Hi, everyone -- I'm back home from Florida & the 999 Happy Haunts Ball!

Have had 14 hours of recovery sleep today, & feel slightly more like myself (still sore-legged & have blistery feet, but that'll pass soon).

Sheesh -- don't even know where to start, but here's a half-ton of thoughts & a few pix (thanks for the thread, Deena):

Got exactly what I wanted from the event -- & more than the Ball... even more than the Mansion... that was to meet a whole bunch of you. Sorry for the unabashed mush, but there it is.
In addition to the folks at the breakfasts, etc., I got to meet/shake hands with/talk to countesszerovon23 & David B (FUN people -- sorry we didn't see more of each other!), Desdinova, Ghastlyboi, GraceysGuest (what a hoot, sir -- you ROCK :) ), Momento M0ri (hope that the fortune was good news?), Ste3ve (the 3 is silent), TabbyKittie (geez -- what an adorable voice! :lol ), tearawayface (thanks again so much for the cool ID badge!)... probably some others that slip my mind at present (sorry if I missed mentioning you).
I think my biggest surprise resulted from the unforeseen iconography of the bunny ears: I was stopped & greeted by name no less than 4 times by lurkers of these boards (one of those a Mansion butler) because of them. Not people that I EXPECTED to meet -- total strangers knew me!
Jump in & start posting folks -- the water's fine, & the people are top shelf.

Interesting side effect of all the meet & greets: I have been playing catch-up with the new posts that have accumulated since I left, & I now "hear" many of your voices in my head when I read your stuff.
That's right, folks: now & forever, I know exactly what "Whottababe!" actually SOUNDS like. :rollin

Arrived Tuesday, having had no sleep to speak of the night before. Had lunch with music4autobahns & her husband, & then we all went to see Jackass: The Movie together.
I may have ruptured something.
DAMN that was funny.

Slipped back to the resort for a 90 minute nap, & went to one of the finest Disney experiences I've ever had:
Met music4autobahns, artdude323, Wolf, & all of our travelling companions for the Haunted Hayride at Fort Wilderness.
This ride's SERIOUSLY not for shaky young'uns (it packs a JOLT), but if you’re a grownup, or a kid with a strong constitution: may I recommend a seat at the back of the wagon? ;)
Don't wanna give TOO much detail away (part of the thrill lies in the surprises), but in a nutshell: the horse drawn wagon pulled us around well lit, heavily-traveled parts of Fort Wilderness for a bit (long enough to make me wonder why I spent eight bucks on something so lame), & then headed off into the dark woods, where we got a reenactment of Ichabod Crane's ride through Sleepy Hollow.
With US in Ichabod's shoes.
Yup: we got run down -- VERY LITERALLY -- by the headless horseman! If I talk more, it'll spoil surprises.
But in a word:
WOW.





Wednesday began with breakfast -- & a surprise. After his shift in the Mansion, wdwcaretaker himself decided to come over to the Contemporary & say hello while we all gathered!




The breakfast went very well, in my opinion -- loaded with great company. Kind of a feeling of meeting new friends & old friends at the same time.
Attendees included: artdude323, DaleandChip, doombuggy, Jack Gladstone, moodyblues, music4autobahns, ryan, Wolf, me... & of course, an assortment of our friends & family.

After eating, most of us went to register for the Ball -- (met Evil Wreath for the first time while we were there)
The lines were a bit of an organizational train wreck on Disney's part, I'm afraid. Not really impressed with a number of things about it.
Hopefully this year's dry run will be a learning experience for them if (?) they do something like this again in the future.

After we got registered, my friend Charlie & I stopped at the barbershop on Main Street for haircuts. I went for something similar to my signature pic (to keep it easy for people looking for the ears), but I got the 'do colored purple with dayglo pink highlights & a generous dousing of pixie dust (a.k.a. glitter). The fortunate side effect of this was that the ears were quite literally glued to my head for most of the rest of the day. Kinda handy for the faster-moving rides. Charlie went all out & did a green & dayglo yellow mowhawk. More ease of identification.




Later in the afternoon (shortly after happening to run into GeekyDweeb totally by chance), I met AtkidDeena for my first ever character dinner (see her post, above).

It was a pretty good time, & the food was decent (something I've been warned can be a problem at these things).

Goofy was VERY into the ears (and possibly very into AtkidDeena as well, but I won't go there for now). He absolutely INSISTED -- all in pantomime -- that I HAD to have his autograph :lol :






After dinner, AtkidDeena & I ran into Jack Gladstone, & we all did Pirates, Snow White, & (OF COURSE) The Haunted Mansion, The Haunted Mansion, and The Haunted Mansion together (3 continuous ride throughs). Jack's ex-castmember narrative prowess was great to have around: "here's where this door" or "that hallway" leads, etc. It was great. And NOW I know where castmembers pee in the Mansion... :rollin
The absolute coolest treat was on our third go-round was when our doombuggies stopped EXACTLY front & center in front of Madame Leota -- with no other guests in the room! We were there long enough to see perhaps 4 or more complete run-throughs of her spiel (except for "X" Atencio occasionally breaking in to tell us to stay seated :lol ).

