rest of the day touring around the park, and hanging out with Shane.

That night, we hung out in the rooms and had a blast.

Rest of the week

Spent the next few days at Disney with everyone and had a GREAT time! Really some of the most fun I've had at Disney in ages. Ate at a ton of nice restaurants, and ate more than a few Dole Whip floats in Adventureland. Saw the thrill film in Canada, and enjoyed a trip on the spinning teacups. Missing from this run down is the pic we took of a few of us with Maria, our impossibly hot and charming waitress at the German restaurant in Epcot. I don't have a copy of that one. :(

Also took more than a few pics of John and others in a parade of stupid hats. Because......well......I don't know really. Just something to do. He promised to wear one if Mike and I paid for it, but we never did find just the right one for him. Maybe next time!

All in all, I had a blast at C5. Great to see old friends, and see some long time posters from RebelScum show up for their first Con. Great meeting everyone!

Can't wait till C6!