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By Geoff Wells, on May 10th, 2010
There is so much to see and do in the world and not enough time to cover it all. We don’t want to end up in the rocking chair at the old folks home complaining about all the things we wish we had done – so we are just going to do as much as we can from now on.
Money – there is never enough
Having the will is one thing but practically you have to be able to pay for it. With even a modest income you can do a lot of traveling and we are going to prove it.
The Challenge
We have set ourselves a limit of an average of $100/day. For the next six months we will be traveling around the US, Canada and Europe but keeping a close eye on what we spend. We’ll report everything we spend for transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment for each day.
Our Itinerary
Just because we are doing dirt cheap travel doesn’t mean we are cutting corners after all we’re not a couple of teenagers backpacking around and staying in youth hostels. Our plans include three cruises, timeshare resorts, visiting family and camping.
RSS & Comments
We hope you will follow along and maybe even try a trip of your own. If you subscribe to our RSS feed you will be notified of each post as we upload it. We really would like to hear your comments and will do our best to answer any questions.
We will try to blog every day but there will be times when we just can’t get online so you may see several daily posts in a bunch.
By Vicky Wells, on August 25th, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 25 ~ Day #107
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10700
|
$30.00
|
$9253.38
|
$86.48
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13570
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
18086
|
Current Location: Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissimmee, Florida
Accommodation: $30.00
Today’s Total Expenses: $30.00
Lots of Time in the Computer Room
Today we spent lots of time in the computer room at the resort getting the blog updated. We got really far behind – sorry.
Using Up Groceries
Today also consisted of re-evaluating our groceries and using things up.
On Friday we are back to camping until we leave for the UK on September 5th. That means we need to use up anything that’s frozen and most of the stuff that’s refrigerated.
It looks like we have planned pretty well and will certainly be able to use up all the frozen items. Although, the meals are starting to get pretty “creative”, but are still good.
We’ve frozen a bunch of bottled water so that will keep anything we put in our cooler okay for a few days. Camping with just a cooler is always a challenge food-wise. We do have a lot of canned stuff but we’re camping in Florida, so if we want something fresh for the day,
we can always go out and get it.
The key is to make sure that we have nothing fresh left over before we leave as we will be storing the car for the two months we’re in Europe.
Fingers Crossed for Good Weather
We’re also keeping our fingers crossed that the weather will be good just before we leave. Packing up a wet tent and leaving it for two months in a hot car is not a good idea.
So, everyone, cross your fingers for us now!
By Vicky Wells, on August 24th, 2010
Blog Title: Inception at IMAX
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 24 ~ Day #106
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10600
|
$58.00
|
$9223.38
|
$87.01
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13542+28=13570
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
18086
|
Current Location: Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissimmee, Florida
Accommodation: $30.00
Entertainment: $28.00
Today’s Total Expenses: $58.00
More Rain? Yep!
We woke up to overcast skies and it wan’t long before it started to rain yet again.
The forecast on the Weather Channel calls for scattered thunderstorms EVERY SINGLE DAY!
Watching the Tropical Updates
We currently use the Weather Channel on TV and the National Hurricane Center (www.nhc.noaa.gov) online to follow any activity in the Atlantic. and, it looks like things are starting to heat up.
Fortunately, it looks like we don’t have to worry at all about
Danielle. But now there’s Earl and something else behind that.
Keep your fingers crossed that there’s nothing we have to worry about over the next few months of hurricane season.
Over the past few years it seems that most of the hurricanes have been going further North than usual. As a matter of fact, over the last 5 years Geoff’s daughter in Halifax has been hit twice, while we got nothing.
It also looks like she may have to worry about Danielle.
Unfortunately, the Weather Channel really only cares about hurricanes that may threaten the US. So, there’s not a whole lot of information about ones that threaten the Bahamas or Atlantic Canada.
Following the path online at the National Hurricane Center is a bit better but still slanted towards US interests. Not surprising as these are US sites.
Checking Out the Travel Club We Just Joined
We managed to get a temporary membership number from Global Discovery Vacations as we still have not received our regular number by email. That was promised to be available to us no later than Monday (yesterday) and still nothing.
