This year my entire family decided to take a trip down to Hilton Head Island again. Hopefully, we’ll most likely stay at the same Hilton Head house as we have in previous years.
We like the familiar Hilton Head house because we are comfortable and like where it’s located. We usually stay at the Palmetto Dunes area, the houses we’ve stayed at has always been one in this particular area.
Personally, I like the Palmetto Dunes area because the beach in that area isn’t very crowded and easy to access. I’ve biked to the public beach access areas, and while they are nice too, I prefer the less crowded Palmetto Dune beaches.
We always get bikes for everybody in our group. We even get a Tag-along bike so my daughter could ride too.
Most likely, we’ll also go to Sea Pines resort. It cost $5.00 per car to get in, but this is where the Salty Dog restaurant and other small shops and restaurants are located. I especially like the Harbour Town Lighthouse because unlike other lighthouses, this ones has old pictures with small comments below them explaining the history of the lighthouse as you climb the stairs to get to the top.
Harbour Town Lighthouse
This area also has one of the coolest trees that I’ve ever seen in a certain park in the area. The tree is growing horizontally instead of vertically, very cool and strange at the same time. The kids love that tree!
I think we like the house so much because it’s almost seems like it’s our vacation home. Of course we are just renting it, but you could almost imagine that you owned it after a week of living in it. Very cool feeling!
I really look forward to eating seafood while I’m down there, especially the fried oysters! We don’t really have fried oysters up where I live, so I try to get my fill while I’m down there!
Initially I wanted to go to Hawaii, but the rest of my family didn’t want to do that, so it’s Hilton Head again! Still it will be a blast!
During the first week of November, my family flew down for a vacation at Disney World in Florida. Unfortunately, after the first day down there, it turns out that I had the flu. This dampened my Disney Experience to the utmost degree, but since it was expensive and my kids were still having a ball, I dealt with it. I guess that’s part of being a dad.
So now, well over a year later, I’m finally getting around to sharing our Disney World Adventure!
Departure to Disney World
During the period when we booked the trip (at a huge discount, I might add), we signed up for the free option called “Disney’s Magic Express Transportation“. This was our first pleasant surprise! Since we booked early enough, they sent special paperwork so that once we dropped off our luggage, it would automatically be in our room when we arrived. This worked without a hitch.
The trip down was my daughter’s first experience in an airplane, so she was mesmerized looking out the window a good chunk of the trip.
Once we arrived, the lines were incredibly long, especially considering that we went down offseason and while school had started again. The area they had for lines was only about half full, so I couldn’t imagine what it would have looked like during a regular-season day. Luckily, the line moved quickly.
Arrival at Disney World Resorts
First, we check-in at the “moderate value” Disney Resorts called “Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – Riverside“. It had a great view and very cozy, but the rooms were about the size of a typical old Holiday Inn. The pool, eating area and canal/river was beautiful and very clean!
Disney Riverside Resort
We went with the Disney meal plan, so after we arrived, we went to Downtown Disney (since our ticket to the amusement park wasn’t open until the next day). There we met up with some friends at Wolfgang Puck’s Cafe, where I had a delicious cut of steak.
Next, we found a Lego store for my son, and he loved it! There were cool Lego sculptures everywhere, including a Loch Ness Monster in the lake. Needless to say, my 6-year-old daughter wasn’t so keen on Nessie, and kept both far and clear from it!
All in all, it was a great experience for the first day, especially since we took a quick, free boat ride from our resort area to Downtown Disney. Shoot, the boat ride was almost like an amusement ride in itself.
The Disney World Amusement Parks
First for the map:
Disney World Map
We went to Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney MGM Studios. Each park was very unique, and all of the parks were clean and the staff very helpful and courteous!
