Well.. after leaving for New Orleans at 4:30 am, Jason dropped me off at the airport for my 7:15 flight to
Atlanta. Next, after a short layover - it's on to Orlando, landing a little before 1pm (eastern time). I then rode the
Mears transport over to the Doubletree hotel to meet Tommy and Phenix who had been at the convention all day.
I even got to see Mark Hamill in the lobby of the hotel!! Okay, so it was just a cardboard stand-up in the
501st display, but hey - it's probably as close as I'll get anyway!
Tommy had costumed that day so he came in the lobby in his new Galactic Marine outfit - talk about a heck of a
place to pick for your first troop! After Tommy got changed, we all went to get some lunch (man, they don't
feed you anything on the planes anymore) on the walk to the convention center. The walk was just like walking
here in Louisiana - gotta love the heat and humidity. Although I must say the being closer to the Atlantic must
have actually helped as it was a little more tolerable. Once we finished scarfing down food at Mickey D's it's
on to the convention center! Even though Celebration is only in the "smaller" building, it's still a dwarfing
site seeing it - this place is huge! They even converted some of the protection posts into little R2-D2s out
front. If it didn't seem huge on the outside - it surely did on the inside. The exhibit hall is enormous and also
contains the store, autograph hall, displays and more! Of course, Hasbro was right up front and was my first stop,
the display is awesome - not just because of the product, but also these huge diorama scenes (more later) the
most notable being the large Carbon Freezing Chamber right in the middle of the booth. After that I started to
run around and tyr to buy everything I needed for everyone. One of my stops was to the Creative Solutions booth
where, not only did I pick up their limited edition sticker sheet, but also learned that they will also be launching
a line of Harry Potter scrapbooking supplies later this year! I also tried (for not the last time) to get the
Hallmark exclusive which non-surprisingly was sold out for the day, but I did get pictures of what will be
coming in 2011 - very nice ornaments including a LEGO ornament! Speaking of LEGO, one of the best costumes there
was someone who was actually wearing a Boba Fett costume made out of LEGOs! Even more impressive were the huge
dioramas made of nothing but LEGOs. There were numerous ones but here you can see the Hoth, Death Star Trench run,
and The Force Unleashed - amazing work! Of course, who can pass up getting a picture of a dad's little girl riding
around in a remote controled R2-D2? (She had the right idea!) After that, we headed out to eat dinner and check out
the "after-hours" trading going on at the Rosen Hotel's 16th floor (hosted by Rebelscum members). To finish off
the day, we headed to the 501st bash to hang out with all our friends in the 501st. After a long day (and night
before) - it's finally time to crash and get some rest for tomorrow...