A visit to Goa via GioneeSlimFest – Day one – Flying to Goa

Hi friends, its been a while since I wrote the last blog post, well aware that how much you missed me, but hopefully would be posting at least two three posts in the context of above title and would try to make you live the moments with me.

It was middle of the month, a busy and hard time at office, kind of election season for we working professionals as well, considering the appraisal time around the corner, when a DM hit me from @Honeytech asking for contact info to invite for World’s Slimmest Phone Launch in Goa.

Surprised? Not really as it wasn’t first invite to me for phone launches, but all those launches happened to be of Nokia ones and specially not in Goa, so it was definitely special. There been plans many a times, but I never happened to be in Goa and when this was coming as an opportunity then I was to check if dates free or not. Fortunately, I was able to manage the dates so replied back in positive.

After receiving the official invite on mail, second ray of thoughts hit me.

Gionee?? Yeah, heard of it when they released their E6 and later on knew a little about their 16/8 MP camera phone E7, but not really that familiar of the brand. Never happened to read the reviews in details or knew much about the company itself. Honestly put, never had hands on over any single of their product.

So, is Gionee really inviting me? Not only me, but number of other bloggers as well. Almost all important names I knew about been approached. I was really thinking now that what they are up to. Before even reaching to the venue, I was much more curious about the product than I would have been about any other product in recent past. Not really bad for a company to get someone curious even before looking at the product itself.

This was unprecedented to me. Last I can recall of any event of such size would have been the campaign in which Nokia had painted some of the flights in Lumia colors, but still that didn’t involved people close to these numbers. Man! it was roughly 35-50k INR expense per head by the company. Definitely a BANG!!!

I would come to product itself later on in some other post and also my thoughts about the company prospects for future, but rest of the post would continue in monologue mode with a lot of pictures covering the experience of Delhi to Goa and my critic comments on the same.

Most of us reached the airport in time but what happened next was a lesson for us and kind of negative feedback to Gionee PR Team to learn upon. Not enough Gionee representatives to cover the crowd and due to combined tickets for more than 50 commuters, even Airlines counters felt like a chaos at that hour of the day when only one counter was open. Considering the fact that Gionee had booked more than 85% seats, we weren’t in danger of loosing the flight yet everyone of us had this in mind that it could have been better.

Anyway, finally we took off from Delhi Airport by 11 AM I guess and the next stop was Mumbai Airport for the connecting flight to Goa.

Flight didn’t felt long as I was busy taking pictures of the city which shows what kind of inequalities exists in our society and also how greed of some politicians destroys the symmetry of the city and even Airport is taken over by illegal chaals.

We landed at Mumbai by some 1300 hrs and then it was just a few mins affair as we were not to leave the flight as the same flight was to take off to Goa after replacing some non-Gionee passengers with others.

Finally we landed in Goa: The land of beaches by 1500 hrs.

Sadly, another chaos awaited us as it wasn’t easy to handle a full house crowd coming towards just two or three representatives which were to be taken to respective hotels (at least six FIVE STAR Hotels were booked for GIONEE for the crowd of 1000). Badges were to be provided to each as per respective hotels and some of us bloggers decided to stand by a side before the chaos ends.

Here it was the first group snap of mine taken by almighty @Kalpik.

Once badges were received, things were back to order. Many luxury buses were waiting for us as per respective hotels and strict standing instructions were for them to ensure that no one goes standing. So some of us needed to split in different buses. There wasn’t anything special in journey expect near sea route which seemed to well managed as there weren’t those road patches like we might have been habitual of in outer skirts of Delhi/ NCR.

It took less than an hour to reach the hotel I guess and then we were taken to reception where we given a bag with snacks, water bottles, a Goa Shirt, some instructions and room keys.

Though obviously some of us were looking for a thing called Lunch (Yeah at 1530 hrs around) and Grand Hyatt was to welcome us with a grand one. Between the lunch we also taken a glimpse of those dancers, which were to perform in launch event at the day after and then it was the time to move to the individual rooms.

So after entering into Goa by some 1500 hrs, here I was in the comfy room of Grand Hyatt exactly after less than two hour. Oh!! Oh Man!! Grand Hyatt was literally Grand. Majority of us were given single rooms though some unfortunate ones got double rooms as well on sharing with a fellow blogger. I was with a single one fully furnished with bath tub and everything you can expect from a FIVE STAR.

much I wanted to rest after a half day long, I didn’t had much time left as the evening function was to start from 1930 hrs and the grand private beach behind the hotel was calling our souls. So, after settling things in the room, I moved out to garden (where I seen glimpses of the preparation for evening event) and then moved to the beach to take a look over sea for the first time in my life in this close.

After spending few moments at the beach, I was back to room for a short rest and to get prepared for the evening blast while some of us been enjoying the place more than me.

So it was the glimpses for the day one.. oh wait.. the first event still remaining and so is the first impression and introduction about the company for me. Meet me in the next post to know more of it.