Ponyville Ciderfest 2022 · 11:54pm Nov 1st, 2022
Okay! It looks like I am, in fact, going; yay!
That was in some doubt due to me coming down with what a doctor said was probably a rhino-something virus (though they didn't say "something"; I just don't recall the medical term) last week (with the convention being this coming weekend), and while I should be safely out of the contagious period, it was uncertain whether I'd be feeling well enough -- and it's not as if everyone else could just move the convention to the next weekend along for my convenience.
Fortunately, I think that I am indeed feeling well enough to make the opportunity cost of not going (when I've been looking forward to and planning for this for months) higher than any negative enjoyment resulting from going while not quite back up to nominal health. So, annoying I got sick when I did and I'd rather have not gotten this at all (since, you know, it's been rather unpleasant even aside from any scheduling issues), but at least I didn't get sick even a day later.
As it is, I'm thinking of taking a later train into the city tomorrow (the first leg of my journey, or second if the walk from home to the local station is counted), but I am still planning to set out tomorrow!
(And hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow than I am today, which is both better than I was yesterday and enough I think I'd be willing to set out today if I had to, too -- and then the con itself starts Friday, so hopefully I'll be feeling even better by then...)
I don't know if anyone else here will be there (and I'm quite behind on FIMFiction; I've no idea when I'll get through all those blog posts...), but I thought I'd make this blog post just in case. :)
I’m not able to attend but I hope you have a terrific time!
5696015
Sorry about the first, but thanks for the second! I think it's been going well so far. :)
5696376
Glad to hear you’re having a good time. I’m looking forward to reading about your adventures there.
5696403
Well, it'll be the first time I've attempted a convention retrospective blog, as far as I'm recalling, so hopefully it doesn't disappoint too much! :)
I wasn't actually planning to do one (though I think I recall the idea had occurred to me...) until your reply there, but... why not? :)
It was great meeting you!
5696953
Likewise!
And thanks again for suggesting that G1 thing; I enjoyed it. I mean, I still would have also liked to do the thing I'd been previously planning to do, but it wasn't even the first time at that very convention I'd had to pick between things happening simultaneously; such is the way of things, and I'm pleased with the choice I made here. :)
5697377
That seems to be the theme at conventions from what I've seen - everything I want to do is simultaneous. I'm glad you enjoyed the G1 panel! Let me know what cons (if any) you're planning on going to next year. I have my ticket for SeaquestriaFest already, and I'm planning on TrotCon and really hoping to do CiderFest again. Whinny City is a maybe also.
5697479
"That seems to be the theme at conventions from what I've seen - everything I want to do is simultaneous."
Ah, sorry if it gets up to everything for you -- at least for me it's only been some things.
"I'm glad you enjoyed the G1 panel!"
Thanks. :)
"Let me know what cons (if any) you're planning on going to next year."
Currently, just PVCF23, and there's a fair bit of hope in that planning. I'd like to get to more, but, eugh, time and money...
If I can do two cons, somehow, the other's probably EFNW, as I both know people in the area and I have the impression (though I'm not sure how accurate it is) it's the "main" pony convention now that Bronycon's closed.
If I can actually somehow do three, which feels like it would require a significant lottery win or something... I don't know. [shrugs] If the opportunity comes up, something to figure out then, I suppose.
"I have my ticket for SeaquestriaFest already, and I'm planning on TrotCon and really hoping to do CiderFest again. Whinny City is a maybe also."
Ah, nice; I hope your conventioning goes well!
I doubt I'll be going to TrotCon or Whinny City; as I recall, I already looked into those and pondered attending them, but the transit availability seemed pretty bad.
SeaquestriaFest...
[looks up]
Oh! That one! Right, I looked into that one too a bit back, since as the pegasus flies it's not all that far from me... Buuut, well, I'm not actually a pegasus, or a batpony, or a seapony able to swim the distance...
I think I recall finding that I could make it to that one by taking the train to Wilmington, Delaware and then taking a bus, but, well, as mentioned above, I only really expect to be able to do one con a year. SeaquestriaFest might be closer than PVCF or EFNW along a direct arc and might look nice enough that I'd prefer it to no con at all, but if I have to pick just one, well, PVCF22 went so well (and seems likely to be in the same hotel next year, too, which given I liked the hotel, I now know the hotel to some extent, and that I liked it, and I am (thanks to Bronycon) a Hilton Honors member, gives it bonus "score" in the selection, even if I might also enjoy seeing Ocean City since I've never been there before) that PVCF23 is currently my top and thus probably only pick for 2023.
