Welp, I arrived back from Megaplex in the early hours of this morning. As I was so exhausted from the trip I fell asleep basically as soon as I arrived home - around 1:00am my time (Pacific).

Anyways let's start at the beginning - on August 3rd around 8pm I was on my way to YVR Vancouver International airport to begin my overnight journey to Orlando for Megaplex. At 8:15 I was checking in when I realized I forgot my VISA card (needed for hotel checkin and airline baggage payment) so rushed back to my apartment 30 minutes away (by transit) to get it, then back again. Checked in at 9:30 and almost immediately went through security - a breeze with my NEXUS card - and my flight left on time at 11:18. Through Dallas four hours later where the entire plane had to go through customs as it was closed at YVR, and again a breeze with my Nexus Card - TSA on the other hand took a little longer as my KTN was not on the boarding pass, so they wouldn't let me through TSA-Pre. Anyways that aside caught another plane a couple of hours later bound for Orlando MCO Airport.

In Orlando, here's where things started to get interesting. I had looked up how to get to the hotel by transit and looked it up on Google Maps again - funny thing is it said it would take three hours, whereas I'd researched it to be about an hour-and-a-half. Shrugging this off I went with my pre-planned itinerary (the 111 bus to SeaWorld followed by the 50 bus to the hotel). Then at Seaworld the 50 never showed up, there were at least four people plus myself standing under a tree as we were subjected to a Floridian rain shower before finally - 50 minutes after the 111 dropped us off, the 50 showed up - jam packed. We all squeezed on and then ended up at - wait for it... Disney's Magic Kingdom! Of course this wasn't where I wanted to go so I asked the driver if we had passed the Embassy Suites, unhelpfully he just replied "I don't know where that is."
Rode back on the bus to where I thought the hotel was (Palm Pkwy at Marabella Palms Ct.) and walked through uncut grass and bushes to the Embassy Suites. Upon trying to check in, here came this fantastic news (sarcasm) - it was the WRONG Embassy Suites! I thought it looked different from on the Megaplex website, but I was so tired I didn't pay it any attention. The (wrong) Embassy Suites called me a taxi to take me to the correct hotel - five miles away and a $39 blow to my finances - also amid pouring rain. Anyways that aside, I arrived at the correct Embassy Suites and checked in. I was too tired to do anything else so fell asleep for three hours before looking around the con, briefly introducing myself to  blitzgshep and then going back for a proper sleep to try and get rid of the jetlag.

Friday morning came - I missed the free breakfast as it finished at 9:30am and I didn't get up until 10. Went over to the nearby 7-Eleven to get food and forgot my wallet, had to go back and get it and then came back again to get the food. Wow, things were just going wrong all over the place. xD
That afternoon I decided to go for a swim in the pool. I met quite a few people there and had a good time amid several inflatable floating animals - belonging to  silverwolfoneofmany and then later on seeing  thedoggygal with her boyfriend and Momlando.
That evening there was the news that  spazzfox was coming around midnight. I simply had to warn him to go to the correct hotel after my own misfortune and I made sure I was in suit so I could greet him with a big fox hug - this never happened of course but he did acknowledge me.

Saturday came - Once again I missed the free breakfast but had some leftover food from Friday's 7-Eleven visit so had that, and then went down in fursuit with my EZ Cooling Vest on (it's great for keeping cool in warm climates!) and prepared to go in the fursuit parade. Of course I didn't actually march in the parade because by the time I went over to the door the parade was over already! xD Ah well, I was just about to go out and see who else was fursuiting when Spazz came in, with  elliotthebunny and  kodipup - so quite predictably I stayed in the room. Once again Spazz acknowledged me and amid a few short heads-off breaks it was fursuiting antics amid staff trying to clear the room for the next event *giggle* (for those of you curious, Spazz has never acknowledged me like this before, so I was quite delighted with this). Anyways as Spazz predictably buzzed away leaving me all by myself, I went up to desuit. For the next few hours I was cooling off in my room until I went over to Subway for some supper, on my way back bumping into Orlando and Momlando yet again.
After this I saw some playful shenanigans with  taikoshepherd and a few of his friends, so after recording some I went suiting again for an hour or so, actually getting to introduce myself to Taiko and a couple of other suiters as well. I retired for the night after that, catching a glimpse of a beer-toting Spazz talking to Syber - the exact words he said were "Tomorrow's gonna suck."

Anyways on Sunday I did one more spout of fursuiting before packing him up in preparation for leaving. The Pawpet show was cancelled to my dismay, but then I caught Spazz yet again and we talked - like actually talked, though again as he was with Syber and enjoying a drink in her company I didn't want to linger too long. I don't want to say this was the highlight of my con because it really wasn't - the whole con was amazing, but this moment was still special to me.
After this I continued walking around the con talking to more people, some of which I already knew and some I'd only met just a few days ago. I went to sleep that night feeling particularly happy.
Among them were  rookshep and  zip-the-fox

Next morning I woke up at 9am - my flight wasn't until 5:40pm but I wanted to get underway as soon as possible. I tweeted to Spazz a reminder that I had a ride available for him - though as most of you know Spazz is most elusive and must have found his own way to the airport by magic. xD
I got to MCO Airport around 1:15pm and tried to check-in, but of course it was too early. D:

As soon as that clock hit 1:40pm I checked in for my flight, though I spent an extra five minutes getting my boarding pass upgraded with my KTN and the associated TSA-Pre benefit. Then found a departure board, showing the next plane to Toronto departing at 2:09 from Gate 13 - a WestJet. Then I rushed off at full-tilt to TSA-Pre, breezing through with only one minor hiccup (my fursuit head bag was too light to come through the x-ray machine on its' own) and proceeded to Gate 13.
--I know what you're thinking. Why on earth am I rushing there instead of proceeding to my own flight? Well a silly part of me wanted to say "Goodbye and safe journey" in person to Spazz, no matter how briefly. -- Unfortunately by the time I arrived the gate was already closed and everyone boarded. Feeling slightly dejected for just a moment and then thinking about what to do, I went over to the window and fought with my dying smartphone to take a picture of the plane and tweet it - which took far too long as the old thing is particularly buggy, I swore I was gonna throw it away when I got home. I did successfully send a tweet as the plane taxied off to the runway though, and wistfully waved a goodbye before going to find out where my own plane was departing from - gate 58.

This part I'll shorten, my flights from MCO to PHX and from PHX to YVR were on time and relatively smooth, though I was dying of hunger when I reached PHX. Ended up spending another $11 on pizza and pop (and not a great deal of it either to be frank) before getting on my final flight of the trip.

Looking back at this entire experience I think the moral of this (very true!) story was this: "Alas things seldom go the way we plan, but C'est la vie."

With Love.
FriendlyFox

P.S - my MegaPlex music video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUF7x09JQsM