Introduction

Similarly to last year, 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 2023.

This year was slightly different in the sense, that I had a major bid before, during and after, which impacted my ability to blog in a timely manner. So apologies this blog series is a couple weeks late. Better late than never!

The Trip

Saturday the 16th September and the journey begins! Since last OCW, we’ve decided to get a kitten and it seems like he wanted to come with me, as he wouldn’t get off my suitcase 😂

All packed and ready to leave Manchester for Las Vegas OCW23 😎 The same gruelling 16 hours trip as last year.

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

This time is was Fearless Lady that had the pleasure of taking me 😉 Bye bye Manchester!

Landed in New York, and similar to last year, I had to go through immigration, baggage collection/drop off and get to gate for connection flight all within 1.5 hours! 😬

Last year was close call, making it to the gate just in time, but this year was bad! The immigration queue was an hour apparently. I advised I needed to be at my gate in an hour, they kept just saying “let’s hope you make it” 🤦🏽‍♂️

It got to about 15 minutes to boarding, and only then they put me to the front of the queue! There were other people in similar situation, that had been waiting for some time. One person had totally missed his flight due to the long queues. I was fortunate, I had made it through immigration, picked and dropped my bag off and headed to gate, but the final hurdle was the security check which was another long queue! At this point I only had 5 minutes left, and the lady manning the queue said just go to the front and tell people you need to board. So that’s what I did and another lady followed me. We both made it through security, at which point I realised she was also on my same flight and also going to OCW23! 😲 We both had to “leg it” to the gate which took us about 15 minutes! We were worried we may miss the flight but they were still boarding when we arrived at gate, phew!

So now the next leg is 6 hours to Las Vegas, I was lucky my fare was economy+, so I had nice comfortable seat, some snacks and most important free WiFi!

Finally made it, 16 hours later in Las Vegas. It was 2pm when I left the UK and arrived in Las Vegas 9pm local time but back home was 5am! Surprisingly wasn’t feeling the jet lag like I did last year.

My place for the week is Sahara, which is the place I stayed last year. It’s reasonably priced, decent hotel and is at the end of the Monorail (Southbound), so easy to get to the conference in the middle of the strip.

One final thing before going to bed, was to have dinner. So I went to Mcdonald’s which is just across the road from hotel. I didn’t realise when I asked for a large Filet-O-Fish meal, I’d get a double filet, fries that are double the size of UK and a 1 litre drink! 🤯

Tomorrow due to my bid work, will be working in the day and then attending the Oracle EMEA Partner Reception Event in the evening.

You can view my day 1 here.

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

If you missed my day 6, you can view it here.

My Oracle CloudWorld trip is now well and truly over, and all that was left, was to return back home to the UK. I had a 3 leg journey home, Las Vegas to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Paris and finally Paris to Manchester. Despite the 3 legs, it was the shortest route back that day.

Return Journey

My flight wasn’t till 3pm, so I spent few couple of hours packing, watching Manchester United on TV and having breakfast.

On the way to the Harry Reid International Airport, I could still see the strip as the airport is only 3 miles away from the strip.

Check in was relatively simple, so I spend a couple of hours browsing the shops to try find gifts for the family. No joy, so decided to have lunch before boarding the plane. When I asked for a large meal I didn’t realise the drink is a whooping 1 litre! (excuse the punt)

Once boarded the plane, the pilot mentioned it was a really choppy flight in from Los Angeles and expected it to be the same if not worse going back. So we was instructed to not leave our seats and keep belts on whole journey. It had been pretty sunny and hot for the whole week but that morning it was cloudy and pretty windy. A concert that people all over US had travelled to see got cancelled, quite a lot of guest were in my hotel for the concert and were not happy. I was gutted for them but I didn’t think anymore, clearly it was getting worse as I looked out the window and I couldn’t see the strip anymore as visibility reduced.

Still looking gloomy and we’re stuck on the tarmac as air traffic control staggers the flights in and out.

Then my iPhone and Apple Watch went berserk to get my attention. It was an Emergency Alert, I didn’t event know these existed! Was quite a scary message with emotive words of “Stay Alive!”.

Clearly a dust storm was approaching. We was delayed by an hour and I was getting worried as I was scheduled to land in Los Angeles at the point but was still in Las Vegas! I only had 1.5 hours to get my flight to Paris! We eventually took off at that point as we flew out the dust storm, but it was a pretty hairy take off with the plane immediately banking 20-30% and then the pilot correcting with it banking the other way. Pilot ascended pretty rapidly with a lot of stomach churching drops as the turbulence was the worse I’ve ever experienced.

We arrived at Los Angeles and I had only 30 minutes to get my next flight. I truly believed I wouldn’t make it, but I had to give it a go and pretty much legged it all the way to the gate! What a huge airport as I arrived at the gate 5 minutes before takeoff. At this point I was adamant I had missed the flight, but to my surprise they were still boarding. So I managed to make the flight, albeit a bit bothered and sweaty 🥵

It was a long 11 hours flight, but it wasn’t too bad as I manged to have dinner, then get about 4-6 hours of broken sleep before having breakfast. Arrived in good time at Paris, did some more browsing and managed to get the family some gifts this time. Then it was on to the final leg to Manchester!

I had clearly made it onto the flight to Paris within the 30 minutes I had but my luggage clearly didn’t as it was still showing in Los Angeles via Apple AirTag.

The final flight from Paris to Manchester was pleasant and quick. And I was finally back to home town of Manchester 😎 I filled in the form for delayed baggage and left the airport to go home. Was really looking forward to seeing the family.

It been a brilliant trip, many thanks to Oracle Ace Program for the CloudWorld ticket and to my employer Version 1 for covering travel, accomodation and time out the office.

Till CloudWorld 23, take care and I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post series and apologies for the delay in writing it all up 🙄

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this Oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

If you missed my day 5, you can view it here.

The Oracle CloudWorld conference had finished, but before I went home I had one last thing to do! Attend the Oracle Ace Adventure, whereby Oracle Aces courtesy of the Oracle Ace Program get taken to Grand Canyon 😎

Grand Canyon

So it was an early start with a 6:25am coach!

This was out tour guide/comedy Anthony

All eagerly listening to the facts that Antony was telling us

This was the first glimpse of the Colorado river 😎

First glimpse of the Grand Canyon! 👍🏽

Sai, Philippe, and Suraj, looking fresh!

The eagle in the Grand Canyon at eagle point. Can you see it? 🤷🏽‍♂️

And here’s all the Oracle Aces/Oracle employees that went on the Ace Adventure! 😎

Osama, Basheer, and Sai.

With Osama at the highest point in Grand Canyon at Guano Point!

Appreciating the beautiful view of Grand Canyon!

On the way back, we got to see Hoover Dam!

The white area is where the water used to be against the Grand Canyon wall. There is a water shortage in Las Vegas as they consume more water then is received and hence the waterline has been failing over the years! Anthony said the statue of liberty could fit in the height of the water area, showing how much water has actually drop down!

Final photo of the Oracle Ace Adventure as we headed back to Las Vegas strip.

Many thanks for Jennifer and the Oracle Ace Program for a wonderful day with wonderful company! 😎

Tomorrow will be my longggg journey back home to UK.

You can view my day 7 here.

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this Oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)