Anyway, we have the TransAtlantic Cruise to book and have already determined the best price we can get on our own online. We called and spoke to the travel agent part of the club and they gave us the same price we could get ourselves!
I told them that and they said that certain cruise lines (this one is Celebrity) will not allow travel agents to discount their cruises. So, in this case, the travel club does us no good.
Next, we asked them to find a hotel close to the cruise port in Barcelona for around $60/night. They came back with three hotels ranging from $150 to $250/night and said that was the best they could do.
Again, we can do much better on our own using CheapOstay. And, we told them that, too.
One More Chance
We decided to give the travel club one more chance to prove that they are worth the membership fee.
One of the things they do is offer condo stays around the world. So, I checked for what condos they had available for a certain time frame.
For the entire two week time frame that I checked the ONLY condos they had available were on the Texas Coast. Really? Nothing else? That’s just way too restrictive for our needs.
Our decision was clear – this travel club would just not work for us.
We contacted our salesperson and they told us it was no problem to cancel, we just have to send our cancellation to Global in writing. I’m hoping we can do that by email, we’ll see.
We’ll keep you posted on this.
TransAtlantic Cruise Booked
We went ahead and booked the TransAtlantic Cruise on our own because the travel club couldn’t get us a better price. We certainly don’t want to use them if we’re canceling our membership.
We will be leaving Barcelona on Oct. 25th and arriving in Miami on November 8th. That’s a full two week cruise and we paid a total of $1432.74. That works out to just over $100/day and that includes food, accommodations, entertainment and transportation. A pretty good deal,
actually.
I did check airfare and it was only a couple of hundred dollars less. It was a no-brainer to take the cruise.
Inception at IMAX
Tonight we treated ourselves to a movie. We’ve been wanting to see Inception and it was playing at the IMAX theatre in Orlando.
We had seen Avatar at this same theatre in April, but that was also in 3D. Inception was not in 3D.
It’s a good movie and certainly worth seeing. We’re just not sure if it was worth paying the extra to see it in IMAX.
But, hey, at least in an IMAX theatre I don’t need to put my glasses on to read the credits. They’re not tough to read when the letters are several feet high!
See the movie, but it’s up to you if you want to shell out the extra to see it in IMAX.
We actually went to the late showing – 10:30pm. As it’s almost 2-1/2 hours long, that means we didn’t get out until after 1:00am!
By Vicky Wells, on August 23rd, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 23 ~ Day #105
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10500
|
$30.00
|
$9165.38
|
$87.28
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13542
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
18058
|
Current Location: Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissimmee, Florida
Accommodation: $30.00
Today’s Total Expenses: $30.00
All Carb Breakfast
This morning we were invited to the Manager’s Welcome Breakfast and they had already told us that breakfast would be doughnuts and coffee along with meeting a lot of the people responsible for running this resort.
The turnout was kind of small, given the size of the resort. However, it was interesting to meet some of the people that make this place run so well.
In addition, we met a few others who either exchanged into the resort, like we did, or own here. We met some very interesting people from around the US and even some from the UK.
Disgruntled Internet Users
One of the main topics of discussion was the cost for a WiFi connection when so many other places provide that service for free.
One gentleman that actually owns two weeks at this resort was particularly upset with the exorbitant charge for a service he felt should be free.
The explanation was that it was expensive for the original
installation of WiFi capability and, rather than add the expense to the owners’ maintenance fees, they were passing the cost on to those who actually used it. It seemed a rather thin explanation and it didn’t appease most people. Particularly when, these days, even rinky dink Motel 6’s offer free WiFi
A GOOD Timeshare Lunch
Today is the day we promised to attend the owner’s lunch that wasn’t supposed to be a bid to sell us more timeshare (wink, wink).
The lunch was actually wonderful. We went to a real restaurant in the Disney town of Celebration and had freshly baked bread and Cuban pork with rice and black beans. It was really very tasty and totally unexpected.
However, we then had to work for our lunch by fending off attempts to get us to buy more timeshare. Our salesperson was certainly persistent and we finally had to say we’d had enough.
