Walt Disney World – Lotusphere day 2, Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Downtown Disney
Another early start for me today – had to get back over to the Swan to do my room monitor duties. This morning was the official start of the conference, and the Opening General Session was hosted over in the Dolphin, while I was at the Swan. A bit disappointing, since I would not be able to sit in on the opening session. It was broadcast to several “overflow” rooms, including our rooms at the Swan, so I was able to watch, but it would have been nice to be there in person.
The even began with a special guest speaker, none other than John Cleese, British comedian and actor. His introduction speech was irreverant, rude, and very very funny. It was also surprisingly relevant and insightful. He even goes to the trouble of listing the reference material he used to prepare the speech on his website. This was no lightweight speech, it was well thought out and quite practical. But also very funny – he does that very well. It’s a shame I wasn’t able to be there in person to see him – but had to make do with a live broadcast instead.
Spent the next session people-wrangling, as we had a room “overflow” (ie too many people to fit into the room, so we broadcast the session into a second room), and then the overflow room overflowed, so we had a second overflow room, and then that filled to capacity too, so I was then instructed to stop people up the corridor and explain to them that all the rooms were full and they would need to find something else to attend now. Basically, someone misjudged the popularity of this particular session, which wasn’t helped by the fact that another session over at the Dolphin was cancelled at the last minute, leaving quite a lot of people looking for a new session to attend (and hence flooding our rooms instead). At least it kept me occupied.
My room monitor shift finished at lunchtime, so I was able to attend all of the afternoon sessions, a couple of which were excellent.
Leanne spent the day over at the Magic Kingdom, enjoying the spectacle of Disney at its best. I think she said her favourite features were Mickey’s PhilharMagic and Cinderella’s Surprise Celebration (I can’t ask her if that’s correct right now, she’s asleep). She said it was a little lonely doing it all on her own, but she still really enjoyed the show.
We met back at the hotel at around 6:30pm and then drove over to Disney’s Downtown, an entertainment area that’s part of the Walt Disney World park complex. We wandered around looking at what was there (nothing terribly exciting really, unless you are into nightclubs, themed gift stores, Planet Hollywood etc … although there was also a cinema complex there too). We ate dinner there before wandering around a bit more and then heading home.
Another long and tiring day !
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