Blog Title: Inception at IMAX

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!

Orlando vacation ~ Day four

We had planned to spend a couple of days at the Universal Studios Theme Park during this trip to Orlando but the disappointment of yesterday’s visit to Disney Hollywood Studios has made us re-evaluate our itinerary.

It’s possible that we have seen and done so much that we are more difficult to impress than the average Disney visitor. The kids certainly seem to enjoy themselves and I’m sure we would have enjoy it more had we had the grandkids in tow.

However, we have decided not to spend more money on theme parks until they have caught up with current technology. Movies like Avatar have now set the bar so high that theme parks will have to be completely redesigned if they hope to wow their visitors.

So, for today, it’s off to the Apple Store at Florida Mall on South Orange Blossom Trail to see if we can get Geoff’s Time Capsule fixed. A thunderstorm sent a lightning charge into our local phone system, through our DSL modem and into the Time Capsule. I’m guessing it got fried and we should be thankful we didn’t lose the iMac as well.

As expected the Apple tech told us our only option is replacement as the warranty has expired. We are now the proud owners of a sleek, hi-tech, very expensive doorstop. Good job we picked up the new 1.5 terabyte drive at Costco on Wednesday.

More Timeshare Bribes

The weather report for tomorrow is cold and thundershowers so we took the opportunity to sign up for a tour of the Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort at the Magic Kingdom. We had to pay the clerk in the little booth a $20 deposit to make sure we show up but that is usual and we will get it back at the resort. Since we didn’t want anymore discounted attraction tickets, we opted for a $100 American Express Card as the bribe. Not much of a bribe for our time but we will get more information for our book.

Another of the little booths at the Florida Mall was demonstrating a tiny, hi-tech, TENS unit called the Mini Massager. If you have ever paid a visit to a chiropractor you may have been hooked up to a TENS machine. It uses a tiny electrical current to stimulate individual muscles. It can also be used to relieve headaches. Since Vicky gets migraines and Geoff has various aches and pains of arthritis, we stopped to get more info.

OK, the justification went something like this. If it works as advertised it’s well worth the money. We may never see it again as it is not a regular store item. We just made $100 by signing up for the timeshare pitch. This tiny unit that looks like an iPod Nano is $160 but felt like it did some good. We’ll keep you posted.

The Serendipity Part

can-am Spyder RT at Daytona Bike Week

When we went to Costco on Wednesday, we drove past a motorcycle dealership that had some trikes out on display. We didn’t have an opportunity to stop then but the Florida Mall is just North of the Costco, so we had to go the same way to get there. We have decided that a trike will be our best option for our travels around Europe because of the stability it offers. Most of the trikes we have seen so far are third party conversions of Honda Goldwings and what we really want is something factory built.

The bikes on display at Central Florida PowerSports in Kissimmee are called the Spyder from BRP. Never heard of them, right? Actually, we discovered that BRP is part of can-am which is a division of Bombardier. These are the folks that invented the Ski-Doo and also build the Sea-Doo, Johnson, Evinrude, etc. They even build subway trains so they certainly have the engineering chops to build a motorcycle.

The Spyder comes in two models the RS sports model and the RT touring model.

Pablo Hofle and Brian Fitzpatrick of Central Florida PowerSports spent a lot of time with us demonstrating all the advanced features of this amazing machine. It looks like we have found exactly what we are looking for for our European adventure.

We also met one of the factory reps who is in Florida for Daytona Bike Week. Spyder has a booth at the Daytona Show and it will only be a few miles out of our way on the drive home so we may just check it out.

Orlando vacation ~ Day 2

Our home timeshare unit at Carriage Hills in Barrie, Ontario is a two bedroom that can be divided into a one bedroom and a studio. Our studio is very complete with a decent fridge and cooking surface but unfortunately this is not usually the case.

We exchanged once into The Hammocks Resort at Marathon in the Florida Keys and their “studio” was just a regular hotel room with a microwave. The dishes and cutlery were in a milk crate on the bed and we had to do the dishes in the bathroom sink. We were not happy!

The studio at Celebrity Resort – Orlando, where we are staying for the week, is much better than that but sill not up to the standards of our home unit. The one bedroom we have been upgraded to, however is very nice. This is an older resort but well kept. When it was first built I imagine it was quite spectacular.

The Timeshare Bribe

You are under no obligation to attend a sales presentation when you stay at a timeshare resort but they will always offer you a bribe to do so. This being Orlando, the bribe was for discounted attraction tickets and also included breakfast. Since we had not yet had an opportunity to get any groceries the free breakfast was an irresistible incentive.

I guess the decision to attend a presentation or not depends on how you value your time. The offer was for a $200 discount on tickets we were going to buy anyway and the old style high pressure sales presentations are very rare these days. Generally you spend a pleasant 90 minutes chatting with a resort representative and, in our case, since we are writing a book about vacation ownership it was a chance to gather more information.

We chose the 2 Day Touch of Magic pass for 2 which gave us admission to two major and one minor Disney theme areas. The regular price of the ticket is $404 but we paid $196. This does not include parking which costs another $14 a day.

How can a young family with a couple of kids afford a vacation here? The 5 day Park Hopper pass for four costs $1,132, plus parking, plus food. And the exit of every ride is a gift shop selling overpriced junk. Sure glad all our kids are grown – although it is great to see their faces when they see the Magic Kingdom for the first time.

Off To Costco

We were in no particular rush to see the Mouse and needed to get some groceries for the week. So, it was off to Costco. Other than the new North Eleuthera Shopping Center, there is nothing much larger than a US convenience store on our island so, for us, shopping at Costco is an event in itself. We tried to stick closely to our shopping list so we will not have to throw stuff away at the end of the week.

We tried, but this was Costco. The new 1.5 terabyte hard drive was such a good deal and Vicky always needs wants new shoes. That shirt would look good and only $15 for three LED flashlights – you can’t turn that down.

So we went a little overboard but not nearly as bad as we used to. Probably the thought that we will be leaving for our new adventure soon and have to pare our possessions down to what will fit in a couple of suitcases.

Avatar in Imax 3D

We are both huge science fiction fans and have been looking forward to the opportunity to see the new James Cameron film, Avatar. Fortunately it was still playing for a few more days at the Regal Pointe Imax 3D theater on International Drive in Orlando.

Wow!

The trailer can’t come close to the experience of seeing this movie in Imax 3D

We were totally blown away by Avatar. There is so much hyperbole and hype about most everything these days so it is difficult to express just how good this movie experience is. The story is simple and easy to follow but beautifully told. James Cameron has taken the time (2 hr 40 min) to let you get to know and care about the characters. Just about every scene includes a special effects of some sort but they are so seamless you accept them as part of the world the film creates.

This is another triumph by the Weta Digital group that did the effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Update March 8  – Weta Digital won the 2010 Oscar for best visual effects

As a regular widescreen movie this would be one of the greats, but in 3D you become part of the actions. Thankfully there aren’t any cheap 3D tricks with objects thrust out at the audience, the 3D effect is simply used to make you feel a part of the action.

When you add Imax to this mix with its five story screen the immersive effect is further enhanced and for 2-1/2 hours you are transported to another world.

Do we recommend this move? You bethca! Don’t miss it and if you have opportunity to see it in an Imax theater, it is truly a life-changing experience.