Last year was the first year I went to the ball at the Cow Palace. For me, it was a whole new experience for this sort of thing. I only stayed for two hours and had a blast. No stars that were promised, but the people were kick-ass and the expo was cool so it didn't matter. When I left that year, I told myself this was going to be the beginning of a trend for me. You know how you're so excited about something that you end up lobbying it to EVERYONE you know whenever you get the chance? That was me. This year, you can imagine how excited I was. I went VIP last year as well as this year. I paid 150 for both tickets, but this year a friend of mine decided to fly out and visit me for his birthday, so as a present I bought him a ticket. By then they were 175. We're now at $325 for this year. This year I found that they moved it to Treasure Island, and they're is supposed to be these awesome leather-seated buses to shuttle everyone for $12 to and from the park, more prizes; it just made me all the more excited to go. The night finally show ups and we're ready to go. We get to AT&T park, and there was a 45 minute line to wait for THREE DOUBLE DECKER BUSES to get to the park, whether you had a VIP ticket or not. I repeat, there were 3 buses for everyone--anyway, we get there and the ball was mediocre. We ended up leaving about an hour and a half early, and ended up spending that whole time in line for the shuttle. I didn't even think of going to the after-party I was so over it! $349 for the whole thing not including the costume, and there wasn't even a single complimentary drink!!! I'll never go again and you should do the same.
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