Tuesday was travel day for Comic-Con. I was determined to make this trip with as less stress as possible. I don’t have a fear of flying, nor do I hate travel. I have trouble preparing for a trip, by over thinking all the elements, and traveling with others, because I can’t take the indecisive, slow moving and generally slow thinking people I run across on trips. I think it’s tied into the over planning aspect, but until I get to my destination I tend to be a bit stressed.

OK, so a bit of a gap in the writing. It’s 3am Wed morning. I started writing the previous paragraph at 7pm Tuesday. I went to the bed for a second while I changed the channel to CNN. I guess I’m glad I built in this break day before I went full bore into the convention. I don’t get this much sleep unless I’ve drained myself at home. Wait a minute. I worked a shift Mon night to Tue morning. I went straight from work to the airport, waited until my flight left and once I got to San Diego took the wild trek to my hotel, which ended at 6pm. All of this done without sleep. OK, I guess that explains why I’m so tired.

Before I left for work Monday night I packed my bag for the week. I got most of everything I wanted in the bag. I marveled that I got the computer, camera equipment and clothes in one bag. For some reason, in the back of my head I worried the bag wouldn’t make it in the overhead bin of the plane. For the first time in a long time, which was a trip to Vegas in the late 80’s, I was traveling first class. I said I wanted to relax on the trip and I wanted to pamper myself. Maybe because of the stress and being tired I had some idea the bag might not fit and I would be found out as not being worthy of first class.

Have pack will travel

The good news was the bag fit perfectly. The other thing is I can understand why people pay extra for first class. Yes, we got to board first, no big deal there, but the seats are large. I sat comfortably in mine. The first thing I was offered was a drink. I opted for orange juice but others ordered stronger stuff and no money changed hands. In regular seating, once they started serving you, that would have been a $7 charge.

Oh, before take-off, the drinks were served in plastic cup but once we were at cruising altitude we were given glasses. As we waited for the rest of the people to board, I saw a couple of people just look at us sitting down with drinks in our hands. I don’t know if it was envy or jealously in their eyes. It was just a one hour flight but the drinks, blanket and pillow we got made the trip bearable. I was able to stretch out my legs and while I couldn’t sleep, a lot of people in first class had no trouble.

Ground Zero for Popular Culture this week.

We landed and was it nice to leave the plane in less than five minutes! I normally sit in the back and it takes up to 15 minutes for people to trickle out. Getting out early allowed me to catch the connecting bus as soon as I stepped outside. Normally arriving in San Diego means I miss the bus to downtown by a minute or two, because it takes so long to disembark the plane.

I have been asked for years how I’m able to get a hotel for Comic-Con. I have revealed the secret to some but resent events allow me to share it with everyone else. I get my hotel in Tijuana. There are a few advantages to this. As of now, I can order and put a hold on a reservation, meaning I don’t have to pay until I arrive at the hotel. Good news there, like this year, is I can book or make changes before I have to pay. The price will be significantly different than getting something near the convention. Comic-Con is starting to get known in Tijuana, but prices haven’t gone up that much. The hotel I normally go to did raise prices this year, and I found out for the first time they are fully booked for Comic-Con weekend. There could be an event in town (oddly there tends to be a big event in Tijuana at the time of Comic-Con) but I’ve never seen this hotel to be fully booked. For the price of a day at a hotel near the convention center, you can get, for a comparable room, a room for 2-3 days in Mexico.

My hotel room in Tijuana

The big fear people have about Tijuana are rumors other people tell them. I haven’t had problems in country that wouldn’t have happened in the United States. Basically if you don’t act a fool, you’ll be fine. The drawbacks to staying in Tijuana? While the prices are good and the accommodations great, one thing is to check the prices and the hotel carefully. I know I just said prices are better than in San Diego, but just like you would in San Diego you need to check the hotel out online beforehand. I once got a hotel that was $50 a night, it advertised it was a nice place and it wasn’t. It wasn’t a rat hole, but it was a hole in the wall place like you would see in a seedy movie hotel. A few days later, for the same price, I was in a hotel that was light years away in standards and charms.

The biggest issue to contend with, by far, is the border. You need to have a passport to go through the border and you either need to get up early or pack your patience. As I’m typing these words down it is 3:37am. Tomorrow, the start of the convention, I will have to be up close to this time so I can get to the border and get through the line in a reasonable amount of time. By reasonable I mean one hour. By my experience, if you are not at the border by 5am, you will be looking at a 2-4 hour wait. Literally you could have a 30 minute window between getting through the line in 30 minutes to an hour, to waiting up to 3 hours in line. If you get to the border by 6am or later, forget about it. You will be stuck.

Understand that’s just getting through the border. You still have to get on the trolley, which is a one hour trip. As I said earlier, Tijuana knows about the convention but isn’t fully aware of it. Take this under consideration; if you are a cosplayer and you are dressed up as Batman, figure waiting a few hours walking through a line with people staring at you, then going up to the customs line and explaining your costume to border agents, then sitting or standing (more likely standing) for an hour on a crowded trolley. This is all before getting to the convention center. Another thing to consider is if you want to take on the night life during the convention, you have to factor in getting back to Tijuana, making sure the trolley is still running, then the turnaround of the next morning. If you party until 8 (yes I know that ain’t a real party), take the trolley back to the border and you get to your room, that could be 10 – 11pm, you will have to be up the next morning by 4am to avoid a backlog at the border. That will burn you out quick.

I have missed many a party and good conversation because I had to leave early to get back to Tijuana so I could turn around the next morning at a decent time. Yesterday getting to the hotel was almost uneventful. For the first time I was stopped by the police entering the border. They wanted to check my backpack. To be fair, it seemed they were checking every three people with bags for some reason. In the past five or so years I’ve been coming to Tijuana, I was stopped only once before and it was also during some massive sweep. They didn’t check my bag too thoroughly.

I just thought of another thing to consider in Tijuana. Your phone will go to roaming once you are here. In fact, my phone went to roaming once I hit San Ysidro, so your costs will jump. I use my stuff sparingly while here so I don’t get whacked that hard, but a few times I’ve had emergencies and used my hot spot for a quick connection, and by quick I mean five minutes or less, and my bill went into orbit! Hotel Wi-Fi is spotty at best, but for messages and quick checks its fine. My hotel connection seems to be pretty good right now, maybe because it’s early and less traffic, so I might get in an hour or two of EverQuest 2 before things get spotty.

So that has been my travel day for Comic-Con. I got to the hotel OK, slept like a bear, and I intend to get more sleep today before the fun begins tomorrow.