Mom. Needs. Coffee.

Boy oh boy. I don’t know where to even begin. Oh, I know:

$255 registration fee.
$350 plane ticket.
$139 a night (3 nights) room.
$20 100 Monkeys concert ticket.
$46 taxi ride to/from airport.

Biggest cluster fuck I’ve ever seen.

Now, first let me say, the celebrities that were there were awesome. Completely and utterly awesome. I got to meet Peter Facinelli, Kellan Lutz and Alex Meraz. I also got an autograph from Peter. (Who, is unbelievably nice!)

That said, the whole event was disastrous. My sister and I arrived in Dallas on Thursday, the 30th. We got to the hotel (which, was like the best pick of the crop considering they were under construction so all their food places were closed, with the exception of the crappy, overly expensive hotel restaurant) at 12ish? We got settled, yadda yadda, went over to what was the first disaster of many: registration. We got there a few minutes after 3pm (when registration opened). Got on a line. It was the wrong line. But who would know that since there were NO staff/volunteers (which were called “Volturi” like in Twilight/New Moon/Eclipse/Breaking Dawn). So we get into our correct line. However, since up until this point, everything was done under the main registree (my sister since she paid her half first), we got in line together. Wrong. I should have been on a separate line. Why they broke us up like that was beyond me. Groups were registered under one person, but when you got to TwiCon, they broke you out individual. Ok, so they send someone over to get my badge. Phew… all my tickets that should be there are there.

So, now we head into “Vendor Hall.” Hrmm. It was honestly like 10 tables of what you’d find on Etsy. Not interested. So, I bought two pins and some TwiCon gear (just because–total rip-off too…and, once again, most of the “staff” were not friendly).

And that ended day one.

Day two: Friday, the 31st. Nothing much went on. We didn’t go to any breakout sessions, which I come to find out is good since they were only fitting about 40 people into a room and that’s it. (Hello, there were well over 2000 of us there.) Again, poor, poor planning. So, my sister and I head to the Dallas World Aquarium–awesome! I am so happy we went!

If you ever get a chance to go, it’s a must! Two levels (maybe 3?) and the animals are just beautiful.

Ok, so after we hiked it back to the hotel, we rested for a bit and then hiked it back out to a nail salon for a mani/pedi. ;) Then back to the hotel we go to get ready for the 100 Monkeys concert. Not much I can say about the concert of than you have to like their music. I later found out that someone threw a t-shirt onto the stage and the volunteers (Volturi Bitches as they came to be known) whisked away the band, mid song. Yeah, uh-huh. Paid concert too. Wasn’t a freebie.

Ok, so, we go to bed and day 3 arrives: the big celeb day. We head over to the hall after lunch to see if there are any new things at the vendor hall (no, there aren’t— and I could purchase everything that was there on line or at Etsy). We then see a ton of people lining up—appears to be for the Q&A that we weren’t going to go to. So we head over at 2 to line up for autographs at 2:45. The woman we asked (because we were the first there, and they were just setting up) said that we HAD to be in the Q&A. WTF? So we go in the back. Got some great photos of the cast:

TwiCon Cast Q&A Billy Burke on Screen	Peter Facinelli, Jackson Rathbone and Alex Meraz
Peter Facinelli (on Screen), Jackson Rathbone and Alex Meraz	Screen shot of Jackson Rathbone
Peter Facinelli, Jackson Rathbone, Alex Meraz, Kellan Lutz. On screen: Billy Burke & Christian Serratos

But that’s when it went downhill. We should have been in the front since we were registered 74 & 75. Had we known, we would have gone. (Of course, had we know we HAD to be in the Q&A for the autographs, we would have gone too. Shows you the way information was shared.) Some woman comes on stage, yelling at us about how we need to stay in the room because we’re being let go onto the line from there, in groups of 100 (that’s nice—we’re 74 & 75). Oh, let me note now that I was #17 for Peter’s autograph and my sister was #4 for Jackson (thanks to my cool two-computers-at-once-registering-at-midnight skills). So blah blah blah, people start getting pissed that they are being forced to stay in there. They leave. When they open the doors, we see 1,000 (no joke!) people on the lines already. WTF? So I go out and get on line. My sister then calls me and says the woman is again screaming that we’ll be going to the head of the line—the people on line out there didn’t listen and will have to wait. Now, let me remind you that this is a paid event—$255 to get in. And we’re being treated like children. So, I go back in, and she begins to release us. We get out there and the volunteer bitch (I’m not for name calling, but that is what she was) looked at us (there was myself, another woman with her daughter and another woman with her daughter) and told us that we need to go to the back of the line, she doesn’t care what the woman in the other room said, she’s wrong. (Now again, remember, they told us in there that the people out on line were wrong). So needless to say, we stayed because one of the moms went to the front and asked/demanded that we stay put. Heh. Her daughter was so cute. She tells me, “Don’t worry, my mom is an arguer.” ;) So in a matter of 5 minutes, I got to “meet” Peter Facinelli and get his autograph.

After that we hustled back to our room to get changed into our cocktail attire for the meet & greet. We were placed at tables of 8, the 9th seat being for the celebs. We were suppose to meet all the cast members and the fandom celebs. What a disappointment. It started late, but they kept to the same schedule. So each celeb had 2 minutes if that at each table. Jacskon had to leave early because he had a 100 Monkeys concert elsewhere. We did get to meet Kellan Lutz, Peter Facinelli, Alex Meraz (New Moon—he replaced Ashley Green who bowed out two weeks prior) and fandom celebs, The Bella Cullen Project and Evil Iguana. Peter sat with us the longest. He is truly an awesome person. He is so down to earth and it just makes you like him even more (doesn’t help that he’s absolutely gorgeous too!). Kellan was the most Hollywood-y. But again, a total sweet guy. Alex was quiet, but nice. I don’t know much about him other than the New Moon photos, so I can’t say much, but he was nice and sweet. Peter was showing us a trick and ended up spilling wine all over the girl next to me, to which he then hugged (bitch). Then he answered her phone and twittered on her phone. Sigh. She wasn’t even dressed appropriately—not that I’m sour. ;) But come on. We were threatened that cocktail attire was a must and here they let her in wearing cut-off denim shorts and a T-shirt. All and all, we had a great time. We were sad not to meet Billy Burke, but our table was the best. :)

And that’s it. We went back to the hotel room and went to bed. We had a 3pm flight the next day so we wanted to get some sleep. Good thing, because when we got to the airport (at 11:20am) we got through check-in and security and were in the terminal by 11:30. ROFL. Sadly, our flight was delayed by 2 hours. Yes, my sister was pissed. This was nothing new to me. Leaving Florida 3 years ago my flight was delayed two hours too. Jersey happened to be having baaaad thunderstorms this go around. But they finally let us board at about 4 and we were on our way.

It never felt so good to get home. Of course, I then had to drive the kiddo and I back home since my sister’s boyfriend picked us up at the airport. But when I finally got home it felt good.

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