We’re back! Time to recap…
Wednesday
We got up bright and early and were actually on the road at the time we wanted to be. I played a lot of tsumtsum (it’s been a while since I played).
Once we got to Atlanta we got lunch (Takorea), then went and checked in and unloaded.
And then off to ikea! Yay! We bought a new shelf unit for the guest room/prop room so we can finally get it organized and nice looking once and for all. Then we went to dinner (Pittypat’s Porch) and back to the hotel to say hello to people and for me to do more unpacking & ironing.
Thursday!
We got up and went to get breakfast in the food court because we knew after that point there would be no finding a table over there, haha.
I wore my new Harry Potter shirt! Badge pick-up was painless. Oh and the new carpet is really ugly.
Lunch was at Vortex! I was very sad they had gotten rid of my fav burger, but they had one that was very close so that made it ok. After that, I lazed around in the room for the bulk of the day before finally pulling myself together and getting into costume.
Chase & I did a very quick photoshoot outside on one of the patios before it started raining and we had to run inside. It was broiling in Peggy so I changed into Capt Marvel, which I wore most of the rest of the night. Put Trillian on way later.
We hung around the Running of the Buffets/Jurassic Park/World groups. Lots of fun!
Friday!
I dragged myself out of bed (this was a common occurrence) and got into my new Donna costume! I had trouble with the hair – it wasn’t looking right – so it took me way longer to get ready than I had planned for. Glad I started early! With Chase’s help I finally got the hair done and we headed over to the Vintage Vogue Fashion Show. I enjoyed getting to see all of the other costumes, so many great ones!
The shoes were killing me at that point so I changed into Capt Marvel again (the boots were comfy!) and we made the trek over to the dealer’s room. We stayed over there for a long time – this was the only time we went over there because the walk was so hot, and so far. I got a Harry Potter puzzle, a Welovefine shrug, and Chase got a South Park figure.
After that I put on my new Leia costume and we wandered around. BOY that costume was hot to wear… but I’ll talk about that in my costume recap.
After that Chase finally agreed to put on Bert Macklin and I got into Janet Snakehole and we wandered around for the rest of the night.
Saturday!
I had to get up and put on Donna again for the Doctor Who photoshoot, but it went much more smoothly this time around. We watched the first bit of the parade on tv and then headed over to the Hilton for the shoot. I don’t have any pics of it yet, they were all on Chase’s camera!
After the DW shoot I went over and decided it was time to put on one of my larger costumes. I was going to wear Anne……… but guess what? I forgot my underskirt. 14 years of Dragoncons, 15+ years of cons, and this is the first time I’ve forgotten a major costume piece.
So since I didn’t have that, I decided to go ahead and put my big pink dress on. I figured it was the early afternoon, the crowds are never that bad in the early afternoon, so I should be ok to wear it without getting stepped on. I also opted to forego the felt underskirt to try to keep a bit cooler. We made our way down the stairs to the ML level… to chaos. The entire level was absolutely packed. I tried to find an empty place to at least take some photos but no doing, I ended up just backing up against the staircase towards the front (near the fedex store) and just standing there. It was honestly panic-inducing, I was in this huge, hot, heavy dress with nowhere to move. I don’t think it helped that I had recently watched that 30 for 30: Hillsborough documentary so honestly, the terrible crowds just freaked me out all weekend. Chase tried to take a few pictures of me but it wasn’t looking right, so I said forget it, let’s go. I went back up the stairs and took it off. More on that in the costume recap.
After I cooled down, I put on Leia again and we went and took some nice photos by the pool, then it was time for the Ryan’s Army shoot. I was going to put Capt Marvel on again but instead put on Donna because it was so much cooler to wear. Afterwards, we decided to go eat at Sear. We hadn’t planned on eating out the rest of the weekend, but we were tired of sandwich stuff in the room so off we went. I had the salmon and it was really really good!
Then Parks & Rec again!
I had a late night meeting with Cath and followed her around a bit (she’d been super busy with volunteering all weekend so that was the first I’d seen her!). I think I was in Trillian again… because Trillian had the best shoes.
Sunday!
Sunday I manned up and got myself into the pink dress again. The Atrium Level was sparse so I was able to wear it down there for a bit, thank goodness. I had put too much work into that to only wear it for 10 minutes. While we were down there John Barrowman went running by in his Tardis dress, it was hilarious.
I got out of that and into Aelsa for the Marvel shoot. I very quickly discovered that if I got sweaty I could not wipe my face without wiping off my white makeup, so I had to keep positioning myself in the wind to stay cool! Thankfully it was very windy. I stuck around for the subgroup shots, but made an escape before the big shoot due to the elf ears cutting off circulation in my real ears and putting me on the verge of a migraine.
I put on Capt Marvel yet again and we headed over to the art show/artist alley to check it out before it closed. Got a couple of new prints for the living room.
Sunday night Cath and I did our usual running around and exploring but didn’t really find much to do. We people-watched for a long time and peeked into the Cruxshadows show but we were both wasted and decided to call it a night.
Monday!
Monday morning I woke up with a TERRIBLE migraine. Ugh. We finished packing up and called for a bell cart. We waited and waited past the time they said and called down and first they got our room number wrong, then claimed someone had come by and no one was in the room. Um no. So they sent someone right up thankfully.
I was left with the bellhop and our two carts while Chase went to check out. We waited forever for a freight elevator (while the bellhop was telling me that if we called the bellhop on sunday night and had them check our things, checkout would be a lot easier monday morning. ummmmmmmmm k.) and when we finally got one it was terrifying. I’d avoided the elevators most of the weekend due to seeing so many overloaded and getting stuck, then this freight elevator seemed to get stuck. The bellhop grabbed the doorframe and gave the whole elevator a shake… it shifted down a foot and the doors opened. Holy crap. I was so glad to get out of that thing.
That was the last interesting thing, though. We loaded up and hit the road, waving goodbye to Dragoncon’s awesome guest trans as we left!
Finally rolled back into our driveway around 6pm. We picked up dinner, rented Mad Max: Fury Road and finally watched it. (The weekend made a whole lot more sense after seeing it.)
Overall it was a good con. I’ve seen a lot of people saying that it seemed less crowded and better vibe this year but I found the opposite was true. I thought it was just as crowded as always and there was a LOT less crowd control and badge-checking at the doors this year. The Marriott/Dragoncon really need to do something about the overcrowding – both with partying at night and lines during the day – before someone gets hurt. Again… this is probably my personal experience because I watched that documentary right beforehand LOL
I’m so looking forward to doing nothing for a month. I don’t have anything lined up until MCFC in Nov (we aren’t doing GMX this year). I’ve got my birthday and Vegas for work and that’s about it…