cigarlew

Last night there were just short of 1600 cigar crazy people aboard the
Intrepid. Unfortunately we were forced to turn away hundreds of people when the
Caterers informed us they would not have enough food if we allowed more on
board.
The caterers (Restaurant Associates) were "shocked" at the response to an
event like this and promised to be MUCH, MUCH more prepared for cigar smokers
in the future. The NYC Dept. of Health gave them a pretty rough time until the
last minute and they have already suggested a number of ways to make the food
service and the admission go quicker and easier.
It was an awesome event with perfect weather. In welcoming people aboard I
mentioned that there were people from 25 states and from as far away as
Hawaii... with a guy from Portland, Oregon being the second furthest away from
home.
Well, he may have been second when it came to distance travelled, but he was
FIRST when we drew the winning ticket for the 47 Hudson!
I'll post his name here after speaking to him and obtaining his permission to
post his name.
The Fuente Humidor was won by E. Mallario of East Hanover, N.J.
The Diamond Crown Humidor was won by a (this is a matter of recalling the name
as he took the other half of the raffle ticket with him by accident) a man
named Pettner from Connecticut.
While it's not set in stone... I believe this will be an annual affair that
will only get better and better as we get more experience handling a group that
will easily become two or three thousand or even more.
Bottom line: hundreds of hours were devoted to orchestrating this thing so
that everything would go smoothly and we tried to anticipate every
eventuality... but we still learned a lot.
Most of our problems with slow admission were due to the incredible stupidity
of people tying up our admission line and arguing with our staff as to why
their name was not on our registration lists even though they had bought
tickets way in advance.
These morons had tickets to the cruise ship ATLANTICA which was berthed at the
next pier. Apparently they do not know the difference between a big white
cruise ship and gigantic AIRCRAFT CARRIER with Jet Planes all over the deck!
Plus half of them didn't speak english!
Nevertheless, in the final ****ysis a great time was had by all.
Thanks to everyone. Best regards-Lew

lee

Congrats on a great event!

miss elaine eos

Congratulations on an excellent event -- and thanks for the report!

--
Please take off your shoes before arriving at my in-box.
Lots of good cigar info, the ASC Birthday page, FAQs, vendors and more at
<http://www.ManyFriends.com/Cigars/>

john appel

They probably didn't smoke cigars, anyway.
Congrats on a great event Lew!

--
John
"The world is your oyster, all you gotta do is stick your fork in it."
--George "KingFish" Stevens

ken dixon

Well done Lew.
Can ya put something like that together down here in Miami ;-)

Ken in Miami

marc j. schneiderman

Probably more firepower than that ship ever saw :-) Thanks, great read
(again) Lew.
CigarBaron