This brought us to the point of the evening where the DoomBuggies.com crowd gathered for the Ball by the flagpole at the front of Main Street. Most of the previously mentioned people were there -- and some others, as well (mkapson: I DID see you there, & am very sorry I didn't get the chance to say hello -- hope to catch you next go-round). Trinitys Ghost & her family arrived at this time, & it was great to finally meet her.

The atmosphere for the event was really VERY cool. Different versions "Grim Grinning Ghosts" was playing all over the entire park. Totally changed the atmosphere of Main Street.

After all of the DoomBuggers had gathered & talked for a while, everyone went to the Imagineering presentation (I was at the Hall of Presidents), which was pretty fun (good speaker) -- but it also ran more than 30 minutes longer than scheduled. It was mostly old hat information for people who hang out here, but I saw a few pieces of concept art that I'd never caught before, etc., so it was cool.
And yes: the presentation did end with a teaser trailer for the movie -- complete with the disco version of Beethoven's 5th for a soundtrack (UGH), which reinforced my unease about the direction of this thing. But on the upside, they announced that Terence Stamp would be a Mansion butler in the movie -- which I'd not heard before -- & that's probably the most positive thing I've heard about it since they announced Don Knotts is set to be the caretaker.

As we left the presentation, the Headless Horseman did the first of his several hourly ridebys -- to the tune of "Ride of the Valkyries". Not gonna blow this one out of proportion: I never did manage to catch him up close (after the afore-mentioned hayride the previous evening, that was quite alright).

The Mansion itself? YIKES.
Others have described it very well -- & posted pictures besides. All I can add is that I don't really have words for it. I was like the version of the attraction that's in your imagination had appeared full size & in 3 dimensions.
It really was PERFECT with its reds & greens, the projected spider web & the fog.
Just perfect (thank you again, wdwcaretaker)!

Rode the attraction a few more times, & then did the buffet. Again: Disney... could'a done better on the food. It wasn't BAD -- but geez -- everyone shelled out a LOT for what we got, in my opinion. 'Nuff said about that.

As Ghost Relations Dept mentioned, several of us did indeed give him a phone call, & we all took turns describing what we were seeing.
This turned out to be one of my favorite memories of the night... standing in the ultra-thick fog by the hearse... music4autobahns looking perfectly at home gliding around in her black Renaissance gown (& freaking out that she was gonna move in)... passing the phone from person to person... telling GRD what we saw.
Gotta try to come if they do it next year, man -- it was a total blast.

As Caines pointed out in a different thread (wish you could'a said hello while we were there!), a buncha DoomBuggies.com posters did indeed go to Splash Mountain together, where I rode until the hair gel stained my whole face (& bunny ears) purple.

pictured below, top to bottom, left to right:
music4autobahn's husband, music4autobahns
Evil Wreath & husband
Nate, AtkidDeena
Charlie, Jack Gladstone




Gotta say that for me, the Ball was a great time. Mostly because of the company.

LONG walk afterwards (Disney REEEEEEEEEALLY REEEEEEEEEALLY REEEEEEEEEALLY dropped the ball on getting people outta there), but the parting gift IS very cool.





Jumping forward in time a couple of days, I arrived at the breakfast on Friday morning after a good, oh, 3 hours of sleep due to circumstances beyond my control.
I was trashed.

Bit of a late start getting seated due to a miscommunication with the restaurant, but we had a great time (sorry again 'bout the delay, ryan -- I hate it that you left).

Caretaker did indeed get his own full-sized -- errm, I mean life-sized -- Elvira standup, which he hauled out of there at its assembled display size. It was awesome.

"Hey, bub -- watch that eye contact..."



Attendees at this breakfast included: AtkidDeena, artdude323, Evil Wreath, GeekyDweeb, music4autobahns, TransparentHitchhiker, Trinitys Ghost, WeirdGlowsGleam & RequiemBelle, wdwcaretaker, me... & another assortment of our friends & family.
Ryan also came, but unfortunately couldn't stay due to the lateness of our being let in for seating :( .
"Breakfast" lasted until after Noon. It was as if no one REALLY wanted to go & break up the party.

GREAT fun. I got some great PRESENTS, too (thanks to everyone who pitched in -- y'all know who you are). Also: everyone else picked up my breakfast tab. THANK YOU all so much!
Can't tell you how much fun I had. Just don't have the words.

Glad for the trip. Honored for the meetings, & am looking forward to...
NEXT YEAR? ;)

And I'm also glad to be back. :)

Thank you again, everybody, for helping make this vacation SO great. I will absolutely be talking about this one for YEARS.


Best always,
--Nate


pictured left to right: WeirdGlowsGleam, Evil Wreath, TransparentHitchhiker, RequiemBelle, Trinitys Ghost, music4autobahns, music4autobahns' hand, cardboard Elvira, Nate, wdwcaretaker, Wolf (seated), artdude323, GeekyDweeb, AtkidDeena