Here is a quick summary of each of the Disney World core parks
Magic Kingdom: It’s showing it’s age, but there are still some favorite rides in this park. The Peter Pan ride is under-rated but still very cool. Space Mountain was sadly closed for repairs during the time we were down. My wife liked the “It’s a small world” ride. It broke down on us… Overall, great but not that much better than any other amusement park. Of course, this was my kid’s favorite ride.
Animal Kingdom: Very cool, but not too different from a local Safari exhibit from where I live, so while it was impressive and the guide (it was a ride in a bus ride) was entertaining, overall it was just fair. Perhaps I’m spoiled though, if you’ve never been on a ride like this it would be great!
Epcot: I enjoy this! it was cool seeing information about all the different parts of the work. It even had some pretty cool rides. I wanted to go on Mission: Space, but I was too sick by that time. There is this very excellent ride in the Mexico portion that I thought was awesome.
Hollywood Studios: This park was called MGM Studios in another life, but now it’s been renamed “Hollywood Studios”. We underestimated this park and thought it would be boring, but instead it was our favorite of the bunch. Unfortunately, we only spent one day there, and it was a day that they didn’t perform the incredible show called “Fantasmic“. Still practically all the other shows and rides there were pretty incredible!
All in all, it was an incredible experience, and if you’re planning a trip soon, I’d advise that you do the following tips:
1.) Take advantage of the FastPASS tickets! Make sure you choose which one you pick wisely, since you can only get 1 ticket per each FastPass at a time. Get your FastPass ticket early in the day because the ride time gets bumped later and can even sell out. These are worth the scramble to get them in the morning, so pick your favorites first!
Get Your FASTPASS ticket early
2.) Hit Hollywood Studio on the day that Fantasmic is playing, you won’t regret it as I did!!!
3.) If you went down the first week of November, you can go to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and then later in the week Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. it cost extra, but it might be worth it.
4.) Schedule to have a Dinner with the Character at the Crystal Dining hall, that way you can get into the park early. That way a quick dad and son can run to get FastPass tickets before the rest of the people do (bonus)! But you do need to run back because they won’t let the party into the hall until all the members are there!
5.) Do go have a dinner at Cinderella’s castle! The castle is cool in itself, but the show is spectacular and interactive! I was surprised that I enjoyed it.
6.) The normal shows (like Beauty and the Beast) are great too. All the shows by Disney were enjoyable!
7.) If you expect to go to different parks on the same day, get the Park Hopper Pass, so you can go from one park to another. We didn’t do this because it would have been another $200 that we would have had to pay, but it might be worth it to you…
8.) The dining plan was pretty much a wash for us. Too many dessert allocations for us, we’re not dessert people.
Disney World Vacation Conclusion
Even with the discounts, it still cost us about $4,500 to $5,000! We went for the 7 days and 8 nights package and stayed at a great Disney World Resort. It’s worth it but pricey.
So there you have it, my experience at Disney World! If you have any questions, please feel free to email me and I’ll do my best to remember (or ask my wife). In my defense, I was pretty sick and somethings I didn’t get to experience to the fullest!
Bye Disney World, Until Next Time
Are you thinking of taking the plunge and going down to Disney World (in Florida) or Disneyland (in California)? If you have gone to Disney, was it worth it and would you go again?
-Don
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Surprisingly, I’ve been missing Disney World a lot lately!
It’s surprising to me because it was expensive for us to go since we don’t live close to Florida, and I hated paying the $4,000 to $5,000 for the trip.
So I decided to ask my daughter (she’s 6 mind you), if she missed Disney. She shrugged her shoulders, which means not really. Thinking that she must not have understood, I asked her which vacation she preferred better, the one at Hilton Head, that we when to this past summer or Disney World. I posed this question to her believing she would say Disney World instantly. She didn’t! My daughter (also called pumpkin, princess, sweetie, sweetie-pie, etc) said she liked both vacations about the same!!! This little discovery was an amazing answer to me! I was a bit shocked, I thought Disney would be the winner, hands down.
