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Fair Madness
Oct. 13th, 2005 04:18 pmTomorrow is the start of the NC State Fair. Now, Matt and I were good North Carolinians, and preordered our admission tickets online Sunday, got them in the mail Tuesday. However, we didn't have enough int he account at the time to buy ride books, so we figured we'd missed out on the presale price, and would just settle for paying $18 for one book of 24 tickets, instead of the presale price of $9 a book and getting two for the price of one at the gate.
Silly us. Turns out, just the online sales ended Sunday. They were still available at the $9 price as the walk-up locations, which included the fairgrounds and several malls in the area, until 6 pm today. I found this out around 2 in the morning. Matt found out around 11, and called me around 11:30 to tell me, yes, go get them. "Fairground's the closest, but go soon, because NCState has a home game tonight." So I get out of here around noon. Get to the exit by 12:15...then another 10 minutes to get less than a mile down the road to where the turnoff is to the booth. I see that line of cars, and think, "Okay, I'll park somewhere and walk to the booth!"
Wrong. There was no public parking that I could find. Every lot I saw had a sign saying "Permit needed." So after a frustrating hour (from the time I left), I came home. Looked up where Triangle Town Center Mall was, decided to go there.
I left here around 1:15. Got to the mall around 1:45. Got in line around 2. The line filled the "Disney World-type serpentine," as a man behind me described the roped-off waiting area, and had expanded into a side corridor, down and around. Half an hour passes, and I get to the end of the roped-off line. Another hour passes, and I finally get to buy my two ride books at 3:30 pm. I'm hungry by now, but I've been warned our budget is low, so no stopping for mall food, just back to the car (3:45) and back home (4:20).
So it took me about four and a half hours to buy two ride books for $18. We are using EVERY SINGLE FREAKING TICKET TOMORROW. I don't care how long it takes, we are going on rides until there are no tickets left, just so I didn't stand in line for an hour and a half for nothing.
Side note, it was kind of funny, with where the ticket coutner was located, it looked sort of like we were all queued up to use the escalator. :)
Silly us. Turns out, just the online sales ended Sunday. They were still available at the $9 price as the walk-up locations, which included the fairgrounds and several malls in the area, until 6 pm today. I found this out around 2 in the morning. Matt found out around 11, and called me around 11:30 to tell me, yes, go get them. "Fairground's the closest, but go soon, because NCState has a home game tonight." So I get out of here around noon. Get to the exit by 12:15...then another 10 minutes to get less than a mile down the road to where the turnoff is to the booth. I see that line of cars, and think, "Okay, I'll park somewhere and walk to the booth!"
Wrong. There was no public parking that I could find. Every lot I saw had a sign saying "Permit needed." So after a frustrating hour (from the time I left), I came home. Looked up where Triangle Town Center Mall was, decided to go there.
I left here around 1:15. Got to the mall around 1:45. Got in line around 2. The line filled the "Disney World-type serpentine," as a man behind me described the roped-off waiting area, and had expanded into a side corridor, down and around. Half an hour passes, and I get to the end of the roped-off line. Another hour passes, and I finally get to buy my two ride books at 3:30 pm. I'm hungry by now, but I've been warned our budget is low, so no stopping for mall food, just back to the car (3:45) and back home (4:20).
So it took me about four and a half hours to buy two ride books for $18. We are using EVERY SINGLE FREAKING TICKET TOMORROW. I don't care how long it takes, we are going on rides until there are no tickets left, just so I didn't stand in line for an hour and a half for nothing.
Side note, it was kind of funny, with where the ticket coutner was located, it looked sort of like we were all queued up to use the escalator. :)
