Trip report, intro

This is coming a bit late, since I really was not feeling too good yesterday (and not feeling great this morning either, which does not bode well for the upcoming flight home), but I have a hour or so to kill before leaving for the airport and finally an Internet connection allowing me to copy and paste my iPad notes up to here, so, here we go.

This has been a strange, surreal, up and down trip, with everything seemingly either unbelievably, indescribably awesome, or unbelievably, all too describably horrific, with only a few things (the Southwest Airlines bit on the way here, for instance, annoying but amusing) squarely in the middle. So, after very little thought, I have decided to group stuff mostly by theme, especially since a few of these matters really deserve their own little posts anyway.

First up, as background, the Hotel. Auuggggghhhhhhh.

The hotel rant

Hotel rant!

Edited to add: This was the Town and Country hotel, San Diego.

So. The hotel.

Before I begin, a general note: I have travelled, a lot, staying in everything from horrific youth hostels (and good ones) and budget hotels and business class hotels to ultra luxury hotels. I also worked in the group wholesale travel business for five years. I know hotels.

So when I say that this was the second worst hotel experience of my entire life, surpassed only by the Kyoto experience (which was, strictly speaking, not even a hotel or hostel), and that this is the first time EVER that I have gone through FOUR hotel rooms in a single stay, I am not saying this lightly. When I add that Chase Bank has agreed that I should not be charged for this stay - yes, that what, us care? bank, this should give you an idea of just how bad it was.

( Cut for length )

Hotel, part two

First, apologies for the formatting and double pasting on the last entry; combination of posting this on an iPad and just feeling horrible this morning.

Sunday I transferred to the Hampton Inn, Sea World San Diego. Aside from the rather questionable neighborhood, the hotel was fine: although I didn't have a reservation, and their available disabled rooms only had showers, they put me in a room near the lobby, offered full assistance last night (when I was sick) and this morning, free breakfast and an Internet connection that I was just too zonked to take advantage of, plus, cookies. I never even thought about changing rooms although they did offer to move me, with assistance, to a disabled room with a bathtub the following day, and found a fully accessible transfer service to the airport this morning for me without blinking.

So it can be done.

World Fantasy Con, the report, part one

Apparently I still have some time before boarding my flight as well as free wifi on the iPad, so, here we go.

Unfortunately, between dealing with the hotel and getting somewhat sick on Thursday, and then getting very sick early Friday morning, to the point where I could not get out of bed and just slept off and on until around four, and then just being tired on Saturday and constantly heading to lie down, and doing more hotel dealings on Sunday and going in and out of it all day, I missed far more of the con than I wanted to.

Which is a real pity, because the con part was AMAZING. I mean, really, really fabulous. It seemed to be just one incredibly wonderful person after another incredibly wonderful person. (I completely missed the con creeper and barely heard about him until after the con was over, for which I am much thankful.)

I can't possibly cover it all, so I'm just going to try to get in some general bullet points....in an upcoming entry since I won't be able to type it all up on this thing before boarding.