Bad, bad blogger

Let's not even really say I'm a blogger, ok? I mean, technically, I seem to have, well, I guess you can call this a blog, but to call one's self a blogger, one has to, well, blog. (How many commas were in one sentence?)

And since according to this, I haven't posted since Aug. 31, I think I should have my license revoked or something. I AM posting some - but mostly about the topic at hand as it relates to school stuff - on the blog for my class this semester. (emergingpowers.blogspot.com) I guess that doesn't really count.

Besides, folks, any of you guys who are reading me already know everything that's going on, right?

Relaxing at the beach - is there anything better?

OK, so I can't say enough about how much fun we had on our beach vacation. Trip report to come.

In the meantime, here's the view from our porch! I mean, seriously, I took this with a point and shoot camera.

More to come with pictures - and hopefully pictures from my kayaking trip, too, if I can get the pictures from the waterproof camera processed in a reasonable amount of time.

Beach trip ahoy!

So this is my last Saturday at work before our beach trip! I can't wait! We're staying at a house on Emerald Isle, right on the Bogue sound, facing the sunset - so it should be beautiful.

We're hoping to relax, read, beach, eat great seafood, visit aquariums, play board games, etc. And I really, really want to go kayaking - perhaps around Cape Lookout. Jay will get some good runs in, and I can't wait to do some sun salutations out in the backyard.

Then it's full steam ahead planning the trip to Disney for Holly's birthday!

Also, I think I really need to be a better blogger. Only one post a month doesn't really create a following, does it? :)

School and work and busy, oh, my!

So, the dog days of Summer are supposed to be laid back and easy - but for some reason, my July has been uber busy. My global economics class is crammed into five weeks, I've got a big project at work coming to a head, and (this is fun and good) I've had lots of social things with friends.

But boy, am I gonna crash out tired the first weekend of August. Luckily a trip to the beach is only three weeks after that. Whew.

Planning trips is fun!

So the thing that keeps me sane at work is looking forward to new vacations.

For a long time, I was thinking I would have to wait until August for our super fun beach trip with friends. I'm really looking forward to it - and thank goodness it's only two months away.

But now, Jay and I are thinking about a three-day weekend, with a drive down to the lake house. Ahhhhh... That would be relaxing.

We're also full steam ahead planning our September Disney trip for birthday celebrations for a friend who has NEVER been! Where do I start? I want to show her everything! But don't want her or her husband to find out what a true Disney dork I really am. No matter - I'm trying to plan a great, relaxing time - and that relaxes me! Good all around.

Now, what shall we plan for October???:)

Our first DVC trip to AKLV: Disney in the rain is better than work - Final installment

Postscript, final thoughts and magical memories
Best thing about our trip: Spending time together at our new vacation home – and knowing that we'll get to do it for the next 49 years!
Worst thing about our trip: Being soggy

So we finally got our luggage delivered from AirTran. But not without a rigamarole. I called the dispatcher at 11:30 a.m. Friday morning, and they told me it had come in on the first flight of the day, and would be here within four hours. I hadn't heard anything by 4, so I called and got an answering machine. Shortly after, I got a call from the delivery service, saying that they'd be leaving Raleigh just before 5. Sigh. He finally delivered it around 7 p.m. By the time I got it upstairs to take the laundry out, I realized that the bag was also pretty badly damaged. The supports that hold up the handle from the inside were completely snapped in two. Great.

So we're still working that out.

But overall, we had such a wonderful vacation. Kidani Village is still growing into itself, and I think it will get even better with age – as the flowers and trees get settled and more people discover how wonderful it is.




The cast member at check in said they were 90 percent booked (but only 2/3 of the resort is open so far.) Still, with that being the case, we never had to wait in line for anything, and no public spaces ever seemed very crowded – even with the rain that kept some people in.

The details like the artifacts and proverbs on the walls and the carvings on the walls into the library are classic Disney.





There were lots of quiet spaces, too, like the library and the porches with rocking chairs overlooking the savanna.



The attention to detail greets you as soon as you walk in the front entry.




There were little things about the rooms that might need a tweak for future designers – the fans in the bathroom turn on and off based on motion, which is great, except at night, when they took a while to cycle off. The room in the bathroom with just the water closet needs a picture or something. It's like a jail cell. An extra hook or towel bar would be handy in the studio bathroom. There needs to be a nightstand on both sides of the bed. And mostly, we need a covering for the path to the buses.

The service was top-notch Disney, and nearly every cast member we encountered – both at AKLV and other places – lived up to our expectations. It's one reason we return again and again, much to the bewilderment of many of our friends and family. But it truly is an escape, and the people who work there really do go out of their way to fulfill any reasonable request that you have. They know you're dropping a lot of money there, and they want you to come back. We certainly will.

