Original Planning
As said before, my first plan for flying to America to watch a Wrestlemania was Wrestlemania 29. Due to it's location James and I believed this would be the perfect 'Mania for us to do. Sadly though I had previously lost my job and the passage into a job that paid well enough to book the trip was not as smooth as I would have liked. This upset me greatly, as it had been a realistic dream of mine to go to a Wrestlemania for a long while.
In January 2015 however, we found out that Wrestlemania 32 would be in Dallas at the AT&T Stadium. This proved to be a brilliant choice for us to go to as we could fly direct to Dallas, the weather was warm (unlike New Jersey that had an average temperature of 8 degrees in April) and the fact we could fly to Las Vegas (the location we go to after Dallas) again in one flight. We decided that this would be the year that we would both break our Wrestlemania virginities and commit to the plan.
Actual Planning
We had no idea where to start the actual booking process. There were travel packages available. There were single tickets. There were AXXESS sessions, it was all to much for us to plan until we actually thought it through. We decided to go the route of buying the tickets singularly (instead of taking the package option) due to cost factor. Because of James' job, we were able to get a hotel deal for very cheap (albeit slightly out of Central Dallas) and the fact we decided not to go to the NXT event (focusing instead on the AXXESS session the Friday night). The ticket pre-sale for Wrestlemania event tickets proved to be very frustrating as Ticketmaster proved to be very unreliable. Buckling under the pressure, there was much disappointment for many people. Not us however. We got 3 tickets near enough to the block number we originally planned.
We also had our Raw tickets to plan. We were very worried as demand for these are very high, but we stumbled across an idea. Both me and James are part of a Facebook group devoted to travelling to Wrestlemania from The UK. We saw that a member of the group had booked a suite in the American Airlines Center. When we enquired about the price, the price was eye-watering ($1,800 for an 18 person suite) but when we worked out that all the benefits we received (food, drink, free parking and the ticket) equalled £67 for each of the 18 people I decided to book it. I had the money to book immediately but was worried how I would find 15 other people to fill the suite. I ended up selling all 15 seats within 24 hours. So we at that point had booked our two major tickets booked!
With all this out of the way and our hotels booked, we could finally start dreaming about our Wrestlemania trip. Because we decided not to go to NXT, we were able to watch the sale for that go by. Our AXXESS tickets also proved easy to get as they were only general tickets. Where my plans differed to James' was that I had a specific plan in mind for my AXXESS sessions. I own a replica NXT Championship Belt, and I wanted it to be signed by the Superstars who have held it. When Kevin Owens was announced as a VIP Superstar signing for the Saturday. I decided that spending the extra money on meeting K.O. was my priority.
Thankfully, James was able to secure my ticket (Ticketmaster again was not being helpful, this time to me - James had gone through the stress on the Wrestlemania tickets) and my plan of getting my replica belt signed by at least one former champion was on. This also had the secondary advantage of gaining me entry to another general signing, one where I would be likely to find NXT Superstars to sign my belt.
With our Wrestling plans taking full shape, we then turned our attention to planning the second part of our trip, this being to Las Vegas. However, we did still need to keep a look out for other wrestling related activity going on. The General AXXESS Superstars would announce themselves closer to the time so that became very difficult to plan.
I maintained my usual plan of only checking the results of Raw, so was surprised to see this exchange on my phone from James. His being the messages on the left, and mine being the rather surprised messages on the right (NSFW):
As you might be able to assume, I was very happy to hear of the return of Shane McMahon!
The final plans involved small things like arranging parking at the stadium (which thankfully a member of the Facebook group helped us with) and our other plans for the weekend (including a trip to the Six Flags amusement park, The Reunion Tower and the JFK Museum). We kept our ear's to the ground for Superstar signings around the Dallas area and thanks to the Facebook group again, we were able to arrange our plans to meet Dolph Ziggler before the Friday AXXESS session.
After Dallas
We move on to Las Vegas after Wrestlemania. We again have a massively packed schedule, including seeing The Killers live in concert, going to the Hoover Dam, a trip to The Grand Canyon and a helicopter ride down the strip. I also find myself going to a gun range!
All in all, we are in America for 10 days, leaving Thursday 31st and I return on the 10th April (James and Vicky are making a trip to New York to complete their American adventure). Wrestlemania 33 is in Orlando next year, will I find myself going to my second successive Wrestlemania? Or will I make the trip to New York for WWE Summerslam 2017? Either (or both) of those options will be my next American adventure. The Facebook group has been a massive help to us to plan this trip (and special thanks to Danny Pearson for the parking pass for Wrestlemania) and hopefully, all the advice receive make our trip as unforgettable as we all imagine it will be.
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