Chriskre's birthday getaway with Food & Wine at AKV & Bonnet Creek.

Day two.

Encountering the pizza scam at Disney and other pizza adventures.
You can read about it here but basically there is a pizza delivery scam going on in Orlando in alot of the hotels and resorts including our beloved Disney where these comapnies put a flyer under your door and you order from them and they are stealing credit card numbers. Most of them are not legit and if they do bring you a pizza they bring you a cheap $5 and charge you $20 for it.
http://www.mouseowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46295

So speaking of pizza, today we went to Hollywood studios instead of AK because it was so awfully hot today and you know how hot that place gets with the greenhouse effect. It must have been 89 or 90 degrees today.
Lines were almost non-existent on everything. Star Tours was closed til next year and we did a couple of shows but no TOT or RRC because we were a little hung over from our our midnight escapade at the pool.
BTW, they say the pool closes at midnight but we were out til almost 1:30am and no one kicked us out. All the lights were on in the pool so I guess they don't enforce closing the pool.

We woke up late and missed breakfast so headed to Olivia's for lunch. Boy has Olivia's gone downhill. I ordered some kind of jerk chicken sandwich which wasn't even spicy and was bland, my friends ordered cheeseburgers which they managed to burn despite them asking us how we wanted them cooked which they replied they wanted them medium. We also ordered some crab cakes. They brought us the teeny tiniest crab cakes I've ever eaten and they were thin as pancakes. $10 for 3 quarter sized crab cakes, no lie.

Now I know everything is more expensive at Disney but this is ridiculous. The only redeeming part of the meal was the key lime tart which was excellent. Other than that I'm just going there for dessert next time and eating elsewhere and this used to be one of my favorite easy to get into restaurants.

So after spending a very enjoyable day at the studios, my friends decided that a slice of pizza would be nice. Now you guys know how good pizza is at Disney (not). Anyway, we hit pizza planet. What is it with Disney and pizza? How hard is it to make a slice of pizza. Even my hospital where I work makes decent pizza so what gives?

Kidani pool.

Day 3 plan is hanging out at the pool til we turn into prunes.
Dinner will be at Cali Grill where we will linger to see Wishes.

Thanks to Leane (a friend on MO) and her generosity in giving me her Cali ressie, I had dinner and watched Wishes tonight at Cali Grill. I've been wanting to do this for years but never seemed to be able to work it out with the group I was going with. I know it's beyond most people's budget but I'm so glad I got to go.

Haven't been to Epcot yet, we are kind of doing our own Food & Wine tour.

Dinner was very good.

Started with lobster bisque, tuna sushimi, and a nice heirloom tomatoe salad.

The main course was Florida Snapper with a mushroom risotto.

Finished off with a surprise chocolate fudge cake with a birthday candle on top.

The cake came just as Wishes started. What a great way to celebrate a birthday

If you haven't been to Cali Grill yet, you should put it on your bucket list.
The food is decent although very expensive but the experience is really priceless.
The view of the castle when they dim the lights for Wishes is a must for any Disney freak.
I am so glad I got to do this. It was a birthday present from my friends.

Day 4
Today was grazing day around Epcot.

A few new places that I don't remember from last year. Singapore looked new to me.
Had a shrimp cake with spicy noodles. It was okay.

We went to the Tequileria again this trip but now they've got a new tequila sampler trio. It's very nice.
It has a cream tequila (similar to Baileys) a coffee tequila which was quite good and a sweet tequila which was delicious.
They went down so smoothly I didn't notice I was buzzed til we got up to take the boat.
Then all of a sudden.....Wooooo. Of course it's probably because I had about 3 pours of wine before we made it to Mexico. We also had the guacamole which was so good we ordered another one. There was no line, no waiting and it's such a charming little place to relax and talk.

Munched our way thru all the favorites but it was soooooo hot that I didn't have the cheddar soup which is one of my favorites. Tomorrow it's supposed to cool down so maybe we'll go back for that one. We actually have an ADR at Teppen Eddo which my friends want to keep although I doubt it. With so much stuff to eat it really doesn't make sense to do a sit down. We'll see.

So tomorrow I move to bonnet creek resort. They've got a lazy river pool and am hoping it's heated since it's supposed to be cooler tomorrow.

Wow, it's been 15 years of F & W?

I think I've been going for the last 10 almost religiously.

Day 5
Today is move resort day. Moving down the street to Bonnet Creek but before the move we dropped by Whispering Canyon for breakfast. For some reason they weren't doing their typical yelling and embarassing folk like they normally do. The only time they got a little loud was when someone asked for ketchup otherwise it was pretty lame. Oh well.

I am just fascinated by the architecture of this massive lobby. Such a spectacular sight. I never tire of it.

After breakfast we headed straight to Bonnet Creek and they let us check in around 1230pm so we headed straight to the pool. They've got nice pool bars at all the pools and light grill with some nice offerings. Disney should learn a little from their pool bar set up.

Anyway this is how I spent the last 2 days, in the lazy river. This resort is real nice but it's massive. They actually have many pools and two lazy rivers. The pool was heated so it was comfortable unlike Kidani was. The sun was nice and bright so it was a perfect day to get in probably the last of my pool days for the year. This Floridian just usually won't go in any pool beyond Nov. 1st despite being heated.

