Non-Gambling Trip to Atlantic City, NJ (AC Boardwalk Con)

I just got back from a weekend enjoying the Atlantic City Boardwalk Con, so I thought I'd write up a brief trip report on it. The AC Boardwalk Con is a brand new comic book convention in its first year in Atlantic City, featuring a lot of great TV and movie actors, comic book artists and creators, movie and TV show props, costume contests, etc.

Usually I stay at Caesars when I'm in AC, but I knew we weren't going to have much time to play, so we decided to stay at another hotel to preserve my ADT. To save money, we ended up staying at the Super 8, which was a massive mistake. Yeah, I know Super 8 is very basic stuff, but the one in Atlantic City is incredibly rundown and dirty. My skin was crawling having to sleep there, but by the time we realized our mistake it was too late to get another hotel room. Yuck. It was sad to see to because the Super 8 is one block off the Boardwalk and very convenient for getting to most places in AC.

We got there on a Friday night after work, had a drink at the Irish Pub around the corner and turned in for the night. The con opened at 10 am, so we were up bright and early to get there and enjoy ourselves. We dedicated the morning of the first day to meeting some celebrities and getting autographs. We met Willa Holland and Manu Bennett from the TV show "Arrow" (based on the comic book Green Arrow) and then met Georgina Haig and Elizabeth Lail from the TV show "Once Upon A Time". We also met Grant Imahara from "Mythbusters". After a quick lunch at the food court, we went upstairs for the Arrow panel, which was really fun. The actors answered everyone's questions about the show and their performances. Immediately afterward, there was a panel on Once Upon a Time with four of the actors from the show. After the panels were over, we went back downstairs and visited artist alley, but we decided to wait until the next day to buy stuff so we could try to get some last minute deals.

One of the nice features of the con was the "garage" section, which had the movie cars for pretty much every Batman movie, as well as the 1966 Batman TV show, the DeLorean from "Back to the Future" and the hearse from "Ghostbusters II". Cool stuff. There was also a section of movie props from Marvel movies, included several of Iron Man's suits from the movies, and props from "The Avengers" and "Guardians of the Galaxy". Marvel creator Stan Lee lent some of his collection of rare comic books including X-Men #1, Avengers #4 (the issue where Captain America was thawed out of the ice), and the issue of the old Marvel title that introduced Spider-Man.

Stan Lee was supposed to be there in person this weekend, but he had to cancel for an undisclosed reason. It may have something to do with the fact that he is 93 years old. They also cancelled the panel discussion on The Flash TV series, because Tom Cavanaugh (Dr. Wells) had to cancel at the last minute. We still had the opportunity to meet and get an autograph from Danielle Panabaker, though, who plays Caitlin Snow on The Flash.

On Saturday night, we tried to take advantage of a discount on meals at Caesars and Bally's for convention guests by walking over there, but absolutely everything was booked solid until 10 pm. We ended up eating at Johnny Rockets in Bally's, which was okay. I liked that they offered milkshakes spiked with rum. I've never seen that offered at a Johnny Rockets before. We didn't play, but we walked through the casino at Bally's and it looked really disappointing when you compare it to Caesars. After dinner, we walked back to the Super 8 and called it a night.

Sunday morning, we checked out of the Super 8 and parked over at the Tanger Outlets then walked back to the convention center. First up on Sunday mornng was a panel discussion with Michael Rooker, Sean Gunn, and Gregg Henry from "Guardians of the Galaxy". It was an absolute hoot. Michael Rooker has so much personality and he was willing to make fun of fans asking dopey questions. They had everyone rolling with laughter. After that, we headed back downstairs to Artist Alley and met some really talented comic book artists who sold us some autographed copies of their work. We brought home some really nice artwork to frame and hang up at home. We also checked out the t-shirt booths and found some cool superhero shirts. My wife found a really neat t-shirt of Black Canary in the style of a 1950s pin-up girl.

Overall, we had a lot of fun and the weekend demonstrated that there's a lot to do in Atlantic City that doesn't involve gambling. I know they've been putting a lot of effort into their other entertainment options lately, since people can gamble pretty much anywhere now, and it really felt like those efforts are working out just fine.

We'll be back in less than three weeks for some gaming and relaxation at Caesars Atlantic City.

 

Sweet! Did they have the Tumbler?

http://youtu.be/xfLGd0KKMX8

 

Kewl! I guess if you stay on the Boardwalk, you're good to go- just don't venture too far! We're going in August for the first time and staying at Caesar's. I hope we like it as it's only four hours or so from DC.

 

Nice report!

 

Yeah, the tumbler was there along with the different versions of the Batmobile from both of the Michael Keaton films, Batman Forever, and the 1966 Batman TV series. They were having a contest to win a photo in the 1966 Batmobile with Adam West and Burt Ward from the old TV series.