Though, hey, I don't know, if I do manage to luck into a few million dollars in time, maybe I could simplify travel to Ocean City by just chartering a boat or something. :D
...Probably not going to happen, though, sorry.
Still, I do hope the con goes well, for you and in general!
5696403
I am, by the way, just about to post the retrospective blog I've put together, after I get this reply up. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint too much!
5697902
The consensus is split between the current biggest con being EFNW or TrotCon. I'd ask Admiral Biscuit since he's been to both, I only have TrotCon as a reference.
I think what's skewing the numbers is that last year's last minute TrotCon (December 2021) was about the size of this year's PVCF. TrotCon 2022 was substantially bigger. Much bigger than PVCF. Personally, I think PVCF was the perfect size for me.
Thank you!
If the stars align and you decide to do a second con next year, send me a direct message if you're interested in going to either Seaquestria or TrotCon. Seaquestria's my closest con (and TrotCon is my second closest), so if either one is in your neck of the woods also, I'm certainly not opposed to having company on the drive. It's just a matter of figuring where we are in relation to each other and the details on how to make it work.
On a side note, I wouldn't mind the details on how you got to Milwaukee, because I'm certainly not opposed to missing Chicago traffic next time I head up that way (hopefully for PVCF).
5697932
"The consensus is split between the current biggest con being EFNW or TrotCon. I'd ask Admiral Biscuit since he's been to both, I only have TrotCon as a reference.
I think what's skewing the numbers is that last year's last minute TrotCon (December 2021) was about the size of this year's PVCF. TrotCon 2022 was substantially bigger. Much bigger than PVCF."
Ah, thanks for the information. Perhaps I was coming down on EFNW's side without even realizing there were sides because of the number of people I know in the area, the fact I've been to an EFNW (2015), the fact that EFNW not only has transit access but is expected to get better transit access when a new light rail line opens (which might actually have already happened by this point)...
Whereas, as I recall, my experience of looking into TrotCon first found that the city had no passenger rail service, so I'd have to either fly or take a bus. And then once in the city, there was poor transit access to the actual hotel. And once at the hotel, there was poor pedestrian infrastructure in the hotel's area. I suppose the overall sense could be described as "Whether or not I might want to go to TrotCon, TrotCon does not want me". And I mean, I realize that maybe that hotel is still the best TrotCon can do with the resources available to it, but... yeah.
I may also just have assumed that between a con with access as good as EFNW's and one with access as poor as TrotCon's, obviously the former would be bigger, or something like that.
Though it was a while ago I did that looking into TrotCon; I've done a bit more looking just now to make sure I wasn't grossly misremembering something, but I might still be getting details wrong.
"Personally, I think PVCF was the perfect size for me."
Glad you liked it. :)
I'm not sure what a perfect size for me might or might not be, but I also found PVCF's size nice. :)
...Though I hope that next year I'm on at most the "14th" (You know, the floor immediately above the 12th.) floor again (I was on the 12th this year. Actually happened to get a corner room, too. Which also led me to conclude that at least some of the windows on the building's facade appeared to be, at least now (possibly not when the building was first built), false, from looking at the building from the outside and comparing it to what I knew of the inside.) so that I can use the back pair of lifts. :D Those seemed much less congested than the main sextet.
(They also have a set of doors right next to what I'm pretty sure are the doors to the abandoned indoor water park. Because, if you hadn't heard, the hotel apparently contains an abandoned indoor water park. This is, as far as I'm aware, a true thing.
I also wonder what was on the 25th floor that one lift in the main set could apparently get to...)
"If the stars align and you decide to do a second con next year, send me a direct message if you're interested in going to either Seaquestria or TrotCon."
I will hopefully remember if that does come up, and thanks!
"Seaquestria's my closest con (and TrotCon is my second closest), so if either one is in your neck of the woods also, I'm certainly not opposed to having company on the drive."
I think Seaquestria is also my closest along an arc, at least, so that seems pretty promising.
