Zumba Workshop Road Trip
by Margie Milan

It all started when Instructor Randy Baez told me about a Zumba Workshop taking place in Orlando, FL with Beto.  Randy had mentioned the workshop in a few of her Zumba classes and asked if anyone wanted to go.  Of course she was still floating on Cloud 9 from her previous experience and meeting with the Zumba King "Beto".  I thought it would be a great idea to attend a workshop and see what it was all about. So I bought a ticket from Randy to attend the "Beto Bash" and "Orlando Express" (roadtrip) with Randy.  I didn't know who else was going to go and found out that both Adrienne Bowen and Dalicia Walker had also purchased tickets to "Beto's Bash".   Well all then decided to travel together and planned our roadtrip.  So many plans and decisions were tossed back and forth between all of us - work half day or take the entire day off, who would drive their car or get a rental, did we want to stay the night or come back the same day, find a good place to eat and go someplace to have fun after the workshop.  Ah, decision, decisions!  One plan we didn't have to make was to go and see Beto and have fun at the workshop.  After our brainstorming, we decided to drive, stay the night and find a restaurant that served Puerto Rican food. Randy offered to drive her car (thanks Randy) and I made hotel reservations near the YMCA.  We were ready for our trip to Orlando to meet Beto and attend the Zumba Workshop.

March 21, 2008:

It is the day of our roadtrip, Randy and Adrienne drove to my place where Dalicia and I waited to be picked up.  We all agreed to pack light, but when Randy opened the trunk of her car, it was already full.  Sue gave Randy clothes bins full of Zumba Gear to sell, but we managed to accommodate everything.  And that was not the only item Sue gave Randy for the trip...she also packed her a lunch (Sue is so sweet - some sodas and girl scout cookies).   It must be the mom in Sue...always taking care of us all.  We packed the car and took off, making our way onto I-10 and south to Orlando. The drive to Orlando was a blast.  We listened to Spanish music....from my IPOD of course!  I brought my GPS system to guide us so we wouldn't get lost in Orlando and we had snacks to munch on.  As Randy drove, Dalicia fell asleep and I snapped a picture of her.  Adrienne was awake and reading the newspaper, totally ignoring the Spanish music blasting through the car speakers.  I took a picture of Randy driving and another was taken of me.  As we reached the Turnpike to continue south to Orlando, we saw a van with sign on the back window that read..."HONK IF YOU ARE HORNY"....what does Randy do?  You guessed it, she honked the car horn as we passed the van.  Everyone in the car cracked up.  It was just a short beep, but it caused the right effect.  One thing you Junkies must know of me is that if you go on a roadtrip with me and fall asleep, beware because I will take a picture of you snoring.  Just remember that for future roadtrips.  I love to capture the funny moments!  HEE HEE HEE! All in all, the elements were there to make our trip perfect!

We got to Orlando early and with the GPS guiding us we made it to the hotel.  Since we arrived early, we checked in and ate in the hotel restaurant.  During our meal, Randy suddenly remembered that she didn't bring her ticket for the Beto Bash.  She told us that she had left the ticket in her other purse at home.  Guess what junkies, did she panic?  Maybe a little, but she made a phone call to her friend to ask if there were more tickets and she was assured that she would be allowed in with no problem.  We ate and went to our rooms.  Randy and I shared one room while Dalicia and Adrienne had the other one.  Of course they came and hung out in our room. You can see pics of us just laying around relaxing before the big event.   Eventually we got dressed and prepared to leave the hotel to the YMCA.  Randy didn't want to drive to the YMCA so I drove, trusting my handy GPS to take us to the YMCA where the Beto Bash was taking place.  It felt like an eternity in getting there.  The GPS system was taking us through neighborhoods, golf courses and a cemetery.  I had no clue where the YMCA was located, but we got there in good time and found a great parking spot...what luck!  