My 6-year-old is very smart (she tests at an ending 3rd grade reading level, not bad for a beginning 1st grader), and already judges things much like an adult would, so I was thrown for a loop!
That’s when it hit me! She doesn’t have the same base background that I do with Disney! As a very young child, I use to get excited every Sunday night to watch the latest Disney special on TV (or were they reruns by then). I’ve seen all the classics, I know almost all of the characters (both older and newer ones). But to my daughter and son, Mickey at Disney World is just some person dressed in a costume. I don’t think they felt the magic that my wife and I did.
So, while the value of my investment in the Disney World experience may increase for my kids as time folds (nostalgia), currently Disney is a bit of a disappointment for me at the moment, at least for generating excitement from my daughter. This may change with time (nostalgia kicking in again).
I was sick the entire time I was down there (flu), and yet I still wish I could go back again! Could it be that my daughter is too smart to enjoy that magic of Disney? If so, that makes me a bit sad!
We’ll have to go again sometime, perhaps I can embellish the experience somehow! For me, now that a bit of time has passed, the money spent on the vacation seemed well worth it!
Do you find that sometimes kids enjoy a cheaper vacation more so than an expensive one?
This week I’m vacationing at Hilton Head Island. And while I did play golf a few days, I find that the best times I had so far are the free or close to free activities!
Body Surfing – Not my son!
So I decided to compile a quick list of all the free (or again close to free) activities that we have done.
Cheap things to do at the beach:
Body Surfing, is my one of the favorite things to do at the beach. As you can imagine, it’s just riding a wave without a surfboard by using your body in place of the surfboard… I had a lot of fun doing this, but even better is that fact that I was able to teach both my son and daughter how to do it today! My son was tough because he has been stung multiple years at the beach by jellyfish, so naturally he had a strong fear of the ocean. But once he did it once, he was hooked! My daughter was the most fun to watch though! She rode a wave all the way onto the beach! I wish I had filmed it…
Walking the beach. Is there anything cooler than walking the beach with the cool sea breeze blowing as you and your significant other (or solely) walk miles away from your hotel?
Building sand creations. They aren’t just sand castles anymore! When we went to the beach earlier today, there was an alligator sand creature that formed a loop, effectively forming a sand castle too! Okay, my kids still build sand castles, but there are alternatives!
Searching for shark teeth: One of my friend’s parents always came back with a small bucket full of shark’s teeth. I never figured out their trick in finding them, but it always amazed me! Perhaps you know the magic trick, if not, read what this site has to say about it.
Renting a bike for the week: The cost usually runs in the $20 dollar range, or even better you could bring your bikes with you. Since the beach is flat, you can ride for hours and hours without really getting tired. On Hilton Head, there are over 100 miles of bike trails and paths, so it’s a very bike friendly Island. If you are an avid biker like the blogger at Little House In The Valley, you would love it!
Sun Bathing: Okay, it’s 2010 and we all know that sun bathing isn’t such a great idea anymore. But why not sit on the beach with an umbrella (really called a parasol) and read a great novel or some other fun activity and people watch! Or maybe lay out of 15 minutes then go for a walk with plenty of sun lotion on with plenty of SPF protection! Make sure you get a safe sunscreen lotion (I heard not all sunscreens are that good for your skin!)
Flying A Kite: We buy a cheap kite every year. After getting the kite up in the air, my son always buries the kite handle in the sand and just lets the kite fly high above… It always amazes me that the kite doesn’t rip the kite handle out of the sand. It’s a quick fun thing to do.
Sand crabbing: We use plastic shovels and buckets to dig Sand Crabs (also called Sand Mole Crabs) out of the ocean’s edge when the tide is going out. My kids are still a bit afraid of them, but still get excited when the sand crabs are uncovered.
There are many other fun things to do at the beach, but I need to go to bed so that I can go on a dolphin sightseeing tour tomorrow.
Do you have a favorite free fun thing that I may have missed? If so, please do tell!
