My wife, Anita, and I attended the Friends For Life type 1 conference July 8-10. The trip to Orlando on July 7 was not good. The plane was delayed for four hours in Florida before it arrived in NY where we were waiting. That caused us to land in Orlando at 9:00 PM. Arriving at the Coronado Springs Resort at 10:00 PM was not fun. When we were finally in our room we called the Disney Magical Express. They were supposed to deliver our luggage to our room. They told us our name was not on their schedule, and they did not know the location of our luggage. That was very upsetting!!! An hour later someone called and said our luggage had been found at the airport. It was delivered to our room at 3 AM. We had almost no sleep that night, and I was worried about my session scheduled for 3:30 PM the next day.
On Wednesday we were able to drag ourselves into the conference center and meet some people, pick up our schedule, and organize the slides for my talk. We were so tired that we had to force ourselves to have some breakfast. There were talks being given that day, but we were too tired to attend. We went back to our room and took a long nap. That helped a lot! Our room was supposed to be close to the conference center. I made the reservation for our room in February so we could have a better choice of room location. We have physical handicaps with arthritis and knee replacements. The room we were given was so far from the conference center that we had to take a bus to get there. We were NOT impressed with Disney and the resort!! frown emoticon
That afternoon I gave my talk 3:30-5:00 PM. There were about 30 people in my audience. I gave a short intro and asked for questions. There were lots of questions, and I really enjoyed them. I had so much to talk about, and did not present much of it because there were so many questions, and it was easy to see that the people there were enjoying the question and answer format. I have put my notes away, thinking I may use them in the future. After the session, and for the next two days there were many people who gave compliments on the session, and so many who were not able to attend, but wish they had. My session was on a Wednesday, but that is not prime time for the conference. The best attendance is seen on Thursday and Friday.
There were some very good sessions that we attended. Two of them were given by type 1 men. Will Cross has climbed Mt Everest, walked to the North and South Poles, and is planning other mountain climbing expeditions. He is 45, and Anita said she wanted to give Will Cross a hug and ask him when he is going to stop his dangerous adventures. He is 45 and has a wife and kids, so why does he do this??? Sebastian Sasseville was the other speaker. He has walked coast to coast across Canada, climbed Mt Everest, and walked across the Sahara Desert. Lots of great pictures were shown by both speakers.
The meals were good and we have no complaints about the conference, it was wonderful! I wish we could go every year, but it is much too expensive, and so tiresome.
The temperatures were consistently above 100 degrees, there was so much walking, and we are probably too old to go back to Florida again. It is great to be back home where we can resume our normal, relaxing routine in peace and quiet! Every year in early July I am going to sit at home and take deep breaths, wishing I could go back to the Friends For Life Conference. Being too old is the pits! lol
Home Sweet Home!!! That is probably the best place for Anita and me.