Tag Archives: staycations

Instagram Link Party: Orlando Staycation

Posted by sunshineandsometea in Local Central Florida and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tadd and I had plans to go to Hilton Head Island, SC this past weekend.  Unfortunately, they had to be canceled due to a family emergency that required us to stay closer to home, just in case we found out we had to leave town quickly.  We decided to make the best of it and our romantic weekend getaway turned into a last-minute “staycation” in the Orlando area.

We booked an inexpensive room via Priceline.com‘s name-your-own price feature and spent two nights staying very close to Walt Disney World property.  When we checked into our hotel, we really had no plans aside from dinner Saturday night at Il Mulino at the Walt Disney Swan Resort.  We were just going to play it by ear, and have a fun, relaxing weekend away from the stress of life, and focused just on each other.

We wound up in Downtown Disney Friday night.  Dinner at Paradiso 37 (which was better than I thought it would be!), followed by desserts from Goofy’s Candy Company.  They have this create-your-own treat thing, where you fill out a form and choose an item (apple, rice krispie treat, marshmallows, pretzel rods, or ginger bread cookie), then you choose to dip it in white, dark, or milk chocolate, then choose a candy topping (M&Ms, Oreos, peanuts, Reese’s Pieces, etc), then you choose a chocolate drizzle for the top.  It used to be that the marshmallow option was only $2.95 so it was a great bargain, because when they were done being dipped in everything they were enormous and they presented them to you skewered on a Mickey head crazy straw that you could keep.  Now they are $4.95…Not a bargain, but still a generally affordable treat.  We got ours to go and brought them back to the hotel room.  On the way out of Downtown Disney, we decided randomly to stop by guest relations and make reservations for the Sunday morning Keys to the Kingdom tour at Magic Kingdom.

Saturday we really weren’t sure what to do, but in the end decided to go to the Premiere Outlets where Tadd got some new bright green hi-top chucks at the Converse store (they are awesome…I need to get a picture of them), and I almost got something on clearance from the Coach Outlet, but ended up with a new Vera Bradley bag that I adore (an angled tote in Baroque), plus some extra stuff for gifts (everything in the VB Outlet was buy 2 get 1 free).  Then we set off to Celebration, FL for an afternoon of lunch at Celebration Town Tavern (which made me homesick for Boston), relaxing by the lake, Starbucks, and getting Tadd’s hair cut at a charming little place called S. Todd Esq, Barber!  We made so many Sweeney Todd jokes before and after the haircut…could not resist!

Saturday night, we had reservations for dinner at Il Mulino for that evening, so we went back to the hotel room, got gussied up a bit, and drove over to the Swan & Dolphin Resort near Epcot (refered to by locals as the Swolphin).  Il Mulino gets somewhat mixed reviews on Yelp and other places, but I have to say that we had a fabulous dinner!  They won us over with all the little extra surprises that added to the experience, including an appetizer of thinly sliced Italian sausage and eggplant caponata provided to us “compliments of the chef”, a tiny bottle of Rosa Regale included with our special Valentine’s Day dessert, and concluding the meal with a complimentary limoncello.  We had a head waiter & assistant waiter doting on us, and the manager came over twice to make sure we were happy.  These little extras really made our dinner special!  We felt like royalty.

We were thinking about walking over to Epcot for Illuminations after dinner, but when we left the restaurant, it was getting cold (and I had bare legs in a dress & heels!) and we had about 10 minutes before they started.  So we decided to go to the bridge between Disney’s Yacht Club Resort and Boardwalk Resort, and watch the fireworks over the treeline.  We were almost completely alone, huddled together in the cold, with a great view, and it turned out to be a very romantic moment.  I’m so glad we decided to stop there instead of rushing all the way into the crowded theme park for the show.

Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early, checked out of our room, and headed over to the Magic Kingdom for our 9AM Keys to the Kingdom tour.  Wow, was it cold!  I think it was 33F when we left our hotel.  We arrived at the gates of the park just after 8:30, and because of our tour, were allowed into the park before the masses.  Getting to see Main Street Town Square totally empty was a treat!

We had a fabulous time on our five hour tour, which included lots of history, trivia, VIP front-of-the-line guided access to a couple major attractions, and we were also allowed backstage to see how the park is run from behind-the-scenes.  It also included lunch at Columbia Harbor House.

I don’t want to give too much away regarding the tour, since part of the fun is not really knowing what you will see next, but if this kind of thing interests you, then I definitely recommend it!  Our tour guide was Robert, who was a lot of fun, enthusiastic, and very sweet.  The tour brought back a lot of happy memories for Tadd, who was a WDW cast member about 12 years ago.  We both really, really enjoyed it.

