I Told You Driving Was Bad For Your Health! *2/2* NEW TRIP REPORT LINK P102

[MEK]

I Told You Driving Was Bad For Your Health Links
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I Told You Driving Was Bad For Health Introduction
Intro (con't)
Intro (con't)
Our First Resort Day
Our First Resort Day (con't)
Our First Resort Day (con't)
Our First Resort Day (con't)
An Early Warning and An Amazing Dinner
An Early Warning and An Amazing Dinner (con't)
An Early Warning and An Amazing Dinner (con't)
An Early Warning and An Amazing Dinner (con't)
Savannah or the ER?
Savannah or the ER? (continued)
Savannah or the ER? (continued)
Cha Cha Cha Changes
Beach Walk and Bluffton
Beach Walk and Bluffton (continued)
Beach Walk and Bluffton (con't)
Savannah or Bust
Savannah or Bust (con't)
Savannah or Bust (con't)
Savannah or Bust (con't)
Savannah or Bust (con't)
Savannah or Bust (con't)
Tybee Island
Tybee Island (con't)
Tybee Island (con't)
Tybee Island (con't)
I Do!
I Do! (con't)
I Do! (con't)
I Do! (con't)
HHI - The End!
HHI - The End!
HHI - The End!
HHI - The End!
HHI - The End!
HHI - The End!
HHI - The End!

WDW Here We Come! ... Or Not!
WDW Here We Come! ... Or Not! (con't)
Wait For Us!
Wait For Us! (con't)
Wait For Us! (con't)
Just OK
Just OK (con't)
Just OK (con't)
Just OK (con't)
Please Don't Feed the Ducks
Please Don't Feed the Ducks (con't)
Please Don't Feed the Ducks (con't)
No Parking for You!
No Parking for You! (con't)
No Parking for You! (con't)
No Parking for You! (con't)
DIS Meet at the Cape May Cafe
DIS Meet and More
DIS Meet and More (con't)
Frozen What?
Frozen What? (con't)
Frozen What? (con't)
Show Me a Sign
Show Me a Sign (con't)
Show Me a Sign (con't)
Yeti Land
Yeti Land (con't)
Yeti Land (con't)
Yeti Land (con't)
Yeti Land (con't)
Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty, Little Ball of Fur
Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty (con't)
Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty (con't)
Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty (con't)
Celebrate Good Times
Celebrate Good Times (con't)
Celebrate Good Times (con't)
High Ho High Ho It's Off to the MK We Go!
High Ho High Ho (con't)
High Ho High Ho (con't)
Up, Up, and Away
Up, Up, and Away (CON'T)
Up, Up, and Away (CON'T)
Up, Up, and Away (CON'T)
Up, Up, and Away (CON'T)
Dinner at Mama's
Dinner at Mama's (con't)
Dinner at Mama's (con't)
The Last Rentry
The Last Reentry (con't)
The Last Reentry (con't)
Test Track Design Wars
Test Track Design Wars (con't)
Test Track Design Wars (con't)
Test Track Design Wars (con't)
Tampa Time
Tampa Time (con't)
Tampa Time (con't)
It's the Climb!
It's the Climb! (con't)
It's the Climb! (con't)
It's the Climb! (con't)
It's the Climb! (con't)
Heading Home
Heading Home (con't)
Heading Home with Christmas At Longwood Gardens (con't)
Heading Home (con't)
Rehoboth Beach
Final Thoughts, Firsts, and Favorites
Final Thoughts, Firsts, and Favs (continued)
Final Thoughts, Firsts, and Favs (continued)
Final Thoughts, Firsts, and Favs (continued)
Final Thoughts, Firsts, and Favs (continued)
Final Thoughts, Firsts, and Favs (continued)

 

[MEK]

Welcome to another MEK Trip Report. I am trying to start this before I go away, so please know I will respond as soon as I am able.

I love TRs. I love to write them. I love to read them. I love to find creative ways to combine them.

I am fortunate enough to have two back to back Disney trips. Although not in the traditional sense, my first Disney trip was to Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort. My second trip is an "off-site" trip to WDW. I will combine both of these reports into one. It's just easier for me and I hate relegating HHI trip reports to the DVC boards. I think they belong with the rest of the TRs.

I honestly think HHI is a great resort and any true Disney aficionado should check it out at some point. It's an awesome resort with an awesome location. Hopefully you will agree with me after I am done writing about it.

So, a little about me. Hmmmm - let's keep it brief. I love the boards, I've written a bunch of TRs, I'm old, I have a DH, Denny and two boys who are 18 and 20. They are at the age where there are on hiatus from Disney. But they will come back to it. I just know in my heart they both have a special fondness for it.