Of course, that just gets you passed on to the next person, who then tries to sell you a resale, or something more “affordable”.
The prices went from $40,000 to $30,000 to $9,000 to $3,500! No kidding.
But, we persevered only to be told that we now had to drive a fair distance just to collect the promised bribe.
As I mentioned in a earlier post, a 90-minute presentation is rarely that. We arrived at noon and it was after 4:00pm when we were finally at the Gifting Center to collect our promised bribe.
That was pretty much our day shot so we spent a little more time in the resort’s computer room, some time at the pool and then dinner, drink, relaxing, TV.
Ah, what a glamorous life we lead! (chuckle)
By Vicky Wells, on August 22nd, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 22 ~ Day #104
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10400
|
$41.00
|
$9135.38
|
$87.84
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13522+20=13542
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
18058
|
Current Location: Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissimmee, Florida
Accommodation: $30.00
Food: $11.00
Today’s Total Expenses: $41.00
Flea Markets
Okay, I gave into my shopping urge and dragged Geoff around a couple of flea markets.
There were a couple not very far from our resort and we browsed through them both as well as a couple of gift shops.
And when I say browsed, that’s what I mean – we didn’t actually buy anything. Really.
Internet Access
Believe it or not, this resort does not have free WiFi in the rooms like our previous resort did.
Oh, sure, you can get WiFi in your room if you want to pay $10 per day or $50 for the week. That’s not going to happen.
So, our only other option was to use their computer room here that has ancient PCs and, if you have a laptop, you actually have to connect using a cable to get the Internet. That’s barbaric!
Actually, I’m typing this post on one of the PCs while Geoff is trying to get other things up-to-date. You’re lucky I’m not swearing at this point. Have I mentioned that I hate PCs? And here I am struggling with one that should have been retired years ago. ARGHHHHH!!!!!
Well, it’s better than no computer and no internet access – but not by much.
Okay, enough of my rant. On to other things ….
Is That Rain – Again?
Yep, it’s the afternoon so – you guessed it – it’s raining. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Florida the “Sunshine State”? Did they mean liquid sunshine?
Okay, I really shouldn’t be complaining. After all, there’s nothing you can do about the weather. And, I am grateful that it’s not winter and it isn’t snow.
By Vicky Wells, on August 21st, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 21 ~ Day #103
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10300
|
$30.00
|
$9094.38
|
$88.29
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13488+34=13522
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
18038
|
Current Location: Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissimmee, Florida
Accommodation: $30.00
Today’s Total Expenses: $30.00
Day 103 – Saturday, August 21, 2010
Cypress Cove Day Pass
As an outing for today we decided to visit Cypress Cove – a naturist resort right here in Kissimmee.
On their website they offer a free tour and day pass and we thought we’d take them up on their offer.
Great Weather
The weather forecast for the day was favorable – 90 Deg. F and small chance of afternoon thunderstorms.
Given how hot, humid and rainy it’s been we thought we had better jump at the chance to take advantage of a, hopefully, good weather day.
Pools, Paddle Boats and More
This resort certainly has a lot going for it. We were given a complete tour and they have several full time residents, lots of RV sites and several tent site as well. In addition to that, they also have a few hotel rooms and apartments with full kitchens for rent.
There’s tennis courts, a big lake with paddle boats and canoes that are free to use and two heated pools as well as a very large hot tub.
Surrounding the pools are things like a boutique, clubhouse, hair dresser, restaurants and bars and even the American Nudist Research Library with quite an extensive collection of nudist publications through the years.
We even donated a copy of our book “The Elusive Beaches of Eleuthera” which rates each beach on the island for privacy.
Is Bigger Better?
It’s probably the biggest naturist resort we’ve seen so far with a lot going on.
We felt that perhaps the size of the resort accounted for the feeling that we got that it wasn’t as friendly or welcoming as other naturist resorts we’ve been to.
However, we were visiting on a singles weekend, so maybe that had something to do with it as well.
If you’re in the area, take advantage of their day pass to check it out.
Rain, Rain Go Away
Well, it seems that if it’s Florida, then it will rain in the
afternoon, as sure enough it did.
