This year's event will be held in and around the beautiful coastal city of Wilmington, NC. This will actually be a 3-day (i.e., Friday and the weekend) event from September 6th to 8th. We will be having a number of events over the weekend, however, because of the venue, there won’t be any twisties driving. We will be cruising in a large group on beach and ferry runs and eating some of the best food on the coast.
For those arriving Friday, we will be having dinner at downtown Wilmington’s Reel Café. This venue has dining, live music in their courtyard Oyster Bar, and dancing in the second-floor dance club or cocktails on the Rooftop Bar overlooking the Cape Fear River. Their dinner menu has a wonderful variety of burgers, sandwiches, pastas and steaks. Note: this Friday night event does not include a catered meal and you are responsible for your own meal costs.
On Saturday morning, we will be meeting at Wilmington’s monthly Cars & Coffee event to show off our MINIness. From there, we will be cruising to Southport where we will have lunch on our own and then explore Southport’s historic waterfront district. Those who wish can take the short ferry to Baldhead Island where you can explore it driving the only thing more fun than MINIs, golf carts! In the afternoon we will be taking the the Southport-Fort Fisher ferry (capacity 38 cars; but who knows how many MINIs? ;) ) on the 30-minute trip (or 2 trips with all the MINIs expected to attend) to Fort Fisher. We will be touring both the Fort Fisher Aquarium and Fort Fisher Civil War Historic Site till late afternoon. Then we will traveling as a group through Kure Beach and Carolina Beach on our way back to Wilmington for Saturday's main event.
Flow MINI of Raleigh will be providing a catered dinner and on the stern of the U.S.S. North Carolina Battleship Museum. Included with the dinner is the ability to tour the museum and ship. We will have the ship and museum to ourselves from 6:15 -10:00 pm. Dinner will start at 6:30 pm. Note: event organizers and volunteers can arrive early at 5 pm to get everything ready ahead of time.
You will also be able prepay ($6.00 per person) for an onboard wine tasting provided by the Noni Bacca Winery. This winery, the winner of 57 international medals, will be providing eight of their finest wines for the tasting. They will also be selling wine by the glass or case as well as providing some of their wines for sale with “MINIPalooza @ the Beach” commemorative labels. You can prepay for your commemorative labeled wine on the registration site's conformation page.
Note: we have confirmed with the U.S.S. North Carolina Battleship Museum coordinator that, since this is a privite party, guests will be able to bring their own alcoholic beverages to the event. If you choose to do this, THMMC urges you to drink responsibly.
IMPORTANT!!! On the next webpage, please chose the number of people in your party that are attending each individual meal as well as the number of people in your party that are attending all meals (seperate options). We need to see the individual meal numbers to choose other venues of sufficient size. Thanks!
On Sunday morning, you will be free to head home on your own, however we will be leading a run along winding country roads from Wilmington to I-95 (without touching I-40), because, as all MINI owners know, the shortest distance between two points is BORING!
We have two lodging options reserved with group rates. One is the Courtyard Marriott at Carolina Beach ($149/night but right on the beach, with oceanfront views; 2 night stay required) and the other is the Wyngate by Wyndyam - Wilmington ($95/night, but only ~4 miles from the beach and easily accessible to all events). Your reistration confirmation page will give you more details.
T-Shirts for this year's event are to be pre-paid during registration. The cut-off date to purchase shirts is August 3rd. You will pick up your shirts at the Friday dinner or at the dinner Saturday (September 7th) on the battleship.
Beyond paying for your own lodging, there are fees for the wine tasting and T-shirts for this event.
PRE-REGISTRATION is very important. It will let us know how many cars to plan for. It will also allow us to send out important information by email all those who register with updates as the event gets closer. If you are at least 75% sure you are coming, please register today, you can always cancel at a later date.