Here's a recent picture of me with another DISer Practically Perfect Patricia. This was taken just this week. We met at Longwood Gardens and had a lovely time there.



This will be my 18th trip to WDW and it was my second trip to HHI. I am a DVC member. We joined in 2008. We have contracts at SSR and VWL. It's been a great five years of fantastic trips and wonderful memories!

Now Some trip background:

I don't like to drive. I'm not going to say I hate it. Hate is a strong word. I just would rather do a hundred other things than be in a car. I especially don't care for driving when a plane ride is so much faster and more efficient. Despite that, this was to be a tale of two driving trips.

It obviously makes sense to drive from my home to HHI. It's a 10.5 - 11 hour trip, depending on stops. I drove to HHI with two of my GF's in 2011. So I knew it was manageable and I was on board for that. But my DH, Denny, got the bright idea that we should drive in WDW in June. Reluctantly, I agreed.

But here's why - We were never "supposed" to go to WDW in June. I told myself I had sworn off summer trips. It's hot. It's crowded. My kids are out of high school They are both on WDW hiatus. What's the point of going around a school schedule.?

Then this little thing happened. My brother invited us to go to Disney with him. If you have read any of my prior TRs you may know that my brother and his family were our guests last summer at a Tree House Villa. Without going into a lot of detail, it started out to be a stressful trip, but ended up with my brother and his family loving WDW.

When they invited us to go this summer, how could we say no?

So I purchased the premium AP's that were offered to DVC members last fall. And I got geared up for an "extra" Disney trip. That trip included driving. Partly because we were trying to go "econo" and partly because I thought we could help out my brother by driving his two older kids. His family planned on taking the auto-train and that can be expensive, especially for a family of 6. So it made sense to send two of them with us.

In a weird sort of way I was looking forward to traveling with my "ride buddy" nephews. I tried to figure out where we would stay overnight and what little side trips we might like.

Then came the news that my brother was canceling the trip. I won't get into the whys. It really doesn't matter, although its sad for the kids.

Bummer.

Now I had my heart set on a trip, even if it did involve a car trip, and now I had nothing. My free lodging and my cute nephews were gone.

Double bummer.

So Denny and I decided we still needed a vacation. For a variety of reasons we decided not to give up that week. But now we needed a place to stay. Tapped out on DVC points for this year, and not wanting to borrow more, we decided to go off site.

Then there was the question of whether to invite our nephews to go with us. We clearly can't handle all four kids. I mean, we could, but we don't want to. That's a lot. It's not a vacation. And we knew we couldn't invite the older two and not the younger two, so we decided this was going to be strictly a couple's trip.

That decided, we had to find a place to stay. I am going to leave our final lodging arrangements a secret for a while.

Then, lastly, we needed to decide our mode of transportation to WDW. Stick around for that and how this TR title came to be.

 

[MEK]

Up first - the HHI portion of this trip.

Hilton Head Departure Day was Sunday April 7th Originally our trip had been scheduled for 3 weeks prior in March. But we had to change that because of Denny's work schedule. I had no trouble booking studios in March and in April. Right after I booked our April studio we found out that our friends, C&C, wanted to go with us.

Now you know me and you know its not because I asked them at the last minute. It was more because C&C couldn't give me a confirmation until a month or so after I asked them. Fortunately, I had no trouble changing our reservation to a 2BR.

The plan was for C&C to arrive at our house in time for a 6am departure. I think we ended up leaving a little after 7am.

I decided to drive first. As you know, I pretty much dislike driving, so I figured I could get my ****f over early. But it turned out that driving wasn't that bad and I mad it all the way to this Welcome Center in North Carolina with only one stop for food & gas in Virginia.





There's Denny…..queue the ominous music for what was to come……



And here we are (well, not me). Almost a group shot



Since I drove most of the way (yeah - I know - hard to believe) I didn't take any more pictures until South Carolina. I turned over the driving to Denny in NC, but picked back up again in Fayetteville where we stopped for lunch.

In SC near Charleston we switched again.

I missed South of the Border completely. Are you disappointed?






We did encounter some serious northbound traffic on i-95. Fortunately, we were going south



Finally off the highway



The windshield of the car was seriously DIRTY!



I love the low country





About to cross the inter coastal







We arrived to the resort at 4:30 pm. 10 1/2 hours door to door. Not bad!

Our greeting!



For those of you who don't know, there is actually a gate. You buzz to get in and you give you name. How nice that you get greeted with a big white Mickey glove.

The only picture I took at check-in was this one. It's the view from the back of the lodge.



Here's our map. The buildings with the check marks were the ones that had availability. We were basically given our choice.



Just to get your orientation the dark green markings represent the marsh on Broad Creek. Given that information can you guess which building we picked?

