Well, this is a rarity of a vacation as far as the Lewis Family is concerned. There is nothing outdoorsy or campish about this one. So why did we go so off-script this year? Well, two reasons:
- Living in Orlando, FL, Mia hadn't seen the family in over two years.
- Dad has developed an interest in board gaming, and subscribes to the Dice Tower YouTube channel.
So, why not travel from Seattle to Orlando to attend the annual Dice Tower East board game convention held at the Caribe Royale Resort? With ~2500 games in their Florida-based library, there was definitely more than enough to keep us interested for five full days of board gaming.
Dice Tower East photo booth with Mike, Mia, Mom, and Dad.
The convention has a brilliant flag system to connect people at the convention too. If you need help learning a game, grab a yellow flag and someone familiar with the game will likely stop by to help teach it to you. We grabbed a yellow flag for Everdell, and sure enough... a nice gentleman took about 15 minutes of his convention time to teach the game to us. If you need players for a game, you can grab a green flag and set it on your table to invite others to play with you. Maybe next year (oh, yeah... we would all go back again next year!), we will branch out more and look for green flags to meet other gamers, and learn fun games we otherwise might not have on our radar.
The games we played are valued at over $800, so considering that badges are $150 each for the convention, we feel like we covered the $600 in conference fees (although perhaps not the airfare for Mom and Dad.)
Games
We played the following 21 games in 5 days and ranked them from 1 to 10. Mike missed some of the action, but still had a blast when he could be there.
| Game | Dad | Mom | Mia | Mike | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot Streak | 7.5 | 8 | 7.5 | 8 | $45 |
| Meadow | 9 | 8 | 9.3 | 9 | $44 |
| Trekking through History | 8.5 | 7 | 7 | 7.5 | $50 |
| Ito | 6.5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | $15 |
| Thunder Road Vendetta | 10 | 8.5 | 7.1 | 9 | $60 |
| Everdell | 8 | 9 | 9.4 | 9.5 | $75 |
| Canvas | 6.5 | 6 | 4 | $25 | |
| Forest Shuffle | 9 | 9 | 9.5 | $25 | |
| Bomb Busters | 8.5 | 7.5 | 7.5 | $35 | |
| Positano | 7.5 | 6.5 | 6.5 | $50 | |
| Forbidden Island | 8 | 7.5 | 8 | $21 | |
| A Message from the Stars | 9 | 8 | $40 | ||
| Pergola | 8.5 | 8.5 | 8.5 | $45 | |
| Flip 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | $24 | |
| Splendor Marvel | 7 | 6.5 | 7 | $50 | |
| Race for the Galaxy | 7.5 | 7.5 | 8.7 | 8 | $36 |
| River Valley Glassworks | 9 | 7.5 | 8.1 | 7.5 | $40 |
| Poetry for Neanderthals | 8 | 6 | 8 | 7 | $20 |
| Flock Together | 9 | 9 | 8.5 | 9 | $90 |
| Things in Rings | 6.5 | 5.5 | 6 | 5.5 | $24 |
| So Clover | 7.5 | 7 | 8.7 | 7.5 | $18 |
The games we played are valued at over $800, so considering that badges are $150 each for the convention, we feel like we covered the $600 in conference fees (although perhaps not the airfare for Mom and Dad.)
Favorites
| Person | Game | BGG Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Mia | Forest Shuffle | 174 |
| Mike |
Everdell Race for the Galaxy So Clover |
41 87 286 |
| Mom | Everdell | 41 |
| Dad | Thunder Road Vendetta | 263 |
Photos & Videos
We did overview videos of almost every game we played... sometimes, we even showed a portion of a playthrough. Dad also got a walkthrough video of the conference. A YouTube playlist with all of content can be viewed here.
