Introduction

Similarly to the past couple of years, as an Oracle Ace Pro, I’m very fortunate to be able to get a complimentary ticket to Oracle CloudWorld. Again, with my employer Version 1, covering travel, accommodation and time, which I am very grateful for, I was all set to attend Oracle CloudWorld 2024.

Fortunately this year, I don’t have any critical pre-sales work during the conference, so I will be able to more enjoy and hopefully have this blog series out in a timely manner 😎 Unlike last year where a bid dominated my visit and consequently wasn’t able to complete my blog series (apologies!).

The Trip

Saturday the 7th September (earlier than last year) and the journey begins! All packed and ready to leave Manchester for Las Vegas OCW24 😎

A gruelling 16 hours trip! Starting from Manchester Airport.

The first leg is an 8 hour long flight to New York via Virgin Atlantic!

This time it was ‘Lady Love’ that had the pleasure of taking me 😉 Bye bye Manchester!

Landed in New York, now for immigration, baggage collection/drop off and get to gate for connection flight. But as we landed early, I had 3 hours not the 1.5 hours in the past 😐

Made it to the gate in reasonable time, as there was a wait at immigration but far less then last couple of years. But annoyingly the flight to Las Vegas was delayed.

Wasn’t too bad in the end, as was only an 1.5 hours delay as the plane came in late.

I met Jerry Seager, who happened to be on my plane to Las Vegas. He was coming from Heathrow and myself from Manchester, but common 2nd leg to Las Vegas. Jerry is from Sopra Steria and is my colleague from UKOUG James Herbert‘s boss. So now the next leg is 5 hours, making up lost time to Las Vegas.

Finally made it, 16 hours later in Las Vegas. It was 2pm when I left the UK and arrived in Las Vegas 10pm local time but back home was 6am! So was starting to feel it 😴 but did manage to get a power nap on the flight which helped.

My place for the week is my usual spot of Sahara hotel, which is at the end of the Monorail (Southbound), which I’ve always chosen to keep the cost down as the central strip hotels are expensive. I went for my standard tier, but I was very fortunate this time they didn’t have that room available and gave me an complimentary upgrade to a suite 😃

Oracle usually have an Oracle EMEA Appreciation Event with the EMEA Awards on the Sunday, but they not having this year, so tomorrow will be exploring Las Vegas and preparing for CloudWorld by getting my agenda all sorted!

You can view my day 1 here.

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Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)