Here is the view from the porch of our building. This view faces the parking lot.



View directly from our deck



And our view to the left.



Those were taken with my phone. Let's see if I can find the camera pictures.

Here we go







To the extreme left



Continued In Next Post.......

 

[MEK]

A little friend in the closest tree



The villas at HHI have no elevators. the exception to that may be the villas in the main lodge since it is several floors. I was given the choice of top or bottom floor. I took top because I knew the view would be better.

Taking your luggage to your room involves loading up a cart and pushing it to the bottom of the stairs.

DEnny and C loaded the cart and we all sort of went our perspective way with taking things into the villa. I really didn't pass Denny again until everything was in and everyone was settled.

It was then that he mentioned something to me which was a little concerning, but I basically blew off.

He said….. "I had some heartburn after I carried that luggage up the stairs. I'm fine now. It's gone."

Uhm…OK… I was already on my second glass of wine and when he said it was gone I really didn't give it another thought. Denny has frequent night time heartburn and I know he has GERD which he refuses to take medication for.

Once everyone had an adult beverage in hand we decided to walk around the resort. I didn't bring my camera, but once we were out on the fishing pier I had to grab a couple phone pics of the gorgeous evening.









Cell pic looking from fishing pier back towards the resort



Next on the agenda was dinner. We decided just to walk over to Shelter Cover and pick a restaurant. We settled on Scott's Fish Market simply because they had outside entertainment.

I was skeptical and concerned our food might not be good, but was fears were unfounded. My fish was delish.



We were all happy with our dinners and you can never go wrong singing Jimmy Buffett while enjoying an adult beverage.

Bellies full we headed home to get some sleep before we enjoyed our first day.

For those of you that are planning a trip to HHI, this map may be helpful. It's a Palmetto Dunes resort map and you can see the location of Disney's HHI resort, Shelter Cove, and the Dunes Beach House.

http://www.palmettodunes.com/pdf/resort-map.pdf

Up Next - Our First Full Day in HHI

 

[teekathepony]

First!

Holy cow, I can't believe that worked! Hahaha I credit my early rising tendencies along with my Atlantic time zone.
I am going back to read it all! Have a marvellous trip! I can't wait to read all about it!

 

[MeMom]

I decided to drive first. As you know, I pretty much dislike driving, so I figured I could get my ****f over early.

Up and cussin' so early on a Saturday morning, MEK???


I enjoy seeing the 'other' Disney resorts, so I look forward to seeing all the HH pictures. I have already seen a few of them on FB. I'm wondering how Disneyish Vero is going to feel next week, as this will be a new experience for us - Disney, yet not Disney World.

 

[Pinkocto]

I'm here I'm here! Looking forward to hearing all about your newest adventures

***Edit- I wanted to snag my place and go back to read. Fantastic pictures! I just plugged things into mapquest and its saying 9 1/2 hours for me. I'm still on the fence on flying or driving, since I'd have to rent a car anyway. It would save a lot of money just to drive down.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

I am woefully behind on your other report but wanted to subscribe so I have this in my queue. Love your TRs and beautiful photos. . Have a great trip!!!!!

 

[jedijill]

I'm in! I don't hate driving although I hate driving through Eastern Colorado and Kansas. Which I have to do in 2 weeks.

HHI looks amazing. Definitely on my list of places to go.

Jill in CO

 

[mickeystoontown]

I'm here Mary Ellen! I laughed outloud at your description of yourself....you are sooooo not old.

 

[amazingact21]

I'm here, I'm here! Can't wait to read another of your TRs, Mary Ellen; they are always entertaining and the photos are always gorgeous!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm here!

 

[MEK]

On my way to airport. Couldn't figure out why one of my words was censored. Then I went back and read my original and realized I left the f out of shift. So sorry. I will correct as soon as I can.

 

[marDgreen88]

Joining in! Hope yall have a great trip!

 

[micandminforever]

Great I made the start of this trip report.

Dh and I are going to HHI in Sept. for us it is only a 4.5hr trip so we will be driving. We are staying in a condo at Palmetto Dunes so I look forward to reading about the restaurants you visited and what you thought of them.

Then what your offsite visit to Disney was like, and where you stayed. Wishing you a trip filled with pixiedust.

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Oh you know I'm on board for this one! Maybe I can get caught up on my TR and we'll both be reporting on HHI!

 

[Wicket's Mom]

I'm here, I see I made the second page. Now I must read the two pages that so far are posted!

 

[rachel09985]

Im reading along!

 

[blklotus]

Joining in -- LOVE all your previous TR's!

 

[scottny]

I'm here but I am a little disappointed about no South of the Border pics. Just kidding.

Great start.