It certainly cleared the pool really quickly, particularly when there was some thunder.
Trying Out the Paddle Boats
When the weather cleared, we actually took one of the paddle boats out on their 50-acre lake. It was calm and pleasant and – thank goodness – we didn’t encounter any gators. Hey – it’s Florida!
Back to the Condo
A short drive back to the condo for dinner, drinks and relaxing in front of the TV. Yep, pretty boring but still enjoyable.
By Vicky Wells, on August 20th, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 20 ~ Day #102
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10200
|
$148.10
|
$9064.38
|
$88.86
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13472+16=13488
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
18008
|
Current Location: Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissimmee, Florida
Transportation: $49.48
Accommodation: $30.00
Food: $68.62
Entertainment: $
Today’s Total Expenses: $148.10
Time for a Change
We had booked two weeks in the Orlando area using our timeshare, but at different resorts. That meant we needed to check out of Wyndham today and check into Vacation Village.
Check out time, which apparently is strictly enforced by the use of penalties (like a $100 fee if you check out late), is at 10:00am. We were a bit rushed but managed to make it in time.
Check-in time, however, is usually about 4:00pm. So, we thought we’d probably have some time to kill between condos.
Hoping our condo might be ready, we decided to go directly to Vacation Village at Parkway. As luck would have it, our condo was available and we were able to check in at 10:30am!
This made it very convenient as we didn’t have to worry about the frozen and refrigerated food we were bringing with us from the previous condo.
Parking Pass – Really?
As at the other condo, after we were checked in (oh, and this resort requires a $100 refundable damage deposit that was not required at Wyndham), we were directed to Guest Services to obtain our parking pass for the week.
The gentleman at Guest Services welcomed us, gave us each a welcome gift (a plastic toiletries bag containing shampoo, conditioner and shower gel) and then proceeded to sign us up for an owner’s lunch, tour of their new model and a survey.
We asked if they were going to try to sell us more timeshare and the answer, of course, was a resounding “no” but, yes, we knew better.
And, as usual, they wanted a $20.00 refundable deposit to “reserve our space for lunch”. And, of course, they were offering us discounted tickets for 2 to the Arabian Nights Dinner Show for only $20.00 (hmmm … how convenient that our deposit would cover that) or an $80.00 gift card. But, we didn’t need to decide which gift we wanted until after the lunch.
They had space for us on Sunday or Monday, so we chose Monday. More about this on Monday …
Gas Price Rip-Off
After finding our condo and bringing everything up from the car, we headed out for some groceries and gas.
We had passed a gas station a day or two before that advertised gas at $2.52/gal. That’s the best price we had seen and it was a Shell Station. The next cheapest price was $2.54/gal. We were almost empty so saving a couple of cents per gallon seemed like a good idea.
As we always do, we swiped our credit card at the pump and began to fill our tank.
Don’t ask me why I looked at the price per gallon that was actually displayed in the selected grade part of the pump, but for some reason I did and it displayed $2.64/gal – WHAT?!?
We stopped pumping and I went inside to ask about the discprepancy. Apparently the $2.52/gal was for cash only – and – sure enough – on the sign, in tiny letters, was the word “cash” under the price.
But, when others were charging $2.54 and credit was okay, how could this Shell Station possibly justify charging $2.64/gal when using a credit card?
We immediately stopped pumping on credit at just over $13.00 and paid cash for the rest.
But that didn’t stop us from feeling like we’d been ripped-off and mislead.
If you don’t watch every minute some greedy bastard is going to try to take advantage of you.
By Vicky Wells, on August 19th, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 19 ~ Day #101
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10100
|
$30.00
|
$8916.28
|
$88.28
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13459+13=13472
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
17992
|
Blog Title: Travel Club Presentation
Current Location: Wyndham Resort, Kissimmee, Florida
Accommodation: $30.00
Today’s Total Expenses: $30.00
Travel Club Presentation
As we mentioned yesterday, we had accepted a bribe to show up for yet another presentation.
