Your Guide to L.E.T.S. (Leisure, Entertainment, Travel, and Savings)
Last weekend we traveled to a local festival called the Ole Mill Crank-Up. It take place just outside of Sanford, NC. once a year. It’s a two day festival where you can access the longest standing covered bridge in NC and see an water powered gris mill in action. There are vendors, food, out door music and a fun family atmosphere that harkens back to aby gone time. I have included some pictures below and would recommend marking your calendars for next year.
So we hit Disney Studios today. We were really looking forward to riding dinner of the new rides that have been added. But it didn’t turn out quite as we had hoped.
We started off with the Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. It was a fun and enjoyable ride with a 40 minute wait.
We then tried Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. This is an enjoyable 4 minute ride with an 80+ wait time. Not really worth it if you want my opinion.
The next ride we wanted to do was Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. We never got around to it since the wait time stayed between 100 – 200 minute wait time.
However, we did some other older rides which had no wait normally. You could really tell which rides had not had a recent movie release as they were empty.
I will say that the Star Wars area is awesome. I grabbed a few pics to share:
Don’t forget to bring your towel.
I have fine some post on where we ate and done in Magic Kingdom but wanted to post a few thoughts and pics.
First off, way to many Stiller’s strollers. They are everywhere and a hazard to walking around. We got hit multiple times from stroller drivers not looking where they are going or not realizing how much room their strollers take up.
Second the park is expensive so get everything you can. Do not think about the outside world.
Here are a few pics.
One thing I had to break out was a wonderful example of how nature adapts.
On the way out am owl decided to saw goodbye.
After a long day of fun 😊. We hit the Plaza Restaurant for dinner. It’s a small restaurant near the castle in Magic Kingdom. The food is sandwiches and ice cream. This was probably the best value we have had in Disney. The French Dip was good with lots of meat and a tasty horseradish sauce.
The better half grabbed a turkey sandwich.
Both were very good. If your looking not to break the bank and get something good to eat stop by the Plaza Restaurant.
Is Disney hot in April, heck yes. So what are you to do. Stop at a number of ice cream shops that do the park and get something cool. A chocolate covered Mickey is always a treat.
Sunshine Tree Terrace is an example of those stops. We grabbed some soft serve while in the park to fight the heat.
As a reminder that although there are a lot of place that sell ice cream they do have differences. For example not so do soft serve.
After a fun day at Disney we decided to visit a restaurant at a nearby hotel. So to Todd English’s Bluezoo we tried.
We got a reservation and showed up a little early and stopped by the bar for a cocktail. The cockatiels were ok. The bar tender let the drinks set halfway through crafting to handle other customers which let the ice melt and water down the drinks. I normally take pictures of the drinks too share but the bar was too dark to take a good picture with out cameras. This brings up a point about the whole restaurant. The lights are turned down really low. It gives the impression that your eating in a cave or a restaurant that cannot pay their power bill.
For dinner we ordered an Angus steak and lobster pasta. Both were good but way over priced.
This is the $55 steak posts and mushrooms.
The food is good but the price to quality ratio is not here. Go somewhere else for food and drinks.
So to sum up Todd English’s Bluezoo, had good food but not worth the cost.
Just want to do a quick post on the room. It’s clean nice and comfortable. No complaints.
So got to the Yacht Club hotel and stopped in the Ale and Compass for dinner. It’s been a few years since we have been here but the magic needs some work. I guess like everywhere else the are having staffing issues because it took forever to get service.
We ordered some drinks and bread which did not show up before the entries. Yes that is correct we got the food b before the drinks. Not really acceptable.
I ordered the pasta with chicken
The chicken is was ok but the pasta itself was poorly cooked. It was clumped and stuck together. I wouldn’t buy this again. We also found out that the bread the waiter offered to bring which I didn’t take a picture of was $13 for five small roles.
The drinks that came were very good. I got a Purple Mariners the wife got a Manhattan. Both were excellent.
Overall I would eat dinner somewhere else.
We started our Disney trip by picking up our rental car, a Chevy Malibu. We then made the drive from NC to Disney. A eight to ten hour to ten hour trip. Well it ended up being nine hours since so many people keep having wrecks. Not the longest drive but it gave us plenty of time to wonder does anyone actually want to buy a Malibu? The handling was bad. The road noise was excessive, and the viability out of the car’s fit and finish was cheap. I think this car must only be made to be sold to car rental companies.
Any way we are now at Disney and are going the magic will start.
So my wife has been using a Fitbit for I can not remember for how long. No matter the fact that I am using a Garmin watch. She refuses to change. Well her Charge 4 finally gave up the ghost the other day. So we went looking for a new Fitbit. We looked a just about every model they make to see what would fit on her arm. I thought the Samsung Galaxy 4 looked pretty good, but she thought it was a little over priced for the battery life. Well I have to agree on that but we might be trying to get one for review down the road. Anyway we ended up on the Sense since the Versa 3 is a cut down Sense where you only save $60. Not really worth giving up all the possibilities. So the Sense joined the family.
We took a few picks of unboxing which are below and we will do a full review after a few weeks of use.
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