Suboptimal vacation experience

Today was a strange day. Ever feel like things are going on around you and completely not within your control? That was today.

The morning started out normal enough, though I felt weird not having breakfast. We rolled to the convention center, paid the rip off ten bucks for parking (seriously, when is IAAPA gonna start paying speaker for this?), and headed inside. As is typically the case at these things, I get sucked into the world of people I know or people who'd like to chat, and before you know it, I've more or less lost Diana. She was OK with that, hoping to do some knitting or whatever.

My job was to try and rope in the featured speaker, Peter Shankman, to help relate to the IAAPA audience. But really, I don't think he needed to be roped in. The guy is intense and to the point, and I think he made a very clear point to the marketers in the audience that they need to understand the world that's happening around them with regard to "social media." Looking at the body language in the audience, some people seemed energized, others insulted. The amusement industry, much of it anyway, is a little slow believing in technology.

I noticed Diana got up about 20 minutes in and left the room. Turns out she was having all kinds of pressure issues in her head, and that was bringing on dizzy. Not good. She called the doctor's office at the clinic right away. Somehow they failed to get back to her, either the doctor, nurse or whatever. The hope was that they could call in a prescription down here. Diana is understandably concerned that if she can't get the headaches and other things under control, this won't be much of a vacation for her.

So we pressed on anyway, and abandoned the Universal thing, seeing as how we've been there a bunch of times already anyway. Originally we hoped to spend a couple of hours at Animal Kingdom and then roll to Magic Kingdom since they had extended hours, but that wasn't meant to be. We got to AK and saw Festival of The Lion King and the Nemo musical, and then went to Epcot for eats.

The upside of the dining plan is that the savings is pretty great. Typically the table service, counter service and snacks add up to around $120 or so. Considering that the hotel and dining plan for the two of us is around $140 a night, that's a pretty good deal (the annual pass discount sure helps). The downside is that the decent places to eat are all in Epcot or the nicer hotels. The hotels can be a pain in the ass to get to, depending on where you are. We were scoping out Magic Kingdom, and it's like there isn't a damn place to go for table service.

In any case, we ended up returning to Epcot and had dinner at Marrakesh in Morocco. Out-fucking-standing food there, but again, the service blows. I really feel the food there is one of the best kept secrets (and one of the easiest places to get a reservation for), but I don't get how the service can be so crappy.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel, by 8:30 or so. With a long day tomorrow, starting with the Epcot Segway tour, the IAAPA show opening, and hopefully, some Magic Kingdom time, Diana wanted to take no chances. I'm kind of feeling wiped out too, but mostly because the stress of the last few weeks. I'm excited as hell to be here, but haven't been able to 100% let go and enjoy myself.

Crossing my fingers that we both feel more like ourselves tomorrow. I think a solid night of rest will be good for both of us.

And by the way, it's really fucking cold down here!