If you’ve never done this before, you may not know that they take a refundable deposit when they sign you up just to make sure you show up. In this case, they were holding $40.00 of our money to make sure we showed up for the presentation. The amount of the deposit can vary. In our experience it’s usually around $20.00. $40.00 is the largest deposit we’ve ever given. You should know though that we have ALWAYS received our deposit back regardless of whether we have bought or not. Like we said, it’s just a way for them to insure that you’re going to show up for the presentation.
We showed up for the presentation, as promised, not knowing quite what to expect.
We were assured it wasn’t timeshare but, hey, we’ve been told that before. Pretty much all we’d been told about this presentation, besides the fact that it wasn’t timeshare, was that it would only be a 60 minute PowerPoint presentation and there’d be no pressure.
Naturally, there was the seemingly mandatory selection of stale doughnuts, coffee and sodas. Trust me, you don’t come to these presentations for the food.
The lady that was assigned to us seemed kind of bored, actually. She told us that she was on salary and, therefore, didn’t really care if we bought or not. Oh, sure, she’d get a bonus if we did but she’d still get her salary if we didn’t.
However, at this point, we still had no idea what they were actually selling.
Time Wasted
There was a lot of time wasted just chit-chatting and waiting for the person who was supposed to give us the “60 minute PowerPoint presentation” to actually get started.
No matter what amount of time you are told that ANY of these presentations will take – a good rule of thumb is to at least double it!
The Actual Presentation
We were finally ushered into a room, along with all the other people that were there for the same presentation.
The person giving the presentation was lively, engaging and personable. He had lots of anecdotes and lots of examples of how you could save money with their system.
It actually seems to work a lot like timeshare. There’s a large initial investment (over $10,000), an annual fee ($389) and a use fee ($159) that seems comparable to and exchange fee.
With any of these kind of sales pitches, the more you resist, the lower the price goes. So, if you really are interested – resist as much as you can.
What originally started out around $12,000 was reduced to about $10,000 if you bought today. However, if you wanted to pay cash, the price dropped to $7,600!
If you were still not interested then they got another crack at you at the “exit survey”. I guess this is where they pull out all the stops to get you to make any purchase at all.
We were somewhat softened up for this pitch. We needed to book a specific cruise (we still need to book our TransAtlantic cruise from Barcelona to Miami) and were hoping to get a much better deal. Also, they had shown us discounts that were possible on things like flights to Australia that looked amazing and we were able to compare that to what we knew my sister and her husband, who are going to Australia in September, had just paid.
Their system also included weeks at condos – unused inventory from resorts and various timeshare properties – for that $159 fee I mentioned earlier.
Last Try
So, at the “exit survey” they hit us with a 3-year trial that actually seemed reasonable compared to what we had just seen. The offer for the 3-year trial membership was $1500 (which could be purchased with $99 down and then $59/month). And, this amount would be applied towards the full membership later, if you decided to continue with them.
There’s also a “Star Points System” attached to all of this that I won’t go into right now.
Suffice it to say that, with the cruise we needed to book and the hotels we still need to book in Europe, we thought this could actually work for us.
We Buy Global Discovery Vacations Membership
So, we decided to risk the initial investment of $99.00 as that would give us time to see if access to their system was actually worth it for us.
We were told they would email us our membership number and that we’d have it, most likely, by Saturday but certainly by Monday at the latest.
We’ll update you on this on the appropriate days.
More Rain
We spent the rest of the day at the condo and got – you guessed it – more rain in the afternoon.
Geoff’s Note
I think it is worth mentioning that we take a lot of these presentations because we are writing a book about timeshare and how to get the best value from it.
We will of course announce it here when it is ready but if you would like advance notice just send us an email.
By Vicky Wells, on August 18th, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
|
Aug 18 ~ Day #100
|
Budget to date
|
Spent today
|
Total to date
|
Daily average
|
|
Total
|
$10000
|
$30.00
|
$8886.28
|
$88.86
|
|
Miles by Road
|
Miles by Sea
|
Miles by Air
|
Miles by Train
|
Total Miles
|
|
13437+22=13459
|
4451
|
000
|
69
|
17979
|
Current Location: Kissimmee, Florida
Today’s Total Expenses: $30.00
Accommodation: $30.00
Day 100 of Our Trip
It hard to believe, but we’re already at 100 days into our trip. Wow! Triple digits already.
