Annual CPR Saturday

Supposedly BROKE GUINNESS RECORD with 3400 participants – but didn’t register. Bummer.
Nearly a 5 hour ordeal and still 5 stars!!! Great job American Red Cross!
Here’s what happened:
Wanted to get up early to take the earlier classes to avoid the rush since it’s every hour from 7 – 1 pm for registration with the last class supposedly at 1 pm. The CPR process is reported to take about 3.5 hours.
10:00−11:15 am: Got up and got ready, taking care of what I got to take care of before leaving and grabbing my ID, cash (at least $ 20 to be safe), and camera.
11:15−11:45 am: Drove to San Diego Concourse where it’s taking place. Paid $ 5 for parking at the location (YAY for reduced CPR Saturday rate).
11:45 am: Took elevator down to street level and went WTF. There’s like 300 – 400 people in line!
11:45−12:00 pm: Got in the wrong part of line and cut a bunch of pissed off people who finally spoke up 5 minutes later. The line weaved like crazy, I thought I was at the end. Got to the end. Chitchat with people and realize I needed to grab a clipboard, register, and stand in a different line.
12:00−12:30 pm: Bubbled my registration and register to get a wristband that was my ticket in. During the wait, a guy announce once you have the wristband, you can wait in a line or just sit anywhere until your hour is called.
12:30−1:00 pm: Walked to Wendy’s a short walk away and grabbed breakfast/​lunch.
1:00−1:50 pm: Headed back to San Diego Concourse and ate lunch and waited. Things were running behind 45 minutes so the 1pm session was at 1:45 pm.
1:50−2:45 pm: Waited until everyone that was in the line went in and went in myself. Even though there were about 300 – 500 people my session, the line moved in under 10 minutes. There’s no reason to wait in line unless you wanted good seats. The front row was the last to fill up anyways, so got a front row seat. Watched a 45 minute video. Don’t expect it to be super entertaining or have great acting. The video is suppose to teach you CPR and that’s what it does. No further comment. They announced more than 3000 people have done CPR training today with more to train at an additional session at 2pm since they didn’t want to turn away anyone that came in time.
2:45−2:50 pm: Took written test and got 100%!!!
2:50−3:05 pm: Waited in line to do CPR demo on real person.
3:05−3:30 pm: Did CPR demo with an assigned partner since I came alone.
3:30−3:40 pm: Waited in line to do CPR demo on dummy.
3:40−4:00 pm: Trained on dummy.
4:00−4:30 pm: Got certificate and headed home. Too pooped to go shopping at that point.
Yes, it was a long ordeal but it’s FREE and now I can possibly save someone’s life. If you want a shorter time frame, arrive early. Don’t hate.