I finally had a chance to post up photos from last weekend’s Mickey & MINI 4 event. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I had my exposure setting on my camera all messed up so if some of the photos are a little light, that is why (sorry about that). I also included a weekend recap below to let you know what we did and hoping that you realize that, if you didn’t go this year, you just HAVE to go next year . Enjoy!
Even though Mickey and MINI 4 officially kicked off on Friday the 26th, there were quite a few of us that arrived a day early to beat the rush and get things ready for the MINIac invasion that was to come. A nice group of us went to dinner Thursday night at Trail’s End restaurant at Disney’s Fort Wilderness. The food was good and the conversation was even better. Disney fireworks topped the night off in splendid fashion.
Another Mickey & MINI is in the record books and this year was the best one yet!! With 300 of the best MINIacs this side of the Mississippi, Orlando was THE place to be this weekend. It was so nice to see familiar faces from last year and so cool to see so many new faces who, for some, this was their first MINI event ever! I plan on having a full weekend recap once I get my photos retouched (darn camera lens got mucked up and now there are spots on most of my photos ).
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I am also working on a video from the weekend as well. For now, enjoy the group photo from our Saturday Morning Motoring adventure which led us to the main EPCOT parking lot in front of Spaceship Earth. There were 68 MINIs/Minis that made up this photo. If you look close, you will see we had to double them up and create a second row. Sadly, I am short and did not have a tall platform to get an aerial shot to get all the cars in both rows in the shot (hmmm…. there is always next year ).
The latest event update e-mail has just gone out. In case your e-mail provider blocked it for some odd reason, here is a copy of the message that was sent out:
Can you believe it? It is time to get ready to “Motor the Magic”!! That’s right, our 4th Annual Mickey and MINI event is less than 1 week away! Please take a moment to print out our “Event Guide” with all the event information you’ll need for the weekend. Make sure you print it out and bring it along. In case the Event Guide attached to this e-mail did not come through, you can download the guide at the following link:
1. If you are going to participate in the Scavenger Hunt, make sure to bring your digital camera. (and yes the printer option has been deleted this year!!)
2. Don’t forget about our Food Drive to support the local community. (see details on page 4 of the Event Guide)
3. Don’t forget to bring your two-way radios. We will be on channel 7-21 all weekend long and will be using them to make announcements in and around the hotel as well as during the various caravans.
Also, if you are arriving early on Thursday and would like to join the planning team for a fun and unique dining experience, we have made dinner reservations at Trails End @ Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort. It is an all-you-can eat buffet with great food and great atmosphere. Dinner usually runs about $20 and we have room for 15 people. We will be departing from the rear parking lot of the Embassy Suites (our host hotel) promptly at 6:30pm to caravan over to the restaurant. Since there is limited seating available, we will do this on a first sign-up basis. If we end up with more than 15, we will call to see if we can increase our reservation, but can’t make any promises. If you want to join us, please add your name to the sign-up list at the following link:
With just a few days left to get your Mickey & MINI 4 registration in, what are you waiting for? Over 260 MINIacs have already sent in their registrations and are making preparations to converge in Orlando for one huge party!! Don’t delay and make sure you are part of the largest Mickey & MINI yet. For those early birds who will be arriving Thursday, we have made some reservations at a Disney restaurant to kick the weekend off right. Check out the link below to add your name to the Thursday night dinner list. See you there!!
If you have been putting it off, DON’T wait any longer!! Deluxe registration for Mickey and MINI 4 will only be open for a couple of hours before it is closed for good! Join the rest of the 230+ MINIacs who will converge in Orlando, Florida in one month to be part of the largest MINI meet in the Southeast. Get ready to “Motor The Magic” and have a blast. Register NOW before it’s too late.
With only a few more days to register for Mickey & MINI 4, 217 people have registered so far! That is more than double what we had last year!!! The number of people that are coming from outside the state of Florida is simply amazing. There are reports of people shipping their cars to the event and others planning long caravans across various states. If you have not had a chance to register, what are you waiting for? Come join us for an awesome time!
If you are one of the 100+ registrants who have already registered for Mickey and MINI 4 and have been holding off on booking a hotel room at the host hotel, you may want to book ASAP. Rooms are filling up FAST and there are not too many rooms left at the discounted $89/night event rate. To help make sure that as many rooms are available for registrants, the organizers of the event are asking the hotel to honor the special event rate only to those who have actually registered for Mickey and MINI 4. This will help prevent those who try to get the hotel discount without actually supporting the event. Even if you register for the $10 base registration package, you will qualify for the discounted room. So what are you waiting for? Register for Mickey and MINI 4 today and book your hotel room now!
I think this is the best media coverage to date that I have seen for MINI Takes The States 2008. It was aired on Univision and shows quite a few of our MINIs. Even if you don’t understand Spanish, you get an idea of how much fun we had. Look closely and you will see some familiar faces, including Pedro Vidal, who raced in the La Carrera Panamericana of 2007 and our good friend Alex Fuentes (nice job on the interview Alex!). Enjoy!
First of all, sorry for the delay in getting this video posted. Priorities had to shift when my 4 year old got a stomach virus and between taking him to the ER and various doctor appointments, let’s just say that editing video just did not make the list over the past week or so. Anyways, here is the video for day 2 of MINI Takes The States 2008 from Miami, FL. I had a lot of footage to sort out and wanted to include as many different MINIs so that, if you were there, your MINI hopefully is shown. I tried to cover as much of the rally as possible, without it getting too long. I hope you enjoy it!
The day started early with a continental breakfast at Bicentennial Park in downtown Miami, courtesy of MINI USA. The number of MINIs/Minis that showed up for the owners-only rally appeared to be over 300. For me, it was the largest number of Minis I had ever seen in one place - very cool! Read the rest of this entry »
Between catching up on sleep and trying to figure out how to use my new Mac, I feel like I am playing catch-up lately after last weekend’s MINI Takes The States kick-off in Miami. I finally got to play with iMovie ‘08 and posted my first Mac-editted video.
This video pretty much sums up the first day of MINI Takes The States 2008 for the Sunshine MINI group. We spent the majority of the day traveling South. Since our members are spread out over such a large geographic area, we decided to meet in a central location for lunch - the Queen Mary British Pub in Jupiter, FL. Huge thanks to Neal from the pub for putting on such a wonderful buffet. Also, special thanks to Tom Bush MINI and Downtown MINI for picking up the tab! Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
. Enjoy!
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Posted by Pedro in Modern MINI, Audio & Video, Images, MINI Events 
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