A few random shots of Bonnet Creek and my room.
I was lucky enough to get a Presidential suite thanks to a friend who got me the room.
Bonnet Creek is a Wyndham timeshare.
It's at Disney's doorstep, practically onsite across from Boardwalk area.
It's really a destination in itself.
We stayed here two nights and went to Downtown Disney at night after spending the day in the pool.
My friends went to Animal Kingdom but I decided to just hang at the resort and say good bye to summer.
They have a poolside bar and grill so you don't even need to leave the resort if you don't want to.

I'll be back to this place soon.

I hope you enjoyed my trip report.

Now I'm headed back for my Christmas trip. Maybe I'll do a TR for that one too if I get organized.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Yes I was very disappointed in Olivia's and worse than that I was telling my friends how good it was so it made me look bad.
Oh well, I know sometimes you just get a bad meal. Maybe the former chef quit. Who knows but I'm gonna give it six months before I go back. Don't want to risk this next week.

The Tequileria is actually quite the bargain in Epcot IMO. $12 for 3 pours of the sampler tequilas. $5 for guacamole and chips and they've got a few other taquito things they serve.

My server would have sold us more wine too but we were kind of trying to stay on budget if that's even possible at this place.
$100 a bottle keeps you in check.

Actually you can rent points from a Wyndham owner you can find them on TUGbbs or buy some points yourself and do the reservation yourself.

Wyndham points are literally being given away right now on ebay. You can pick up a nice package for around $1
with enough points to get you into BC for a week in a presidential unit.
Depending on where you buy your points will determine your maintenance fees.

I bought in San Antonio, TX at Las Cascadas but can use my points anywhere in the Wyndham system.

I just happened to do a trade with another Wyndham owner who needed a night in a DVC to use Magical Express so
she gave me two nights at BC and I gave her one night at DVC. Win-win.

Yes they are. With this economy many people can't afford whatever the fees are even if they are minimal especially if vacations are not gonna happen anytime soon. I pay $35 a month in MF's so for me it's pretty reasonable and can get me 3 or 4 nice vacations out of it but everyone's taste and budget is different.

Another reason many are getting rid of their points is that they bought them as a business but Wyndham made it impossible for private individuals to rent their points out for a profit since it cuts into their rental division so people just want to get out from the MF responsibilities.

I'm sure there are lots of other reasons like death, illnesses, divorce, etc. The usual reasons people need out of life's financial pressures. If you are fairly liquid and can afford the monthly expense then it's a great time to pick up some nice timeshares.

No that was the Florida Snapper. I know it's hard to tell what it is.
It's lightly breaded so could be anything under that breading.

MF's are paid depending on where you own not on this particular unit per se. I own in San Antonio, TX so my MF's are $35 a month. Wyndham is a bit of a complicated TS system but they have some nice resorts and if you game the system can get lots of great vacations for a reasonable price. If you want to know more about Wyndham there is an owners forum that you can join for free which talks all about the wyndham system.

www.wyndhamowners.org

An example is that this unit cost 44K points to stay for 2 nights. I own 168K points. So it cost me 1/4 of my MF's if I had paid for it myself which I didn't but just for examples sake. So my MF's are $35 a month or $840 biannually. So 1/4 of my $840 MF's is $210 dollars so $105 per night for this room. Not a steal but still a great deal IMO.

Another interesting thing is that I could also have gotten a 1 bedroom for a week in a regular room (not preisdential though) thru RCI doing an exchange for the same amount of points plus the $190 exchange fee. A pretty good deal if you want to stay a week. The regular rooms are real nice too just not as big or luxe.

Bella, I hope it's not going downhill either. I'm gonna give it another chance since I love the ambiance of OKW and the fact that it's usually easy to get a ressie here.

Yes I did. I bought them on ebay last year. I probably paid more than I should have but I wanted to find something with a newer resort and lower MF's so that's why I chose Las Cascadas and paid $500 for it instead of $1. I think you can probably find it now for $1 though since prices are pretty much bottoming out since MF bills are going out now.

Yes Bella, this is very common. It's actually a great place to pick up many of the TS's. Not all systems are a good deal on ebay but I've purchased 5 from ebay sellers over the years. I did buy DVC from Disney and my Hilton HGVC points from a real estate agent who specialized in Hilton points but everything else was from ebay without any problems although some have had problems. I guess I've just been very lucky.

Actually it's quite interesting but ebay has served as a clearinghouse for many unwanted TS's. TS's are very difficult to resell so when someone wants out they pay a company several thousands to take it off their hands. If you're a buyer you benefit from these desperate people. Not every TS is a good deal. You really should buy something you'd want to stay in if you had to but I've kind of made TS's my hobby and preferred travel accomodations so I learned all the tricks to getting cheap luxury vacations. It's a hobby that's fun and gives me more Disney time too. There are TS junkies just like Disney junkies. I've got a touch of both.

I have only used an escrow account when I purchased using a real estate agent with Hilton. Other than that I paid thru paypal. Maybe I was just lucky but most of these TS salespeople on ebay are very efficient in getting the TS sold.
They've got a brisk business and don't want to risk bad feedback so they usually have you closed within 3 months.
It was a bit nerve wrecking on my first purchase but now that I've been thru it a few times I really don't worry anymore.
So far all 5 deeds were recorded and I was recognized as the new owner without any surprises. Not that it can't happen
but I've been very fortunate to not have any problems.