Star Wars Weekends

On our most recent trip to Florida we spent a day at Disney's Hollywood Studios and took in Star Wars weekends. We've been once before, so with a little experience under our belt we spent a day with some amazing Star Wars fans and celebrities.

If you have never been to Star Wars Weekends (SWW) and are a fan of the movies and TV shows it is a blast.  We were lucky to be in town for weekend number 5 and were lucky enough to see some amazing celebrities in the parades and in some shows.  

 Up close and personal with an Ewok during the parade.

 Trading with a Jawa (we traded an elastic hair band for a coin)

 Storm Troppers escorting Darth Vader through out the park

 Chocolate and peanut butter Darth Vader Cupcake (yum!)

 Yoda cupcake which was also amazing!

 Jango Fett posing for pictures.

 Jawas in the parade

 Ray Park (Darth Maul) in the Celebrity Motorcade.

 Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)

 Tuskan Raidar

 Mace Windu and Kit Fisto

Last but not Least Frank Oz (the voice of Yoda)

We really enjoy the fun atmosphere and the celebrities. Last year we saw Mark Hamill in the parade. This year we had fast passes to see the Celebrity Talk show with James Arnold Taylor (Obi Wan Kenobi in the Clone Wars). We got to experience the fun pre-show with some comical Storm Troopers and listened to both Ray Park and Peter Mayhew talk about their Star Wars experience.  We had a great time. One of our daughters favourite moments was having Ashley Eckstein (the voice of Ashoka Tano in the Clone Wars) speak directly to her during the motorcade.

If you are a Star Wars fan, it's time to start thinking about planning a vacation during  SWW 2016.  If you need a place to stay we can help!

Trader Sam's Grog Grotto - Our 2 Cents!

On every trip we like to try something new. This trip we did a couple of new things but today we'll only talk about one of them. Our first night in Florida we headed over to Disney's Polynesian Village Resort to check out their new restaurant Trader Sam's Grog Grotto.  There is both indoor and outdoor seating.  The drive to the resort is about 10 minutes from the house making it a quick trip.  Trader Sam's opens at 4pm and closes at 12am.  This is great unless you plan to bring your kids along.  The under 21 crowd is only allowed in until 8pm and then they need to find somewhere else to hang out.

The house is so close to Disney that you can feel part of the magic whenever you wish.  With kids in tow we arrived in time to pick up a pager to see if we could get a seat inside but while we were waiting decided to sit out on the patio.  This way we could get our order started so as not to miss out on the chance to partake in the food and drink.

The patio once the rain started!

With thunderstorms looming we got right to business. First up some drinks.  The kids tried a couple of Sam's No-Booze Brews. First up was Polynesian Punch.  This drink came in a souvenir sipper which was the big draw for our daughter and she really liked the drink but found it to sweet.

Next up for our son was Schweitzer Falls.  This had tropical juices and "Gorilla Grog", but the pineapple wedge and umbrella were a favourite.

Now as for Adult drinks, if you don't like rum then you won't find much to your liking.  Toby picked out the HippopotoMai-Tai (Coruba dark rum, Bacardi Superior Rum, Bols Orange Curaco, Orgeat, Organic Agave Nectar, and lime juice).   I tried it and thought it was good but a bit strong. The best part is that it came in a souvenir Tiki glass. The drink was expensive around $15, but you could go to one of the stores in the resort and buy and empty glass for the same amount (and it doesn't say Trader Sam's).  

(Tiki glass, and No-booze brew sipper)

I have always wanted to try a Dole Whip (pineapple soft serve) but never wanted to wait in line. There is now the Pineapple Lanai at the Polynesian and I had planned to go there after we ate but instead I ordered the Spikey Pineapple, which is basically a Dole Whip with rum. All I can say is Yum, it was really good.