It's probably not going to be TrotCon, though. While I appreciate the offer, and maybe the con itself is better, the area... well, see above. It just doesn't seem friendly to those who aren't driving, from what I recall from my research. If I'm going on vacation to a pony convention, I'd rather go somewhere where, even if I end up spending the whole time in the hotel anyway, I don't feel trapped in the hotel. Eh. I don't know, maybe the area seems better in person too, but... [shrugs] If I have a choice of cons, if TrotCon stays where it is, it's a ways down my list, basically.
"It's just a matter of figuring where we are in relation to each other and the details on how to make it work."
Well, I'm on Long Island, within walking distance of an LIRR station that can get me into NYP, and from there I've got the Northeast Corridor and Empire Corridor, and some long-distance services that go beyond them. And, of course, trains from New York City make connections with other trains and modes of transit elsewhere.
As far as I know, you're somewhere in New Jersey (though I could be wrong), which would give multiple potential points to meet up. Or there's Wilmington, Delaware, perhaps.
"On a side note, I wouldn't mind the details on how you got to Milwaukee, because I'm certainly not opposed to missing Chicago traffic next time I head up that way (hopefully for PVCF)."
Oh, sure! I mean, to a given level of detail, of course, not a "I walked through my front door, turned around and locked it, walked X distance to the porch steps, descended the Y steps, proceeded at this compass bearing to the sidewalk..." sort of detail. :D
So, first was the LIRR from my local station to New York Penn Station -- though I'm guessing you wouldn't be using the LIRR, I don't know if you might have one-seat-ride access via NJ Transit (which I've never actually been on) or something. From there, I had a roomette booked on the Lake Shore Limited (and my educated guess and targeted reservation successfully landed me a Viewliner I roomette (If you didn't know, Viewliner I roomettes have private toilets, Viewliner II roomettes do not. There is apparently significant division between the people who find that convenient and sufficiently enclosed/separated when the cover is down and people who find it too gross; I fall in the former camp. Amtrak's reservation system does not distinguish between Viewliner Is and Viewliner IIs, though, I assume because they don't want to deal with people booking one and then operational concerns resulting in the other being substituted. Or it might just be Amtrak's reservation system being bad, because Amtrak has... problems. Anyway, though, the New York section of the Lake Shore Limited usually at the moment runs with one Viewliner I and one Viewliner II, in the same order and same orientation, so if one gets on the telephone with Amtrak and asks for a particular car number in the consist, one can be fairly sure of getting one or the other, if it's available. As things stand at the moment. And since the even-numbered roomettes are on one side of the car and the odd on the other, and the cars usually face the same way in the consist, one can with that have a pretty good idea what side of the train a given roomette will be on.) on the port side of the train, which on the westbound has the Hudson River views), and that got me to Chicago Union Station the next day. I had a layover in the station, then boarded the Hiawatha Service to Milwaukee. And the Milwaukee station is a short and basically straight walk south of the hotel!
On the way home, it was the Hiawatha back to Chicago, then some time touristing in the city because I was planning to take the Cardinal home and the Cardinal doesn't run daily. That got me back to NYP, though (eventually), and then it was the LIRR home.
In my tentative plans for next year, I'm thinking of leaving Milwaukee Monday, doing a same day transfer to the Lake Shore Limited in Chicago (I'm not sure if I'd spend that entire time in the station or not, as the Lake Shore Limited leaves Chicago rather late), and riding that home to arrive in NYP significantly earlier than the Cardinal does on its current schedule. And then the LIRR again.
(By the way, if you want them, Amtrak timetables since, as far as I know, Amtrak still isn't publishing them: https://narprail.org/resources/amtrak-timetables/)
The trip out would involve the Hiawatha from Chicago to Milwaukee again and the LIRR to NYP, but I'm not sure about NYP to CHI. The simple answer would be to just use the Lake Shore Limited. I do not want to take the Cardinal out of NYP, because even though it does, last I checked, leave on the right day, it leaves horribly early in the morning. However, I'm toying with the idea of leaving home on Tuesday, riding the Northeast Regional or maybe an Acela to somewhere further south on the Northeast Corridor, maybe Wilmington or Washington, getting a hotel, and then boarding the Cardinal there, when it stops at a later hour. Of course, that adds another hotel bill and more time... I'm not sure which I'll end up going with. Rather early days to be making these plans in any sort of finalized state, of course, anyway. :)