London 2012!

London 2012! Getting tickets was a bit of a hassle, but I'm glad I was able to get them. The first time around, tickets were obtained via a lottery. It seems that the British got the most ticket allotments, and the rest were divvied up among different countries, each with a selected organization in charge of obtaining tickets. For the US, that company was called cosport.

Around April or so, tickets went on sale for the lottery. One can choose any amount of events they wanted, although individual events did have a limit on the number of tickets. You choose events knowing that if you are given tickets, you are required to pay for them. You even give your credit card number (visa only, the choice of London 2012).

Late in May, those that were awarded tickets found out. Now, London was my dream vacation for the short term, especially during the olympics time. I love watching the summer olympics on TV, and actually being there in a country I want to visit (again) anyway would be stellar. Unfortunately, I was awarded no tickets. I looked online to see if anyone else didn't, and it turns out many people were not awarded tickets. And those that did get tickets only had some of the monies they intended to pay taken out of their accounts, indicating only a few tickets were given to them. I was hoping to at least get a swimming event. Apparently, though, if you paid for a higher priced ticket, they'd give you an available lower priced one, but not vice versa. And tickets being as expensive as they are, I pretty much went exclusively for low price tickets.

Cosport let us know that in June, the remaining stock of tickets would go on sale, first-come first-served, to those who failed the lottery. I expected there to be nothing for swimming, and nothing for the opening ceremonies, which I tried to obtain in the lottery despite the high price ($300 or so each). Tickets went on sale at 12 noon for US customers on June 24th, 2011. I was called in to cover someone in the CCU at LIJ, so I was up bright and early. I was nervous, though, that I'd be rounding when tickets went on sale.

So, using my trust sonic screwdriver (aka iphone), I went to cosport's website to see how to log in and access the ticket page, so I can do it on rounds at noon, if need be. To my surprise, tickets were open, at 6am! I went through and found swimming to my surprise, and a few events at that. I chose one that had a medal or two in it, and also chose football, gymnastics, beach volleyball, and tennis. However, I couldn't remember my credit card number offhand, and was probably somewhat lazy to go get it and check, so the time ran out before I put the right number in. And I lost the tickets.

I went on the mac to log into cosport and order them that way, but I couldn't access the ticket page. I had to leave for CCU, so on the walk there from the parking garage, I kept trying to go to cosport, but nothing opened up. No tickets. I was quite upset. Then, on another attempt at trying, probably at 7:30AM, I was able to access them again! I quickly added swimming, football (at Wembley), and tennis (at Wimbledon), remembered the right credit card number, and got the tickets. A bit later, I went back, found beach volleyball, and added that! I checked out the closing ceremonies (opening ceremonies was sold out), and with tickets at around $1200 a pop, I declined.

Just for fun, I went on at noon, and the site was very, very slow. Not only that, but once I was able to log in, swimming was totally gone. Tennis was also gone, but there was some football left. I was thinking of adding something else for cheap ($44 was the cheapest), and handball was available, on the one day I had free; however only one ticket was available, so I didn't go for that. I'll use that free day as a sightseeing and/or family visiting day.

I'm so thankful I got swimming, and thankful I had to go to CCU that day, so I was up early to check. I can't wait for this trip! I just want to walk around London and take it all in. And eat fish and chips every day. And go to baker street. And cardiff, near that torchwood thing. Just gotta get an ipad beforehand (hopefully the ipad 3 is out by then), as I imagine there'll be a lot of good olympic stuff out for it at the time!