Most days it doesn’t seem like we’ve been traveling for that long. But there are days …
We found that the most tiring part of the trip so far is the driving. We’ve put an awful lot of miles on our car and there have been way too many days when all we see is highways – and after a while they just all start to look the same. We have to remind ourselves what State or Province we’re in.
Good portions of the long drives are just plain BORING. But, we need to get from A to B, so we push on.
Now that we’re at the timeshare we had booked in Florida, the majority of the driving is over and, truthfully, we’re really glad about that.
Cheap Tickets & Timeshare
We had thought about spending some time at Universal. After all, the new Harry Potter experience is open.
So, we stopped in at a place offering discount tickets – they seem to be on just about every corner.
Part of their spiel, of course, were timeshare bribes. We were offered $100 to take a timeshare tour of Westgate and we though – why not? Trading some of our time for adding $100 to our trip finances seemed reasonable. And, we know exactly what to expect from timeshare presentations. After all, we already own timeshare at two different places and are using quite a bit of our time during this extended trip. We knew full well that we were going to be talked into buying more. We don’t need it.
The Westgate Resort is actually associated with Interval International and is actually Weeks, not Points. One of our timeshare resorts is Weeks and the other one is Points and we much prefer Weeks. We feel we get much more when we exchange.
Even though we really like the Westgate Resort, and our salesperson was great, as planned, we did not invest in more timeshare and simply collected our $100 cash bribe.
Another Option
As we were leaving the gift center of Westgate, we were presented with another opportunity for a presentation about lowering travel expenses that, apparently, was not timeshare.
The bribes to attend this presentation weren’t as good – a couple of weeks in a condo and another visit to Florida including some theme park tickets – but we decided to attend anyway.
But that’s schedule for tomorrow so we’ll tell you all about it then …
Downtown Disney
Since we didn’t go to Universal City Walk yesterday, we decided to swing by Downtown Disney today – where we KNOW we won’t have to pay for parking.
Although it is mostly shops and restaurants, it’s still a pleasant place just to walk around and some of the shops are interesting.
We even got pictures of each other on the Easy Rider motorcycle in the Harley Davidson shop.
Disney, like just about everyone else, also sells timeshare.
We spoke with one of their reps and they, of course, tried to talk us into taking their tour. Like most of them say, it’s only about 90 minutes (rarely is it ever that short) and they try to sign you up for a tour right then.
Well, as we all know, timeshares offer various types of bribes to get you to take their tours. Anything from cheap or free attractions tickets to cash or gift cards.
So, what does Disney offer? Ice cream! No kidding, that’s what we were told. If we took their timeshare tour they’d let us pick whatever ice cream we’d like.
Is Disney really so arrogant that they believe they can use a bit of ice cream to bribe people to sit through 90 minutes (or more) of someone trying to sell them timeshare?
Perhaps they are. Disney, of course, is a business like anything else. They’re there to make money. Sure Mickey and all the characters are cute, but don’t ever forget that first and foremost Disney is a corporation.
Rain Dates
We also discovered that a lot of the theme parks are now offering rain date passes – so if you’re day is ruined by a lot of rain, you can use your pass again on another day.
Not Disney – if your day gets ruined by rain, well, that’s just too bad. Once you’ve gone through the gate, you’ve used that day of your pass.
And, since we’ve been here this time we’ve had a LOT of rain. We’ve often said that we feel sorry for the people that lose a good portion of their day in the park to rain. And some days the rain has been torrential and has lasted a good portion of the day.
Actually, we’ve been to Florida many times and we’ve experienced a lot of rain almost any time we’ve been here. So, how come they call Florida “The Sunshine State”?