With drinks out of the way we ordered some food.   It's not a really big menu more like a good selection of appetizers or finger food.  We ordered the Headhunter Sushi roll and the Pan-fried Dumplings.  The sushi was good but I wouldn't rave about it. None of us liked the beet dipping sauce and just stuck with the soy sauce.  The Dumplings were great, tasty and satisfying.  I would definitely order these again.  

Head Hunter sushi (top) and Pan-fried Dumplings

We did enjoy the experience and I'd love to go back and sit inside where I hear lots of Disney magic is at play when you order certain drinks.  Make sure you check it out on your next trip.                                                                 

New at Mickey's Garden Villa-June 2015

We just spent a whirlwind 4 night stay at the house last week.  It was a lot of fun as we surprised the kids with the trip, and that made it even more enjoyable.  Even though we weren't there for very long we managed to fit in some additions to the property.

Some items may not be that glamorous, but they are essential!

• 4 New lounge chairs by the pool. They are very comfortable and they have several positions, even flat.

• Deck box for all those pool toys 
• New washing machine (the dryer will follow next month).
• New hallway light leading to the Queen master bedroom.

• The less exciting work done was changing smoke detector batteries, and pressure washing the pool deck and some minor paint touch ups. 
• We also got some new pictures of the pool and some other rooms.  We'll get these up on the website soon.

Regular visit items also included doing an inventory of our linens and putting out new ones as needed. For such a short stay we managed to accomplish quite a bit. We hope that all our guests will enjoy the new additions! 

It's A Pirate's Life for Me!

Well not really, but it does involve salt water.  We have a BIG change coming to Mickey's Garden Villa. Just this past June we painted the pool deck and updated the lights in our pool to colour changing LEDs. These are not only fun but they are also more energy efficient.

We also upgraded our pool pump to a more efficient unit. The only downside to it was that now our guests have to press 2 buttons to turn on the spa. You are on vacation and we hate to make more work for you!  So in the interest of all our guests we thought we'd go one step further and do one more pool upgrade.

To ensure that all our guest have a relaxing, stress and work free vacation we are putting in new pool controls and will bring back straight forward operation of the spa. Mid October we will have the new system installed and guests will be able to control the spa and pool lights from inside the house. Now you'll be able to turn on the spa and get it up to temperature without setting foot outside.

Now all you land lubbers are still probably wondering what Jack Sparrow, Davey Jones and salt water have to do with new pool controls. While we won't be inviting any pirates to vacation at Mickey's Garden Villa we will soon have a non-chlorine pool. During the installation of the new controls we will be changing the pool over to salt.

Why is this big news you ask? Salt water pools are great for several reasons:

• They are gentle on skin and eyes
• The water feels softer
• Safer, no harsh chemicals

We hope that all the improvements that we made to the pool will make all our guest's vacation even more relaxing. 

That's it for updates for now.  Please visit our Orlando area events page for information on upcoming events at all the theme parks. Don't hesitate to ask us any questions or leave a comment. Have a great weekend.

P.S. Today was also National Talk Like a Pirate day, matey!

What's New at Windsor Palms?

It has been way to long since I put up a new post and thought it was about time, so here I am.  Things are moving along well down in the land of sunshine.  Since my last update we've made a few more improvements.  We have replace the child safety fence by the pool,  the blinds going out to the pool and purchased some additional pool cues for family fun.  Not big changes but every little bit helps.
Some big changes have arrived at Windsor Palms thought.  Just this month the new Tiki Bar has opened by the pool at the clubhouse.  The sundry shop has also been enlarged and totally renovated, it looks amazing. 

 

The sundry shop has basic food items, souvenir items and even popcorn for the movies.  Right now the Tiki Bar is serving food and non-alcoholic beverages. The liquor license should be in place anytime now. Check out the menu below, pretty reasonable and some nice options for a nice snack or meal by the pool. 

 

 

 

I think that this is a great addition to the community and we can't wait to check it out on our next visit!  What do you think, is this a good addition to the resort? Would you take advantage of it if you were vacationing? Thanks for stopping by. 



