mecllap
<font color=limegreen>"Skamps"<br><font color=mage
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2006
My trip planning started off as a fairly normal 12-day trip (May 7-18) to WDW to go to the Flower and Garden Festival, while suffering the cold winter doldrums and being anxious for Spring. Along the way, it grew like topsy and I had started making some significant life-style health changes, so the trip ended up being quite a bit different for me -- and absolutely wonderful. I think it was my best WDW trip ever, even tho I did miss having my small family along, of course.
Hopefully it's still okay to put it in this section of the boards, since at its heart it's a DVC trip: SSR, VWL, VBR, and 2 studios at BWV, bookended by off-site timeshares -- for a total of a month. I also looked at the outside areas of a few other resorts also -- part of what I wanted to do was compare a lot of different places. I've now stayed at least one night in every DVC (mostly studios) except Aulani (which is not likely to happen). I would NOT try to that with the family -- but traveling solo I can manage it and it's really fun to experience the different properties.
I'm not going to do a day by day account -- that would be deadly -- more topic by topic, and use a combination of scrapbook pages and single photos [eta: well, maybe not, have run into a snag again with photos]. Not sure who, if anyone, will be interested in this saga, since it was a solo, older woman (68), non-drinking, non-restaurant, budget trip. I assure you that it's possible to still have tons of fun in that part of Florida and at WDW with those constraints (and not drinking and watching so many other folks enjoying their libations was a major challenge for me, for sure).
I'll be happy to try to answer any questions as I go along, if I can.
So I left Asheville the morning of April 26 about 8 a.m. and got to St. Augustine, FL about 5 p.m. and got a room at a Super 8 near the Outlet Mall. I love to go the Character Outlet there -- usually find more there than at the ones near WDW (also stopped there on the way back and found different things). It is possible to make the drive in one day from home, but it's hard for me, and I like to arrive ready to go to a Park.
(Yes, I know the preprinted paper background is from Disneyland, but that's nostalgic for me -- my first trip was there, when I was 12).
So, the first extension to my trip was finally seeing the schedule for F&G -- Carter Oosterhouse from HGTV was going to be there the last weekend in April. Well, I may be 68, but he's one fine specimen of humankind -- beyond easy on the eyes -- just had to see that in person. So, having a "bonus-type" timeshare week to use that cost under $300 for a 1-bedroom I booked that up and added in 3 days at SSR for the gap. Hey, 12 days at WDW isn't really enough anyway, and I wanted to go a couple of museums in St. Petersburg, too.
Unfortunately, they didn't have Photopass photographers at the HGTV talks, so the pics I got with the designers aren't very good, but it was really fun to meet them. David Bromstad was there the last weekend. They were both just as personable as they are good-looking. Be still my heart! Oh right -- I just got healthy -- it gets to beat as much as it wants to!
The photo with Tink is from MK, but seemed to go on this page since her entourage was in and around the butterfly garden.
Hopefully it's still okay to put it in this section of the boards, since at its heart it's a DVC trip: SSR, VWL, VBR, and 2 studios at BWV, bookended by off-site timeshares -- for a total of a month. I also looked at the outside areas of a few other resorts also -- part of what I wanted to do was compare a lot of different places. I've now stayed at least one night in every DVC (mostly studios) except Aulani (which is not likely to happen). I would NOT try to that with the family -- but traveling solo I can manage it and it's really fun to experience the different properties.
I'm not going to do a day by day account -- that would be deadly -- more topic by topic, and use a combination of scrapbook pages and single photos [eta: well, maybe not, have run into a snag again with photos]. Not sure who, if anyone, will be interested in this saga, since it was a solo, older woman (68), non-drinking, non-restaurant, budget trip. I assure you that it's possible to still have tons of fun in that part of Florida and at WDW with those constraints (and not drinking and watching so many other folks enjoying their libations was a major challenge for me, for sure).
I'll be happy to try to answer any questions as I go along, if I can.
So I left Asheville the morning of April 26 about 8 a.m. and got to St. Augustine, FL about 5 p.m. and got a room at a Super 8 near the Outlet Mall. I love to go the Character Outlet there -- usually find more there than at the ones near WDW (also stopped there on the way back and found different things). It is possible to make the drive in one day from home, but it's hard for me, and I like to arrive ready to go to a Park.
(Yes, I know the preprinted paper background is from Disneyland, but that's nostalgic for me -- my first trip was there, when I was 12).
So, the first extension to my trip was finally seeing the schedule for F&G -- Carter Oosterhouse from HGTV was going to be there the last weekend in April. Well, I may be 68, but he's one fine specimen of humankind -- beyond easy on the eyes -- just had to see that in person. So, having a "bonus-type" timeshare week to use that cost under $300 for a 1-bedroom I booked that up and added in 3 days at SSR for the gap. Hey, 12 days at WDW isn't really enough anyway, and I wanted to go a couple of museums in St. Petersburg, too.
Unfortunately, they didn't have Photopass photographers at the HGTV talks, so the pics I got with the designers aren't very good, but it was really fun to meet them. David Bromstad was there the last weekend. They were both just as personable as they are good-looking. Be still my heart! Oh right -- I just got healthy -- it gets to beat as much as it wants to!
The photo with Tink is from MK, but seemed to go on this page since her entourage was in and around the butterfly garden.