And we wish we had bought into DVC much sooner. The advertised rack rate for the room we stayed in for four nights was $450! So that's worth $1800. Now, would we ever have actually stayed in a room that cost that much? No way. But even assuming that we would have likely stayed in a moderate resort, that would have been $150 a night. ($600). We each got $100 off of annual passes, and got several discounts on some restaurants. So using conservative estimates, this trip would have cost $1000. Not too bad when you consider this will be around for 50 years, and it will have paid for itself in five or so years. We'll have enough points to take another trip in the fall, too.

Anyway, for those of you who actually read this much, congratulations. Trip reports really do give me ideas for future trips and psych me up to go, so I wanted to offer the same for y'all. Thanks! See ya real soon!

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Our first DVC trip to AKLV: Disney in the rain is better than work - Part VII

Thursday, May 19: The long journey home
Miles walked today: 7.1 miles
Best thing today: Soarin'
Worst thing today: Leaving WDW

One final wake-up call from Mickey and Stitch and it was time to start packing. We looked out the window and saw a tiny patch of blue sky, but it was still mostly cloudy.

We left a credit card on file, so there was no need to check out. We went to check our luggage in, they tagged it and gave us our boarding passes. The idea was that we wouldn't have to deal with them again until we reached our final destination.

Then we checked our carry-on bags with bell services who would hold them while we played in the parks.

It was the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot, but with the cloudy/rainy weather, I knew we wouldn't get a chance to explore most of the exhibits. The real reason we were headed over was to ride Soarin'. After arriving and passing under the world's largest silver golf ball, we checked the tip board and saw that fast passes WERE still available for it. Score! So we headed over there, and discovered that the fastpass time was 3:35-4:35, and our shuttle from the hotel was leaving at 4:30. No way we'd make it.

So we decided to have lunch, and then come wait standby. The rain held off long enough for us to head over to England for some Harry Ramsden fish and chips at the Yorkshire Fish House. Not healthy or gourmet, but very fresh, hot and delicious.

We also added to our growing pin collection by getting the 2009 Flower and Garden pin as we walked over. (Did anyone else start collecting pins, thinking it would be a "cheap" way to collect souvenirs? I bet our pin collection would buy another 25 DVC points! )

We pondered this year's poster, but the colors didn't go with our house. What was neat, though, is that the artist who did this year's poster had a booth set up with her other work. Clever.

We trekked back to the land for our 60 minute standby wait at Soarin'. It ended up being about that, but again, we met some nice people in line to pass the time with, and Disney had group interactive games set up in part of the queue, which made the time go by quickly. After an exhilarating hangglide ride over California's majestic landscape, filled with sounds, smells and wind, we landed safely on the ground.

We still had just a little bit of time left before it was time to go, so we visited with the dolphins, sea turtles, spotted rays and manatees over at the Seas with Nemo and Friends. We also saw Turtle Talk with Crush, which was super fun. How do they do it?

When we have a rental car, it's also our tradition to go to Ghirardelli at Downtown Disney for a going-away ice cream. Call it softening the blow of driving away. Since we knew that wouldn't be possible, we stopped for a Mickey Bar on the way out to the bus back to the hotel.

We got back to the resort at about 4 p.m., took some final pictures and chatted with another lovely cast member working out on the savanna. Goodbye, animals!

Here are some final images - the rain held off long enough to get some of these:












The bus rolled up exactly at 4:30, and we were the only ones from Kidani. Another several families joined us at Jambo House, but by then the bus was only about ¼ full. That changed when we made a final pickup at Pop Century. We were glad that the bus picked us up three hours before our flight, as loading took a while. Finally, at about 5:15, we were on our way to Orlando International.

They showed a cute movie about going through security, and things to do to kill time, including getting that last minute Mickey doll. (Or, as Donald suggested, a Donald Duck toy, instead.)

A quick bite for dinner and we boarded our flight to Atlanta. We called the hotel in Raleigh to let them know that we'd need a pickup later that night, at about 11:30. They told us the service stopped at 11 p.m. Doh! I had been told they'd pick us up! Oh well. At least we knew at that point that we'd have to take a cab from the airport.

The connection to Raleigh was uneventful, and we headed to the baggage carousel. Our first bag was one of the first off the plane. Hooray, we thought, magical express worked great! But then the other bag never came.

Turns out, it wasn't Disney's mistake – AirTran tracked it down, and it was still in Atlanta. Sigh. Luckily, that was the bag with all of the dirty laundry, and nothing valuable. The clerk wasn't amused when I suggested that they could deliver it to us after doing the laundry. Nothing we could do, so we filed a claim, and they said they'd deliver it on Friday. Luckily, I had taken the day off off work for some appointments and to do laundry, unpack, etc.

We called a cab, which took us back to the hotel. Loaded up the car and drove the hour and a half to our warm, cozy home, and were greeted by our two kitties. Tired from a day of travel, we fell asleep pretty quickly that night.

Coming next: Final reflections

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