By Vicky Wells, on August 17th, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
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Aug 17 ~ Day #99
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Budget to date
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Spent today
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Total to date
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Daily average
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Total
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$9900
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$81.52
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$8856.28
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$89.45
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Miles by Road
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Miles by Sea
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Miles by Air
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Miles by Train
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Total Miles
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13394+43=13437
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4451
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000
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69
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17957
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Current Location: Kissimmee, Florida
Today’s Total Expenses: $81.52
Accommodation: $30.00
Food: $43.90
Heat Wave Continues
It looks like we’re not getting much of a break from the heatwave. Today we actually hit 103 Deg. F and it’s humid as well. Pretty brutal!
Search for Electrical Adapter
With the European portion of our trip coming up fast, we figured it was time to start looking for the appropriate electrical adapters.
Of Major concern, of course, is our MacBook Pro laptop. We’ll need to be able to charge it in both the UK and in Europe. Fortunately, because it’s a Mac, we only need the adapter and not a bulky transformer. Mac’s can handle both 120V and 240V.
Our search took us to the Florida Mall which has an Apple Store. We checked adapters at both the Apple Store and at Radio Shack but Geoff hasn’t made a decision on which place he’ll buy the adapter yet.
While we were in the mall we also wanted to get the battery in Geoff’s watch checked. It had only been replaced this past April and at a kiosk in this very mall – we just weren’t sure which one.
As it turns out, the battery is fine, it’s the watch that’s dead!
I guess it was to be expected. His Seiko watch is now well over 20 years old, so it’s probably time to replace it, or not. Geoff actually doesn’t wear a watch much.
Universal City Walk
The plan was to go from the mall to Universal City Walk.
From what we’d read about Universal City Walk it sounded a lot like Downtown Disney – a neat place to walk around with shops, restaurants and a few attractions.
We assumed that, just like Downtown Disney, the parking would be free for such a venue.
Apparently not. They wanted to charge us $15.00 for parking, so we just gave it a miss.
Sorry Universal, but charging for parking for City Walk is about the same as charging for parking at a shopping mall. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
By Vicky Wells, on August 16th, 2010
Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
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Aug 16 ~ Day #98
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Budget to date
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Spent today
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Total to date
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Daily average
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|
Total
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$9800
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$38.31
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$8774.76
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$89.53
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Miles by Road
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Miles by Sea
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Miles by Air
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Miles by Train
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Total Miles
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13352+42=13394
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4451
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000
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69
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17914
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Current Location: Kissimmee, Florida
Today’s Total Expenses: $38.31
Transportation: $2.00 (Parking)
Accommodation: $30.00
Food: $6.31
Downtown Orlando
We decided to take a drive into downtown Orlando and stop into the British Consulate because we had a few questions we thought they might be able to answer.
I had tried calling them in the hopes of, perhaps, getting an appointment with someone who might be able to help with our questions. However, all I could get was a automated attendant and recorded messages, no matter which options I chose. Very frustrating.
British Consulate
Naturally the British Consulate was in a high-rise office building in the heart of downtown Orlando. That meant we would have to pay for parking as there didn’t seem to be any place that we could park that didn’t have meters.
We chose a municipal parking lot and prepaid for two hours. It was the cheapest option at only $1.00/hour but you had to guess at how much time you would need because it had to be prepaid.
Well, we might as well not have bothered as the person we spoke with at the consulate, through a glass barrier, couldn’t help us at all.
We were inquiring about how Geoff would re-patriate to the UK and what was required so that I could go, too. He referred us to the British Government website and to a company in the US that CHARGED for any information it gave you!
About the only thing this consulate could have helped with was, if Geoff had entered the US on a British Passport and was injured or in trouble, then they could have helped.
You’ve really got to wonder why there needs to be a British Consulate in a place like Orlando at all.
Any visas that we might require would apparently have to be processed in New York. Same goes if Geoff had wanted to renew his British Passport.
It amazes me what governments will pay for (like a consulate in Orlando), when, perhaps, a toll-free number to call would suffice. That is, a toll-free number where someone actually answers the phone and not just a bunch of recorded messages that don’t help anyway. Sorry – bit of a rant.
Back to the Resort
After wasting $2.00 on parking that we really didn’t need, we headed back to the resort, picked up a few groceries along the way, and got back to trying to catch up on the computer stuff we need to do.
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