Important Question to Those Familiar With Sakura-Con
Question to vikki, lionboogy, ziggybecket, or anyone else who might be familiar with the programming habits of Sakura-Con: is there any reason to favor getting flights to the con that arrive late Thursday so I can go to early Friday stuff, or will it mostly be okay to catch an early Friday flight and get to the con around late morning/early afternoon Friday? Similarly, for Sunday, is there any reason to favor taking a later flight to leave Seattle as late as reasonably possible (say, leave the con around 5-6pm), or does it seem okay to just grab a mid-afternoon flight and leave the con around 12 or 1-ish?
The arrival time matters since if I can save the extra hotel night, I'd like to, but I'd miss any morning activities. Which at a well-established 3 day con might be problematic. The departure time matters to try to give myself a few extra hours of recovery before going to work the next day, but obviously also risks missing any Sunday afternoon programming. Planned right, I can pretty much hit the con and not use one hour of vacation time if need be. I'm leaning right now toward an early morning Friday arrival and an early afternoon Sunday departure, meaning I'll only be at the con for about 48 hours. Still, those 48 hours would be pretty action packed.
Right now, VA's & Alaska's flights are a respectable $160 (cheapest out of the airlines at the moment) to go from LAX to Seattle-Tacoma Airport, and pretty much that's independent of time I pick to fly. I might be able to do a bit better by looking around a bit more, but in general I trust Kayak to do a pretty good job. Not to mention I like flying VA a lot.
Obviously, this means right now I'm strongly leaning toward joining the insanity in Seattle. My apologies to kyubikitsy that I probably won't get to Honolulu for Kawaii-Kon and for anyone thinking I'd lean toward Anizona. :/
EDIT: While I'm still doing planning, hotel reservations GET for Fanime. Going to arrive on Friday as usual, and I've picked the Hilton. So yay, that's pretty much getting set too. Things are starting to fall in place for the year.
EDIT 2: Flight confirmed. Flying Virgin America flight 781 from LAX to SEA (Seattle-Tacoma) departing 7:15AM Friday arriving 10AM (hotel probably by noon). Flying Virgin America flight 796 from SEA to LAX departing 7:45PM arriving 10:20PM (back home hopefully just a bit after 11PM), so I'm taking the late flight back. That should give me about 54 hours of con time. $159.20 after all taxes were factored in, so not a horrible pinch on the wallet. Once I include the hotel (switched from Sheraton to Grand Hyatt since I'm now planning for 1 instead of 2), the baseline expenses looks like around $600. For a solo con trip outside commute distance, that looks about right. Since the flight isn't cancellable without penalty, safe to say I'm hitting Sakura-Con. Now I just hope that press badge app comes back positive. XD
The arrival time matters since if I can save the extra hotel night, I'd like to, but I'd miss any morning activities. Which at a well-established 3 day con might be problematic. The departure time matters to try to give myself a few extra hours of recovery before going to work the next day, but obviously also risks missing any Sunday afternoon programming. Planned right, I can pretty much hit the con and not use one hour of vacation time if need be. I'm leaning right now toward an early morning Friday arrival and an early afternoon Sunday departure, meaning I'll only be at the con for about 48 hours. Still, those 48 hours would be pretty action packed.
Right now, VA's & Alaska's flights are a respectable $160 (cheapest out of the airlines at the moment) to go from LAX to Seattle-Tacoma Airport, and pretty much that's independent of time I pick to fly. I might be able to do a bit better by looking around a bit more, but in general I trust Kayak to do a pretty good job. Not to mention I like flying VA a lot.
Obviously, this means right now I'm strongly leaning toward joining the insanity in Seattle. My apologies to kyubikitsy that I probably won't get to Honolulu for Kawaii-Kon and for anyone thinking I'd lean toward Anizona. :/
EDIT: While I'm still doing planning, hotel reservations GET for Fanime. Going to arrive on Friday as usual, and I've picked the Hilton. So yay, that's pretty much getting set too. Things are starting to fall in place for the year.
EDIT 2: Flight confirmed. Flying Virgin America flight 781 from LAX to SEA (Seattle-Tacoma) departing 7:15AM Friday arriving 10AM (hotel probably by noon). Flying Virgin America flight 796 from SEA to LAX departing 7:45PM arriving 10:20PM (back home hopefully just a bit after 11PM), so I'm taking the late flight back. That should give me about 54 hours of con time. $159.20 after all taxes were factored in, so not a horrible pinch on the wallet. Once I include the hotel (switched from Sheraton to Grand Hyatt since I'm now planning for 1 instead of 2), the baseline expenses looks like around $600. For a solo con trip outside commute distance, that looks about right. Since the flight isn't cancellable without penalty, safe to say I'm hitting Sakura-Con. Now I just hope that press badge app comes back positive. XD