We entered the YMCA and made our way to the gymnasium where the stage was setup.  The basketball court was a good decent size and all along the wall spaces were vendors selling Zumba gear.  The DJ booth was located near one of the far ends of the court.  The music was blaring loud through huge sound speakers strategically positioned near the ends of the stage.  There was a good crowd already formed on the gymnasium floor.  From our pics you can see a sea of colorful clothing's and lots of skin.   Most of the crowd was made up of women with a few men in attendance.  I would say that most of the females there were both young and old.  It was a good mix of latinas and gringas (no offense).  We found a spot on the gym floor and placed our bags to hold our places.  Randy saw many of her Zumba Instructor friends and went to mingle, but she always came back to make sure she still had her spot.  She took pictures with Jani Roberts, a Master Trainer. We actually saw a few familiar faces from Tallahassee.   We took more pictures before the event.  As you can see "The Girls" had their picture taken under the big Zumba sign.  Then more background pictures were taken of Randy, Adrienne, Dalicia and me of course.  From her mingling, Randy found out that Beto would be attending the Zumba Workshop hosted by Jani Roberts the next day.  We decided to attend and Randy bought the tickets for another fun class with Beto at 8:30 am.  Our workshop was suppose to start at 6:30 pm, but an announcement was made that there would be a delay due to Beto's late arrival. Fifteen minutes before the workshop began, another announcement was made regarding cars parked at the YMCA.  Apparently complaints had been made that all the Zumba attendees had taken up the parking spaces for YMCA members.  The announcer asked that the Zumba folks move their cars to a different location.  I looked at Randy and asked her if we should move her car.  I told Randy that is was ridiculous to make us move our cars with only 15 minutes before the workshop was to begin.  Randy, at first was going to move the car, but decided to chance it and we didn't move it. Adrienne told Randy that if the car was towed, we would all chip in and rescue it from the impound.  I don't think Randy liked that notion, but we trusted the fact that nothing would happen to her car.  Well, our workshop didn't start at 6:30 pm as promised.  The basketball court was packed with bodies covering the entire gym floor.  There was hardly any room to move, let alone Zumba.  We started at 7:00 pm with Jani Roberts (Master Trainer) leading a 15 minute warmup.   She was electrifying with her moves and she exhumed lots of energy from the crowd.  She was non-stop and had the entire crowd moving, swaying and jumping.  Randy and Dalicia were in front of Adrienne and me.  There was a few times that I bumped into Randy and I was stepped on a few times by another Zumba enthusiast.   All of us were a few rows back from the front line.  We noticed that the front row was lined up with Zumba Divas.  You could sort of tell they were Divas.  During our warmup, the crowd cheered loud when "Beto" entered the gym.  After our warm up, Jani introduced "Beto" to the crowd of Zumba fanatics.  The energy was high and the music made you feel good.  Beto lead the workshop with his exuberant and charismatic personality.  He was not only funny but very encouraging.   Seeing him for the first time was breathtaking.  Randy had mentioned that he was cute, but she forgot to say that he is completely gorgeous!  Junkies, I have to tell you that he has one hell of a body too.  It is well toned and perfectly defined! You can tell he works hard at keeping in shape...guess that's why he's the Zumba King!  

We barely had any breaks!  Once Beto started there was no stopping him.  During different songs and routines he would often point at people in the crowd to have them join him on stage and guess what Junkies?  He pointed to Randy!  The look on her face was priceless. Randy was so ecstatic that she asked me to make sure that I take pictures of her while she was on stage performing with Beto.  Well I did take a few snaps of her while she wiggled and stomped on stage with her idol "Beto".  You can see her on stage in our pictures (Randy is wearing a red and black Zumba outfit).  What's the one complaint Randy had of the pictures I took of her?  I didn't zoom in!   Ok, so I didn't think about it, because duh, I was also following Beto's routine and trying to take pictures at the same time.  Guess you can call that multi-tasking huh!  Beto kept his pace and continued his delicious torture with one song after another.   He didn't stop until a hour and 45 minutes had gone by.  He wrapped up the Zumba session with a beautiful cool down and thanked everyone for coming.  After his pleasantry's were said he sat down on the edge of the stage to meet and greet the Zumba fanatics and pose for pictures.  Beto was swarmed with many Zumba fanatics wanting their picture taken with him.  It was like a feeding frenzy.  You had to grab the right moment to get your picture taken with him.  Randy and I had made our way to the end of the stage to wait for Beto to exit and grab him for a photo and autograph opportunity.  Randy had brought along her Zumba Beanie Bear to have Beto autograph the tiny Zumba shirt. We waited for Beto to exit, but Beto decided to stay in place and I told Randy to go to him to get the bear signed.  Sue had reminded Randy to ensure that a picture was taken of Beto signing the Beanie Bear, which of course was accomplished.  You can see Beto signing the Zumba Beanie Bear and another one with Randy holding the signed Zumba Beanie Bear. After Beto autographed the bear, Randy posed with him again.  I took pictures of Dalicia and Adrienne with Beto and of course I had my picture taken with him as well.  He was very gracious and posed with everyone.  He stayed about another half an hour posing for pictures.  I was given the task from Jane Marks to give Beto her business card and get one from him.  Well that wasn't an easy task.  He was so busy posing for pictures that I just jumped in and handed him the card before he started to walk away.  He took the card and I was able to talk to him briefly.  I also managed to take a snapshot of him all by himself which you can see from the picture I have of Beto doing a solo pose for the camera.  He was so cute posing and hamming it up for the camera.  The evening was a total blast and the highlight of the workshop was of course meeting and getting a picture with Beto.  I was mesmerized by his creative genius and love for Zumba.  You could feel the love of fitness he transmitted with his gyrating moves.  The man has everything going for him - good looks, great body and cool moves.  Ah Papi!  The workshop ended at 8:30 pm and we left the YMCA on a natural high.  We were so wired and happy, but very hungry.  Randy had made plans with her Zumba friends to meet up for dinner and we waited for everyone to reach their cars to find the Puerto Rican restaurant.  Our plan was to return to the hotel, shower, change and head out for dinner, but since the workshop lasted longer than expected we decided to go all sweaty to eat.  I drove and programmed the GPS with the address of the restaurant. We formed a car caravan and followed each other, but for some reason we got lost.  There was even a point when I made a turn in someone's personal driveway in order to get back to the correct direction.  It was so funny watching the cars follow suit.  Some how we managed to lose Randy's friends in our various turns and stop lights.  After a few calls to see where they had gone, Randy told me that they had decided to eat at another location so that left the 4 of us to find the PR restaurant ourselves.  We made it to the restaurant and from the looks of it the place seemed fancy.  The restaurant was not Puerto Rican but instead Spaniard.  I told "The Girls" that if the place was too fancy that we could find another place to eat since we were all still wearing our stinky sweaty Zumba outfits.  Well we decided to go in  and it didn't seem to fancy so we sat and ordered food.  Of course I ordered Sangria since Randy was in the mood and she, Dalicia and I had Churrasco (Skirt Steak) with rice and garbanzo beans.  Adrienne had mussels.  The food was good and the atmosphere was pleasant.  On the way back to the hotel, Randy had a giggle attack in the car.  It was so funny to see her laughing hysterically.  I think she was still on her natural high from meeting Beto again and doing Zumba.  I couldn't help but laugh too.  What was so hilarious, I have no idea, but everything was funny.  I think it was the energy pills Randy had taken and given me as well.  We headed back to the hotel to call it a night.  We got ready for bed, but I couldn't sleep....ask me why?  Because Randy had given me 2 of her energy pills before the workshop and I was totally wired.  We talked in the dark for about an hour.  I don't know what happened but suddenly I had a giggle attack and couldn't stop laughing.  I laughed so hard that I cried causing my tummy to hurt.  I have no idea what came over me.  After that strange outbreak, we both fell silent and that was it.