Thus ended our impromptu romantic staycation weekend.  I am sad that we didn’t get to go to Hilton Head, but we still had a great time together and made some special memories.  Valentine’s Day is important to us because it’s the anniversary of the day Tadd asked me to marry him, so we always try to do something to celebrate.  I think our weekend was more than befitting of the occasion.

This post is linked to the weekly Instagram link party over at a {little} dash of ash!

Instagram Link Party: Lunch and exploring Mt. Dora

Posted by sunshineandsometea in Local Central Florida and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

We are enjoying our staycation so far!

Saturday, we took Tadd’s mom to Mt. Dora, which is a quaint little town in Lake County, north of Orlando.  We did some geocaching (which is a fun little hobby that I will elaborate on in a future post), and had a lovely al fresco lunch at Cecile’s French Corner, where Tadd had escargot and a delicious Normandy Croissant, which was filled with chicken & mushrooms in a cream sauce.  I got the much more boring chicken sandwich, but wish I would have ordered his croissant.  It was so good!

We are going to be super-busy with all kinds of stuff over the next week, so much more to come!

Family Vacations & Staycations

Posted by sunshineandsometea in Friends & Family and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

I had hoped to get a post up last night detailing how I make my double layer pumpkin cheesecake, which is Tadd’s favorite thing ever and something I usually make several times between Halloween and Thanksgiving.  However, my work Thanksgiving potluck was canceled (bummer!), so I no longer had a reason to make it, and I have been so busy getting ready for my mother-in-law’s visit that I needed one less thing on my plate anyways.  So that post will have to wait for another time.

But I CAN talk about how excited I am that my mother-in-law Peggy is coming to visit tonight!  I know people often complain about their mothers-in-law, but I really lucked out with mine.  She is sweet and easygoing, and we always manage have fun and make some fantastic memories when we are together.  We take turns each year having her and occasionally some of Tadd’s other family members visit us here in Orlando, and going to visit them in Tennessee.  But no matter where we are, we always try to do new and interesting things to make each trip memorable.

Several years ago, she and Keith came to visit us during this same time of year and we spent 3 whole days touring the Disney parks, doing all of the special events for the holidays.  It was exhausting, but fun!

Check out Keith's long hair!

The following year, in the springtime, right around my birthday, we visited Tennessee.  On that trip we took a side trip to Pigeon Forge and visited Dollywood!  And the following day, we got a tiny taste of Gatlinburg (which I kind of fell in love with).  We also went to The Lost Sea, which is an underground lake in a cave in Sweetwater, TN.

Peggy, Keith, Tadd, and Tadd's uncle shooting water guns at innocent passers-by on the River Battle ride in Dollywood.

The following year, Peggy, Keith, and Tadd’s two uncles came to visit around Halloween time.  We rented a cabin at Fort Wilderness and spent four lovely days at Walt Disney World, doing Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival.  We all LOVED the cabin and had an amazing time!

This was the deck of our cabin. I cannot say enough good things about the cabins at Ft. Wilderness! If you are coming to Disney with a family larger than 4, this is the way to go!

Yes, we wore matching shirts to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! They each had a different character in a Halloween costume on them. Mine was Minnie dressed as a witch!

We were planning on going to visit Tennessee for Thanksgiving the following year, but we bought our house and closed on November 16, almost exactly two years ago!  So we were busy moving/unpacking/painting and all that fun stuff.  So Peggy, her boyfriend, and Keith drove down for a very brief trip over Thanksgiving weekend.  There wasn’t much time for sightseeing that year, but it was nice to at least have the holiday together and to get to show them our new house.

Last year, it was finally our turn to go up to Tennessee to visit, and we decided to go the 2nd week in October in the hopes of seeing some fall color in the mountains.  We spent part of the week renting a cabin in Gatlinburg, which was just amazing.  We used Mountain Laurel Chalets to rent our cabin and couldn’t have been happier.  If you are interested in a mountain vacation, you need to check out this property management company!  We stayed at the Lucky D Lodge, which was inexpensive and SO roomy and nice!  We did a lot of fun stuff, including a chair lift to the top of Crockett Mountain, touring the Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies, visiting the Gatlinburg craft fair, and a beautiful ride through Smoky Mountain National Park.

You can see a lot of the beautiful mountain pics we took from that trip in this post.

We have a lot of fun stuff planned for this year’s family visit, which starts tonight!  Tadd and I both have the next week off of work, so we are psyched to get through the work day so we can start celebrating!  I can’t wait to just relax and have fun spending time together and making some more memories as a family.

Let the staycation begin!