A Visit to Legoland

I haven't posted in what feels like a long time.  We've made our way to Florida and we're hanging out at the house. We are exploring Windsor Palms so we can share with everyone everything the resort has to offer. I was talking to one of the guards at the gatehouse and he was telling me that it's rained here every day for over a month.  I checked the weather network and today it was not supposed to rain so we decided to check out LEGOLAND.

Our 7 year old is crazy about Lego, and I mean crazy. If he could he would play with Lego all the time and would own every Lego set ever made, especially Star Wars. Luckily our 10 year old daughter also likes Lego, she though is more of a collector. She has a lot of sets but her prised possession is her Lego Harry Potter sets, she has built them all and has them on display-not much playing happens with them. 

So this trip is our first since LEGOLAND opened.  We have seen coupons in the Lego Club magazine in the past for a free kids admission with an adult admission, but since the LEGOLAND discovery centre in Vaughn opened  I haven't seen any.  My brother in law sent some to us on his last trip down in the mail, but they seem to have vanished so this morning we set out on a mission to find some on our own. You can find on line savings but not as good as the one I mentioned above. We stopped at a tourist centre on the way and they also have discounts that allow you to visit a second time within the 7 days following your visit but we knew we wouldn't be able to take advantage of that. The employees at the tourist office said that they had heard of some coupons on Pepsi bottles and at McDonalds. So off we went to find a McDonalds.  Our second stop was the McDonalds within a mile of LEGOLAND itself and we got the coupons and not only did we get the buy an Adult admission get a child's admission free but it also included entrance to the water park which we wanted to do! We had some extras which we will leave at the house for others to take advantage of.

The park itself was not overly crowded, I'm not sure if that's because it's a weekday or because it's been raining so much.  We weren't about to complain though, the only ride we waited more than 10 minutes for was the dragon roller coaster. It did manage to rain a couple of times but that was okay as we were already soaking wet.  The new Legends of Chima area was fun, a splash pad and a boat ride that sees you spraying others with water and getting wet yourself. The signs say you MAY get soaked, it should have said you WILL get soaked.  We didn't dry off until we after we made our way to the water park and intentionally got wet.  The ride was fun, but I would save it until right before I went to the water park or right before I was going to leave. 

LEGOLAND is definitely geared toward the 2-12 crowd with a few bigger rides to keep the older kids and adults interested.  Our kids definitely had fun and with the water park it was a full day. I think you could make  it a full day without the water park (especially in the months the water park is closed) if you took in some of the shows which we did not get to see. The water park is not big but it was a great way to cool off and what is there is great. A good wave pool and the joker soaker had lots for the younger kids and adults alike to do.   Overall we had a great time, I would only have a few comments about things to be aware of. If you've been to Disney World, this is not Disney. Often the rides loaded slowly even when the line was short and staff didn't always seem to know what they were doing. Every time it rained everything shut down, even if there was no visible lightning.  Food pricing was reasonable for a theme park, still too much for what it is though and I would recommend avoiding the fried chicken. 


There is lots of Lego merchandise (LOTS)and they do NOT accept the Lego VIP card, which is not great if you collect points or have points to redeem. The kids had their own money to spend but we told them to wait until we went to the Downtown Disney Lego Store to buy anything big because they have points saved that they can redeem. It's a good thing to be aware of.

We enjoyed our day and the kids came home tired and happy.  I would recommend it to anyone with a Lego lover in the 2-12 age range.  But keep your eyes out for coupons or specials, even with our 2 for 1 coupons it was still $200 for admission.  If you have been to LEGOLAND and have any other advise for people leave a comment and if you want to go to LEGOLAND and have a question, ask and I'll do my best to answer.  Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I'll have some more posts during this visit.  Next up are home reno updates and a stop by Magic Kingdom and New Fantasyland.