Megacon 2018 Day 1 & 2

"Last Picture at Megacon Day 2"

None of the others from our past crew, no big cosplay group, no old friends I've met at cons before(most of em went to Momocon, Atlanta), no new cosplay, no Rathalos armor, just a simple planned time with two of my fewest close friends from "group" and my life. None of us was really expecting much from the con itself but we all just wanted to come together, spend time, and make the best of Megacon in our own way. Its been 9 months since we all last saw each other after saying our goodbyes when they dropped me off at home from Dragoncon 2017. It just has been way too long and seeing them and spending time with them this whole weekend was the best time. Because of them everything about Megacon was awesome.


First night/Thursday May 24th after work I went to check-in at my hotel and rushed my way to the Orange country convention center to pick all of our tickets. After getting them, I took a quick look in the vendors and as usual Megacon never disappoints as it was as huge as it usual is. But with Taylor and Jenni almost there, I only had time to look at one aisle and made my way back to the hotel as they have already arrived. It was a great first meeting in a long time with them at the parking lot of the hotel, giving Taylor and Jenni the biggest of hugs. I've truly missed them. After unloading their car into the hotel and accompanying Taylor to find a parking space for their car as we caught up on latest news and hearing their plans for Colossalcon (which they are going to next weekend). After they were settled in we headed off for dinner at Red Robins.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel, did some more catching up, heard some latest news in the cosplay community, got ready for the next day, relaxed, and went to bed. Unfortunately even after I gave Taylor a warning that I snored in my sleep and said that he was fine with it he STILL WOKE ME UP that I was snoring, and so practically just stayed up half the night trying not to fall asleep. lol. Next day he told me I wasn't afterwards, so I was glad that I at least for the cost of my sleep gave them a good nights rest.

The next day we prepared for our official day to the convention and got ready with our Naruto cosplay. Taylor and Jenni were suiting up as a couple cosplay Pain & Konan for their first debut as them, and I was returning into my Hiruzen Sarutobi. This morning we made sure that we had everything right since a Naruto meetup was being held at the con at 2pm. Once ready we got to the con about an hr or so before the meetup giving us some time to wander the halls and dealers room while getting stopped once again by people who wanted to get our pictures. Since it was my Sarutobi cosplay that was making its first debut here in Florida, and Sarutobi being a rare cosplay sight I was relieved and happy that I was getting noticed by photographers and passby'ers.

About half an hr before the meetup, Taylor had a cosplay malfunction and lost an earing to his Pain and Jenni realized that she forgotten the rings that both were supposed to have been wearing, so Taylor made the emergency run back to the hotel while Jenni and I stayed behind to search for the meetup area, and that's when everything got disappointing, the Naruto meetup was deleted from the events on Facebook and ultimately found out that it was cancelled. That was the second time a Naruto meetup was cancelled on us and I was infuriated. But...after Taylor met back up with us we did what we can (as we also did at Dragoncon when it was cancelled there) to make the best of it. It happened, its now in the past, we took a few photos with other Naruto cosplayers that were there at the "supposed meeting spot" and some pictures of ourselves and moved on.

We headed back to the dealers room, and made our way to Cosplay Alley to go visit Alyson Tabitha and see other cosplay guests. Obviously Alyson was busy so we didn't bother saying hello or anything and moved on, till we found......THE OTHERS. Who also were on their way to the meetup and then finding out that it was cancelled and turned away. Since Jenni, Taylor and I were busy taking pictures of ourselves we missed them earlier. So luckily we caught them here!

 

 

 After taking pictures and hanging with them, Jenni and Taylor ran into a well known cosplayer Emma Rubini and her father who were really cool to hang with who we also had lunch with.

After lunch we headed back into the convention center when we ran into the cosplay group once more as they wanted to take a few more pictures with us and as they put it, "We need another picture and the full essence of Sarutobi."

 

 

After our last pictures with our new friends we took our last run around the dealers room as we still got stopped for photos, I also ran into Nahum(IG: Brobito_uchibrah) who I've connected for some time on IG and pretty much vented my anger about the person who was in charge of the meetup. After about 30 mins or so running around in the crowded dealers room we said our "byes" and parted ways with Emma and her father.

"Screenshot from Jenni's live feed"



As we were also getting exhausted and tired we started making our way back to the hotel taking our one last selfie photo and ending our Friday at Megacon.

But just in case Megacon as a convention failed us, I made sure a week before the con that we got tickets to the Star Wars Solo movie to make sure we have a great day together. So we changed out of our cosplay and headed for dinner. Unfortunately our original plan was to have dinner at Bahama Breeze but because of time and making it for the movie we just didn't have enough time to wait at the busy Bahama Breeze and settled for the Tex Mex restaurant right next to the theatre at Pointe Orlando.

 

 

While having dinner a very unlikely message came from Mariza, whom I knew wasn't attending Megacon, and just never thought I would hear from her on this weekend. But she did, and she was at the Ale House right next to Pointe Orlando and wanted to meet. Unfortunately because of time there was no way we could have some time together and had to turn her down after explaining to her why. It was quite a downer since I've had many memories with her at Megacon a few years back along with other cons. It would've been nice to see her and rekindle the times we had together years back, but time just wouldn't let us. So....after dinner it was time for Star Wars with Taylor and Jenni, and it was my first time watching a movie with them and as well my first time not watching Star Wars with Matt, Eric and the others. It was always a tradition to watch every new Star Wars movie together with them but it wasn't so this time.

 

 



Incredibly this movie turned out to be awesome and absolutely entertaining. Even after hearing so many bad reviews of this movie and the disappointment that the last SW's movie "The Last Jedi" was, this movie surprised us. Taylor and I couldn't stop talking and SW's fanning over it at the end of the night. We got back to the hotel, helped them transfer their stuff to there hotel room and ended our Friday night.