March 22, 2008:

The next morning,  we woke up and got ready for another great morning with Beto.  This time it would only be Adrienne, Randy and myself. Dalicia had opted to skip the event and head south to Miami to visit family...it was after all Easter weekend.  Randy and I dressed and had breakfast at a local Denny's since the continental breakfast at the hotel consisted of only muffins....which Randy didn't like one bit....while Adrienne got ready.  We picked Adrienne up at the hotel and headed back to the YMCA for another fun morning of Zumba.  Since we arrived early, this time we managed to take front row positions near the stage.  The entire day was going to be dedicated to students getting certified as Instructors.  Beto was making a special appearance for about an hour and a half and then the rest of the day would be focused on newbies getting certified.  Jani Robert, a Master Trainer, lead the warm up with some interesting and fun routines.  After the warm up, Beto went on stage and did what he does best....make his body move to Zumba music!  Once again he put the newbies and those dye hard Instructors and Zumba fanatics through a tough regiment, but you could feel in the air again...that spontaneous energy that oozed from his body movements.  I think the newbies were got off guard by his sheer magnetism and spirited personality.  Of course he conducted his workshop class with minimal breaks, but it was worth going through all of the new and old routines again.  After the workshop, Beto once again posed for more pictures...yes, Randy took another with him...(she can't get enough of this man), and of course I took another photo with Beto too (you can see our pictures...Randy wearing white shirt and me wearing green shirt).  We finished up the workshop, said our good-byes to Jani Roberts and headed back to our hotel.  Before we left Orlando, we managed to meet up with Adrienne's sister and my friend Liz to eat lunch.  We ate at the Cheesecake Factory...(yum yum) and after a scrumptious meal, we parted ways and headed out of Orlando.  Our drive back to Tallahassee was just as crazy and fun with the exception that we were missing Dalicia's company.  I drove back, since Randy wanted to be a passenger and we listened to more Spanish music...this time wiggling in our seats.  I think the trailer truck drivers thought were crazy or something weird was going on inside Randy's car because we received the most strangest stares from the drivers.   We got home back to Tallahassee early enough to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.   It was the end of our wonderful roadtrip and my fellow junkies Randy, Adrienne and Dalicia were great companions.  It was a fantastic experience and I definitely recommend taking a workshop with Beto. It is truly an amazing and unique experience.  The memories you make from the roadtrip, the company of friends and the workshop will forever remain in your heart and soul.  You welcome and appreciate the friendships you make from this huge Zumba family.  If you thought Zumba was just exercise, think again...its not only fitness, its a party. The pictures I took captured the intoxicating atmosphere from start to finish.  I hope you enjoy them.

 Margie